After the Close to the Bone album from 1987, which was not the big commercial success hoped for, the Thompson Twins signed a new recording contract with Warner Bros. Records. The label happily funded the duo to make an album that they really wanted to make, rather than another standard commercialised, corporate release. "Sugar Daddy" was the leading single from the album. The single only peaked at #97 in the UK, spending just 1 week on the chart. The single fared better in America where it peaked at #28 on the US Billboard Hot 100. This would be the duo's last appearance on the US Billboardsingles chart. It lasted for 12 weeks on this chart. The song also peaked at #2 on the US Dance Music/Club Play Singles Chart. In Canada, it peaked at #38 on the RPM Singles Chart. During 1989, the duo appeared on the Canadian Category A specialty channel MuchMusic, to promote the new album and single. Tom Bailey described the song; "The song, although its quite a sugary song, the message is quite disturbing. It's about sexual manipulation, you know? Affection traded for power, and as with all those sort of power-gain relationships, there's always a sugar coating, so that's why the song is so sugary but the message so bizarre." Upon release, Hal Leonard Music Inc published a piano, vocal and guitar sheet music for the "Sugar Daddy" song.
Music video
The single had two promotional music videos to support it: one video using the album version of the song and another using the Sweet N' Low Mix. On the MuchMusic appearance, Alannah Currie spoke about some of the unused features of the video. "The video was funny. I wanted to be the angel of death in it, with a black guitar and wings, but I kept getting stuck up there and screaming to get down, so we had to lose some of those shots. And then they built this enormous 12 foot skirt, I wanted to have these men coming out from under my skirt, and they edited that down to make it a bit more acceptable. I wanted to be the original hell's angel, it didn't quite come off. I always get disappointed by our videos."
Critical reception
Upon release, Billboard described "Sugar Daddy" as "refreshing pop" and a "jaunty piece of ear candy". Music & Media considered the song "playful and catchy", with "more raunch than their previous material". Stephanie Brainerd of Cash Box commented: "This is your average neo-disco synthesized dance mix, and really, it's not a bad one, but from the Thompson Twins? This tune might possibly fare well on the dancefloor, but I don't believe it's their best effort." In a review of Big Trash, Australian daily newspaperThe Age noted the song as one of the album's "superb creations", adding that it was a "pleasant single, though not as amusing as the observant title track".
