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Dubstar Disgraceful

Dubstar: Disgraceful

The Dubstar Archive blog began during the COVID-19 lockdowns of 2020. Each entry includes the background stories to a featured Dubstar song, a related song by ex-members of the act, new releases and the occasional summary of the story behind the album.

The blog is updated every month with new and previously unheard music from Dubstar. You can find the original entries at stevehillier.net

Disgraceful

Disgraceful is Dubstar's debut album and was released on 9 October 1995 through Food Records. Disgraceful is the record that introduced the world to Steve Hillier, Sarah Blackwood, and Chris Wilkie. It arrived at a pivotal moment for the trio: what had started as a guitar, synths and sampler project between Hillier and Wilkie in Newcastle upon Tyne was transformed when Blackwood's voice was added to the mix, giving the songs a cool, detached clarity that would become the band's signature sound.

Disgraceful was recorded across two very different sessions. The trio worked Stephen Hague (fresh from his work with the Pet Shop Boys and New Order) at RAK Studios in London and Real World Studios in Bath, and with Graeme Robinson at Chapel Studios in Lincolnshire. These sessions were building on demos Hillier had recorded at his flat in Jesmond in Newcastle, and further work that the trio and Robinson developed together. That combination gave Disgraceful its distinctive character: glossy, pop literate production wrapped around lyrics that were often much darker and stranger than they first appeared.

Disgraceful charted at UK No. 30 and went on to be certified Gold, powered by a run of singles that included "Stars", which later became a No. 1 hit in Israel, and "Not So Manic Now" which is a cover of a little-known song by Wakefield band Brick Supply that Dubstar transformed into one of the era's most memorable singles. The album's striking artwork, shot by North London photographer Rob Steele with typography by design studio Attik, made it as visually distinctive as it sounded.

More than three decades on, Disgraceful remains the foundation of the Dubstar story. This is the record where a Newcastle ‘Indie Dance’ project became a genuine chart act, and where the blueprint for the band's blend of dreampop melancholy and Hillier’s razor-sharp songwriting was laid down.

Anywhere (Jesmond Demo)
Anywhere (Piano Version)
Blake’s Jerusalem (Demo at Graeme Robinson’s house in Darlington)
Day I See You Again (first run-through)
Day I See You Again (Lost & Foundland Version)
Disgraceful
Disgraceful GDR Demo
Disgraceful Album, the beginnings
Goodbye To You
I Won’t Forget You/Bow Wow Now (Lost & Foundland Version)
Just A Girl She Said (Piano Version)
Just A Girl She Said LIVE at BBC Maida Vale Studio
Not Once Not Ever (Demo at Graeme Robinson’s house in Darlington)
Not So Fast
Not So Manic Now on BBC TOP OF THE POPS
Not So Manic Now (Piano Version)
Not So Manic Now (Rehearsal at Steve’s In Jesmond)
Not So Manic Now GDR demo
popDorian (Live at GLR)
She’s Still Sad (Jesmond demo)
Song No.9 (Lost & Foundland Version)
Song No.9 2026 Restoration
St Swithin’s Day (Jesmond Demo)
Stars (Acoustic Version 2022 Restoration)
Stars (Original Demo with Steve on Vocals)
Stars (piano version)
Stars (Demo at Graeme Robinson’s in Darlington)
Stars on BBC Top of the Pops
Stars (Steve Hillier's Glitterball Remix)
Stars (The Earliest Recording with Steve on Vocals)
Stars - The Missing Video
Stars - The Missing Video UPDATE
Vini/Unchained Monologue (Lost & Foundland Version)
Week In Week Out Jesmond Demo

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Dubstar Goodbye

Dubstar: Goodbye

Goodbye

Released on 22 September 1997 through Food Records, Goodbye was Dubstar's second album and the record that confirmed the promise of their debut. Riding the momentum of Disgraceful's Gold certification, the band pushed their sound further: the icy, sample driven pop of the first record gave way to something warmer and more expansive, while Sarah Blackwood's vocals became more central to the songwriting than ever. Unlike Disgraceful, where the songs were written for an earlier incarnation of the act without her, most of the songs on Goodbye had been specifically written for Blackwood to sing.

