He'll never love you the way that I love you

Continuing my trip back in time through the album charts

27/03/83 : Deep Sea Skiving - Bananarama

Ah - Bananarama.  An enigma if ever there was one.  Patently rubbish disposable pop, but extremely well-crafted and amazingly successful rubbish disposable pop - and they kept it going for a very long time indeed.  This is Phase 1 of the BRU (Bananarama Recording Universe) and I have to admit I'm aware of the singles but haven't experienced the album - I'm expecting to want to be sniffy about it (I mean that title is begging for sniffiness and DON'T get me started on the album cover) but grudgingly having to admit I can't quite do so.

And yeah, I wasn't far off - I mean, this all feels like it's thrown together at the last minute without much thought, but that's very much not the case (as we'll find out later when we get to the Wikipedia entry).  It also stands the test of time much better than I was expecting it to - I'd completely forgotten about "Aie A Mwana" (a single from 1981) but it still sounds pretty fresh.  And who's going to argue with "Really Saying Something" (featuring Fun Boy Three, returning the favour because Bananarama featured on their version of "It Ain't What You Do") and "Na Na Hey Hey I Can't Be Bothered Checking Out The Exact Title"?  

I do have to admit I didn't listen to the 77 minute deluxe extended version but there are plenty worse ways I could have spent 38 minutes of my time than listening to the original 11 tracks - I really quite enjoyed it and it was great to see some more women in a very male-dominated year.  But there would have been ABSOLUTELY no chance of me buying it at the time and since I've never heard it before it won't surprise you to hear I've never owned it, and it certainly wasn't cool enough for the teenage Mrs Reed either - 11.5/40.

We're at #8 in the charts this week on their third week of an eleven week run, which is the second shortest run we've had all year behind Black Sabbath's eight week run - I mean, even Cliff managed 15 weeks and that was a TERRIBLE album.  Although, bizarrely, it did manage another five weeks later in the year - I'm guessing another single was released which reignited interest.  The top five this week were Pink Floyd (a new entry). Michael, Tears For Fears, Chart Runners and Eurythmics.  The next highest new entry was Hooked On Classics 3 at #46 which I seem to recall my parents liking and the only other new entry in the top 100 was Clannad at #78.

Wikipedia has remarkably little on the album, except for telling us where all the songs came from and it's an intriguing mix, to say the least.  "Doctor Love" is a Paul Weller song, "Really Saying Something" is a Norman Whitfield song from 1964, "Aie A Mwana" is a song from 1971 by a Franco-Belgian songwriting duo (but was also released in Swahili in 1975) and "Na Na Hey Hey" was a US #1 from 1969 by Steam, who were a group that didn't even exist!  And one of the other tracks leads to a nice pop quiz question - what was Bananarama's only #1 single?  And then we move on to Bananarama's Wikipedia entry which gives us another - who's had the most charting UK singles as an all-girl group?  I think you'll probably get that one - they really have done very well for themselves over the years.  So let's celebrate with a trickier question - who was the only woman on the original Band Aid single who wasn't in Bananarama?  There's 20 points on offer if you get that one because it's super tricky...

"Customers also listened to" Fun Boy Three, Debbie Harry, The Thompson Twins and Sheena Easton - a somewhat eclectic mix.  Most of whom, like Bananarama, rarely cross my mind - but I have to say I enjoyed this a lot more than I was expecting.  Yes, part of that was nostalgia but a surprising amount was also "hey - this isn't nearly as terrible as I was expecting".

And the answer to the #1 quiz question is "Young At Heart" which got to the top spot in 1993 for The Bluebells (and I'm not sure I ever knew it was written by the ladies).  The Band Aid quiz question is a beauty with Jody Watley bringing the grand total of women involved to four.  Which, you gotta admit, is a tricky one - kids these days won't even have heard of Shalamar, but I'm guessing I'm gonna see them some day (and a small part of me is looking forward to it).

20/03/83 - A fortunate Brucie bonus
03/04/83 - A proper classic 80s album