WOW!
WHEN THREE STRONG-WILLED YOUNG WOMEN MET THE HIT FACTORY MEN, THE SPARKS WERE SURE TO FLY - AND NOT ALWAYS HAPPY ONES. BUT TODAY, ALL AGREE THAT THE POPTASTIC RESULTS WERE WORTH IT…
IAN WADE
BANANARAMA
Sara, Keren and Siobhan: the SAW collab would produce the trio’s sassiest, poppiest, most cohesive album of all, but at great cost
The genesis of Bananarama’s fourth album, Wow! - and perhaps the key to it becoming the trio’s biggest-selling studio album - lay in the previous year’s long-player, True Confessions. While that album had predominantly seen the trio recording again with Tony Swain and Steve Jolley, a working relationship which had begun with Shy Boy back on their Deep Sea Skiving debut, it was the inclusion of two tracks they’d recorded with Stock Aitken Waterman - Venus and More Than Physical - that would turn the band’s fortunes around.
The genius plan was to turn the Shocking Blue hit Venus, a song which they’d been performing live for several years, into a dance hit. Swain and Jolley weren’t wild about the idea, but inspired by what SAW had done with DOA and You Spin Me Round, one iconic trio approached the other. “They were saying ‘It can’t be done,’” Siobhan told The Guardian. “I was, like, ‘Yes, it can! Get those cowbells on there!’” The plan worked, giving Bananarama a chart-topper in the US as well as SAW’s first taste of American chart action.
This was to turn out to be a wise move, as the band hadn’t had much Top 20 success in the intervening years since 1984’s Robert De Niro’s Waiting, with successive singles failing to hit the spot. Venus handily turned that around, and so it was Stock, Aitken and Waterman they turned to again in order to get back into chart-topping mode.
It was in fact Mike who recorded Venus with the band on his own in just two hours at The Chocolate Factory studios in Deptford in south-east London. “They had already done the routine on the vocals, but when I said it was done, they couldn’t believe it as they said it took them three days to record with [former producers] Jolley & Swain,” he recalled to Classic Pop.
The swift session certainly turned things around: Venus peaked at No.1 in the United States, Australia, Finland, New Zealand, Switzerland, and South Africa and reached No.2 in Germany and the Top 10 in Austria, Belgium, Canada, France, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden (and a somewhat deflating No.8 in the United Kingdom). However, by this point it hardly mattered: they entered the Guinness Book of Records as the most successful female group ever, beating The Supremes.
Buoyed by this upturn in their fortunes the trio started work on the album with Stock Aitken Waterman, shortly after the campaign for True Confessions had been dealt with.
TRACK BY TRACK
1 I CAN’T HELP IT
Released at the end of 1987, I Can’t Help It was the third single in the UK, but second in the US, and was the last to feature Siobhan; she would leave a month or so later. The single romped to No.20 in the UK.
2 I HEARD A RUMOUR
First single and one of the band’s biggest US hits, this owed a little to the 1986 Italo-disco hit Give Me Up by Michael Fortunati. SAW also lifted its synth riff for Samantha Fox’s Nothing’s Gonna Stop Me Now.
3 SOME GIRLS
Over an early 80s groove reminiscent of Shannon’s Let The Music Play, the trio plead to some level-headed suitor that they’re not that sort of perfect girl, that they’re young, want to flirt and get their way and fall out of clubs after several hours on the vodka.
4 LOVE IN THE FIRST DEGREE
Apparently the song which Pete wants played at his funeral (although fans may spot he’s also said this about I Heard A Rumour, so we’ll have to wait and see). With lyrics written by Siobhan and with help from Sara and Keren, it became the most iconic number of the Wow! period, reaching No.3 in the UK in October 1987. Nominated as Best Single at the Brits, it lost out to Rick Astley’s Never Gonna Give You Up.
5 ONCE IN A LIFETIME
While left to languish on Wow!, Once In A Lifetime finally appeared as a B-side to the re-recorded Nathan Jones, released in 1988. Sounding not unlike an outtake from Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis’ work with The Human League, it could’ve been a huge single.
6 STRIKE IT RICH
As Pete details in his I Wish I Was Me memoir, “We’d got stuck on one final song and couldn’t think what to write. Then I was walking past the TV and saw a preview of a programme called Strike It Rich. It triggered off an idea, and I came up with ‘Ain’t life a bitch, you gotta keep on working ‘til you strike it rich’. Siobhan exploded. ‘I can’t possibly sing that,’ she said. ‘It’s a capitalist song.’”
7 BAD FOR ME
Wow! really was an album of riches - it was down to luck which singles were eventually chosen, and Bad For Me would’ve stormed to a respectable No.12 at least. Using the teen trope of an unsuitable boyfriend that all your friends warn you about, Bad For Me is a timeless number for the ages, albeit drenched in cowbells.
8 COME BACK
One of two non-SAW penned numbers on Wow!, Come Back was written by Richard Feldman and Nick Trevisick, who between them have cooked up tunes for Eric Clapton, Pointer Sisters, Joe Cocker, Pat Benatar, Five Star, Janet Jackson, Natalie Imbruglia and many more.
9 NATHAN JONES
Although not technically released during the Wow! phase, Nathan Jones was reswizzled with a new vocal and arrangement featuring Jacquie O’Sullivan on vocals ahead of the release of the trio’s Greatest Hits compilation in late 1988, reaching No.15.
10 I WANT YOU BACK
Originally featuring a different chorus and entitled Reason For Living before being rewritten by the trio, I Want You Back was re-recorded to feature Jacquie. Released in April 1988, the song became the second highestcharting single from the Wow! era, reaching No.5.