Goodbye reached UK No. 18, an improvement on Disgraceful's chart placing, and its singles helped cement Dubstar's reputation as one of the more distinctive pop acts to emerge from the Britpop era's shadow. Tracks like "No More Talk" showed a band confident enough to experiment with structure and mood, often burying melancholy lyrics beneath deceptively bright production. This was a trademark Dubstar sleight of hand that had already defined Disgraceful and would carry through the rest of their catalogue.

The album's reach extended beyond the UK: a US edition, also titled Goodbye, was released on Polydor Records in 1998 (the band were signed by Nick Garfield, who six years later would sign the band Keane) drawing together tracks from both the first and second albums for American audiences who were discovering the band for the first time. It's a rare example of a "best of" style release that came at the very start of a career rather than the end of one, reflecting how quickly Dubstar had built a catalogue worth introducing all at once.

Where Disgraceful was the sound of a band arriving, Goodbye is the sound of that same band figuring out exactly what they wanted to be. It is more assured, more melodic, and willing to let the songwriting breathe. It remains a fan favourite precisely because of that confidence.

Brownmouth/It’s Clear (Jesmond Demo Steve on Vocals)
Cathedral Park (Piano Version)
Ghost (Lost & Foundland Version)
Goodbye at 25
In My Defence (2013 Version)
Joni/I Will Be Your Girlfriend
No More Talk (Piano Version)
No More Talk (Demo)
No More Talk on BBC Top of the Pop 1997
Poupée de Cire, Poupée de Son (Non-Broadcast Mix)
Say The Worst Thing First (Piano Version)
Say The Worst Thing First (Demo)
The View From Here (Piano Version)
This is My Home 2026 Reprint

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Dubstar Make It Better

Dubstar: Make It Better

Dubstar United States of Being

Dubstar; United States of Being ONE

Dubstar United States of Being V2.0

Dubstar: United States of Being 2.0

Make it Better

This is Dubstar’s final release on Food Records, arriving in the shops on 28 August 2000. Make It Better was Dubstar's third studio album and the last to feature Steve Hillier for over a decade. Hillier left shortly before the record's release, citing in interviews that he ‘couldn’t see a future for this act’. This departure would go on to shape the band's story for years to come, making Make It Better both a peculiar creative statement and, in hindsight, the closing chapter of Dubstar's original era.

Commercially, the album marked a change in fortunes: it peaked at UK No. 112, a steep drop from the Top 20 and Top 30 placings of Goodbye and Disgraceful. The shifting landscape of British pop at the turn of the millennium played a part, but so did the internal pressures within the band during the album's creation. These tensions are audible in places, particularly in the record's more restless and searching songwriting.

Despite its lower chart placing, Make It Better has earned a quieter reputation over time as one of Dubstar's more interesting records: less immediately polished than its predecessors, but often more adventurous, with the band pushing at the edges of the sound they'd spent two albums perfecting. For long-time fans, it's frequently cited as a hidden gem in the catalogue, rewarding a closer listen than its commercial performance might suggest. It’s the sound of an act testing how far their recordings could stretch, made at the exact moment their original dynamic was about to change forever.

Haunted
I Am The Crime (Demo)
I Don’t Want to Die on a Tuesday (Demo)
Janis 2026 Reprint
Janis STEVE GUIDE VOCAL
Leaving in the Morning (Demo)
Swansong (Piano Version)
Swansong (Demo)
The Last Song (2020 Restoration)
The Perfect Smile
The Self Same Thing (Lost & Foundland Version)
Touching Inside
You’re Mine DEMO
When The World Knows Your Name (Piano Version)
Wide Awake DEMO

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United States of Being

For an act that split in 2000, Dubstar spent a notably long time reuniting. Steve Hillier, Sarah Blackwood, and Chris Wilkie reformed as Dubstar with their original lineup in 2006, five years after Hillier's departure had brought the band's first chapter to a screeching halt. For the first time since Make It Better all three were back in a room recording as Dubstar again. What followed became two albums unofficially known as United States of Being. Records that have never been officially released.

