BANANARAMA
"THIS IS THE MUSIC WE LIKE. WE ARE WHO WE ARE."
BANANARAMA ARE BACK WITH AN ALBUM AS DEFIANTLY POP AS ANYTHING KEREN WOODWARD AND SARA DALLIN AND HAVE EVER MADE. AS THE PAIR CELEBRATE 40 YEARS TOGETHER, THEY TAKE US INSIDE THE ‘GOTHIC DISCO‘ OF MASQUERADE. ‘‘WE DON’T NEED TO PANDER TO WHATEVER IS TRENDING‘‘ THEY VOW...
JOHN EARLS
Pop life: Keren Woodward and Sara Dallin, 2022
There’s a sizeable glitterball in Keren Woodward’s front room. Over our Zoom call, with Keren in Cornwall and Sara Dallin in north London, Classic Pop tells the Bananarama mainstay how delighted we are to see that she’s living her best disco life. “That went up in lockdown to cheer me up,” she smiles. “And now it’s never coming down.” She leans into her laptop camera to confidentially inform us: “I’ve got the lights to go with it as well.”
There’s a burst of delighted laughter at how Keren Woodward’s life is exactly as dancetastic as you’d hope for Bananarama, the euphoric duo who know just how important pop can be in people’s lives.
The fact even Woodward needed cheering up in the pandemic is an example of how relatable she and Sara have remained in the 40 years since Fun Boy Three duet It Ain’t What You Do (It’s The Way That You Do It) and Really Saying Something introduced the nation to young women in thrall to pop and embodying the punk spirit of not giving a toss what anyone thought about their determination to be themselves.
Having music as a beacon to cling on to in lockdown made Bananarama appreciate just how important they’ve been to others while offering up classics from Cruel Summer and Robert De Niro’s Waiting via Venus and I Heard A Rumour to Love Comes and Stuff Like That. “It’s easy to think pop music is throwaway,” reasons Keren. “But music gets people through certain periods of time. I know what music means to me, and we’ve had people tell us: ‘If it wasn’t for you, I might not be here.’ Music has a hugely important role to play in people’s mental health, as well as just having fun. ‘It’s just pop music’? Pop has a deeper meaning, too.”
Sara takes up the thread, adding: “The last few years have been a real eye-opener for us. We’ve met people who say they looked up to us when they were young for what we achieved. That’s been important for Keren and I because, if people aren’t telling you those things, you don’t necessarily know that’s how the public feel about what you do. That’s been amazing. When people couldn’t enjoy themselves or go out in the pandemic, but music was there: music doesn’t cure that, but it’s the light you need to help.” “That’s true,” concludes Keren. “I often have a dance on my own.”