Shakespear's Sister vs Alisha's Attic

When Alisha's Attic released their final album "The House We Built" I recall one review quoting "being the modern day Shakespear's Sister is nothing to be proud of".

It wasn't the first or last time comparisons between the two have been made. I even recall one of the many Alisha's Attic fan sites that used to exist having a section about other music acts Alisha's Attic fans like. One was Shakespear's Sister and they put in brackets next to it (well obviously).

As some of you will know, I went through a phase of being a big Alisha's Attic fan to the point that one of the fan sites that existed was mine. Yet I've never liked Shakespear's Sister and after hearing songs of theirs from reviewing the Top 30 from 30 years ago plus the Top of the Pops reruns, I still don't.

At the time I would have rejected any claim that Alisha's Attic had any resemblance to Shakespear's Sister, but if I'm honest there are similarities.

First of all both were female duos. Doesn't sound like much, Guns n Roses and Take That were both male groups for example. If you look at the history books though you'll find there weren't that many female duos who have been in the Top 40. In fact there are just two female duos who have had over 5 Top 40 hits ever at the time of writing. As you may have guess, those were Alisha's Attic with 8 and Shakespear's Sister with 6 (OK it was Siobhan on her own for their last one).

Alisha's Attic weren't always Alisha's Attic though. Their first crack at music came in 1988 with the track "Sugar Daddy" which was something you could imagine Bananarama (the group Siobhan left that same year) doing in their Stock Aitken & Waterman era. The name they went under for this was Keren and Chelle. The question is why Keren instead of her actual name Karen? Could it be to do with the fact Bananarama had a member called Keren?

Siobhan's husband at the time was Dave Stewart who was also involved with Shakespear's Sister as songwriter and producer on some of their songs.

Then in 1996 Siobhan and Dave Stewart divorced and the 3rd Shakespear's Sister album never got released due to lead single "I Can Drive" flopping. This basically marked the end of Shakespear's Sister.

That same year Alisha's Attic finally broke through and were given their break by none other than Dave Stewart who produced their debut album.

It would be naive to think that filling the void left by Shakespear's Sister wasn't part of the agenda. Both made pop music but had a gothic image. Some may have thought Shakespear's Sister were actually sisters given the name, Alisha's Attic really were sisters.

Why then did I like Alisha's Attic but not Shakespear's Sister? Well one thing I've not really covered is the actual music. The most notable difference is that Alisha's Attic could sing, Siobhan Fahey couldn't. Yes Marcella Detroit can sing, but aside from "Stay" she didn't do much singing as far as I could tell.

There were similarities musically too, but not that similar. If you like a certain genre it doesn't mean you like every single record that's ever been made in said genre. In the case of Alisha's Attic, just because I was a fan didn't mean I liked every song they ever made.

There are a few Alisha's Attic songs I've never liked even when I was a big fan. Thinking about it, they tended to be the ones which sounded similar to Shakespear's Sister.