Party: Bananarama

Party: Bananarama

Bananarama have had huge success throughout the world including the USA. They still hold their place in the Guinness Book of Records for the most charted Hits by a female group. (34 hits, 29 self penned.)'

In 1981 a debut single storming to Number 92 was the beginning of something rather exciting. From their debut single storming the Top 100, through the multi-platinum studio albums and a million-selling Greatest Hits compilation, Bananarama's story has always been fresh. You might look at what came before and think, briefly, that Bananarama rewrote the pop rulebook; in truth they never read it in the first place and for over thirty years have been calling their own shots, making theirs a name synonymous with bright, sophisticated and authentically brilliant pop music.

In the early 1980s they approached producers Jolley & Swain on the strength of their work on Imagination's 'Bodytalk', resulting in hit singles like 'Shy Boy', 'Cruel Summer' and 'Roberts De Niro's Waiting.' A few years later they heard Dead Or Alive's 'You Spin Me Round (Like A Record)' and decided to work with Stock Aitken & Waterman on 'Venus', 'Love In The First Degree', 'I Heard A Rumour' and 'I Want You Back', which led to an entirely new phase for the band with 1987's 'Wow!' album. As recently as 2005 they were picking out Swedish hitmaking team Murlyn and in 2009 they found a perfect foil in Ian Masterson, a producer whose credits range from Pet Shop Boys to Girls Aloud and whose instinctive grasp of the Bananarama spirit has resulted in some extraordinarily good music on recent albums.

No matter. In a notoriously flighty corner of a relentlessly transient industry Bananarama continue to stand tall as a pop group who actually mean something. "I do think we stand for the same thing now as we always did," Sara says. "We worked so hard to get recognition - it's never been something just handed to us on the plate or manufactured. It's a feeling we both have that there's still a drive to find the next door to open, the next song to write, the person to work with, the next concert to play." All of which would be pleasant but ultimately pointless hot air if 'Viva! Bananarama' was anything other than great because in pop, more than any other genre, it all comes down to whether your tunes are any good. It seems to still come so easily for Bananarama, masters of their own destiny and the reigning queens of UK pop.