Videos
Bananarama 'Love Comes'
Oh, just indulge me on this one…
Bananarama’s story starts a new chapter this summer with the release of ‘Viva Bananarama’ an exciting, modern new album with both feet planted on the dancefloor.
2009’s new self-penned material is, once again, the result of Sara Dallin and Keren Woodward identifying the right collaborators for the right point in their career – something that they did so successfully in the 80s with Jolley & Swain (‘Shy Boy’, ‘Cruel Summer’, ‘Roberts De Niro’s Waiting’) and Stock Aitken & Waterman ('Venus', ‘Love In The First Degree’, ‘I Heard A Rumour’, ‘I Want You Back’).
In 2009 they’ve 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 this new album. Sara says “working with Ian has been a revelation – we did a couple of tracks with him on the last album and he’s really in tune with what we’re into and with what’s happening in the outside world. Some producers hit a formula and just churn out the same old stuff; with Ian it’s been so enjoyable.” Indeed, working with just one producer is in itself remarkable in the modern pop landscape.
Bananarama are now signed to Fascination (Universal Records), meaning that Keren and Sara are labelmates of Girls Aloud and The Saturdays on an imprint which has become the unofficial home of the UK girlgroup. It’s a great fit, but while Bananarama’s style filters through the pop generations, Sara’s right to feel a sense of distance from what she helped inspire. “I never looked at us as a ‘girl band’,” Sara remembers. “We were just a band in the same way as The Cure were a band or Wham were a band.” To this end Bananarama appeared in NME as frequently as Smash Hits – a double-pronged attack on the public’s sense.
Of the new tunes, ‘Seventeen’ is an undulating, low-slung electro number which pleads “kiss me like you do in my dreams, make me feel like I was seventeen”, then there’s the seductive, ice-cold ‘Extraordinary’ and the single ‘Love Comes’ – a dancefloor belter with no strings attached.