Musically the sessions returned to the original Disgraceful era sound, carrying the melodic, atmospheric pop of their 1990s work into a new decade, with Hillier’s writing shaped by his experiences working with other acts in the years apart. The reunion proved short-lived. In 2008, Sarah Blackwood walked away to return to Client, Kate Holmes’ electro-clash group, and the United States of Being sessions were temporarily left unfinished, becoming a comeback that vanished as it was taking shape.

This wasn't the end of the story, though. In late 2009, Blackwood's time with Client folded, and at her behest the original three reunited yet again for a second attempt at reuniting Dubstar. This time, the band saw the process through to completion, finishing more than a full album's worth of new material that came to be known as United States of Being 2.0. Where the first reunion sessions had been interrupted almost as soon as they began, this second chapter carried Dubstar further, giving them room to rediscover their creative chemistry.

The period around United States of Being 2.0 was also one of the most active the reunited band had since their original run. Dubstar played a handful of notable live shows, including a comeback performance at The Lexington in London, a benefit gig at The Cluny in Newcastle in support of a documentary about the venue, and a date performing alongside Human League in Tynemouth. For a band whose studio work was staying firmly out of public view, these shows were the clearest sign that Dubstar, in spirit at least, had returned.

That momentum didn't last. Old frictions that had never been resolved were re-surfacing and in early 2014, following those live dates, Steve Hillier left Dubstar for a final time, citing the Dubstar re-union as ‘un-investable’ and expressing a reluctance to spend the years ahead playing the 90s nostalgia circuit rather than continuing to move forward creatively. It brought an end to the band's most sustained reunion effort — and left both United States of Being and United States of Being 2.0 as completed albums that existed in full, or near enough, but never found an official release.

Taken together, the two records form one of the most unusual chapters in the Dubstar story and possibly the most fruitful musical era of Blackwood, Hillier and Wilkie’s time together: not a single lost album, but two attempts at a comeback, separated by a two-year pause and united by the same unresolved fate. They capture a band trying, twice, to pick up a story that had ended too soon and succeeding, in the studio at least, both times.

Songs and demos from both sets of sessions have gradually surfaced over the years through the Dubstar Archive, giving fans a way to hear what these reunions actually sounded like, even without a conventional release. Together, they offer a rare, extended look at what a fully realised Dubstar comeback would have been told in two albums, recorded five years and one long detour apart.

21st Century
A World Without Me
Circle Turns - The first new Dubstar song in more than a decade!
Don’t Ask
Face The Music
Front To Back
Gemini (Lost & Foundland version)
Gemini
If I Can’t Change Your Mind
I'm In Love With A German Film Star
In The End (Lost & Foundland Version)
Is There Any Way Back From Here?
It’s You - It’s Me
Hit (Piano Version)
My Life
Round & Round
The Future
So Say We All (Piano Version)
So Say We All
Sister
Something You Should Know
Superstar
Talking In My Sleep (Demo)
The Sweetest Love Song
Under My Thumb
We Still Belong (Lost & Foundland Version)
We Still Belong
We’re Great (Piano Version)
Window Pain (Piano Version)
Window Pain 2025
You & Me

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Miscellaneous

Not every Dubstar recording fits neatly into an album era. This section gathers the loose ends. Here you will find one-off covers, unexpected collaborations, remixes, and odds and ends from across Steve Hillier's wider musical life that don't belong anywhere else, but are too good to leave out. Dip in for the surprises.