I have always had a conflicted relationship with Stock, Aitken & Waterman. On one level, they were a production juggernaut, and there were times when the machine became almost too visible: the sound, the structure, the commercial precision, the sense that everything had been engineered for maximum impact.
But that is also why it worked.
As much as part of me wanted to resist it, I could never fully dismiss SAW, because the records did exactly what they were built to do. They moved. They locked in. They understood the dancefloor with a clarity that a lot of more âseriousâ music never managed. Even when the formula was obvious, the physical effect was undeniable.
For me, Bananarama were right at the top of that list. âVenusâ was everywhere, but it never felt accidental. It had that strange late-80s force where underground club energy, commercial pop, camp, image, and pure momentum all crashed into each other and somehow became irresistible.
What I really appreciated here is the reminder that Bananarama did not simply appear as polished pop product. There was post-punk, DIY culture, club culture, and a much stranger route into the mainstream behind them. That makes âVenusâ much more interesting than just a massive hit single. It becomes one of those records where you can actually hear pop changing shape.
Great piece, and a really sharp way of dealing with SAW without either dismissing them or pretending the complications are not there.
Well Howard, as you know from my piece, I have a similarly conflicted relationship with them. And what you took away from this weekâs episode is exactly what I hoped to convey. So your reaction truly means a lot to me. Thanks for reading and reacting. Have a great weekend!
As always, a great essay and I learned so much! I had no idea who SAW was (and I didn't say that just to include a great palindrome). But I know so much of their work. I was never really aware of producers or production teams back then. I was aware of Bananarama, though. And from their early days. Well, maybe not super early. I feel like it was their teaming with Fun Boy Three that made me love them first (though I can't recall if I'd heard their own stuff before the FB3 collab). "Really Saying Something" and "It Ain't What You Do..." were all over KROQ, the new wave station in southern California. I just played them right now and love this Top of the Pops video.
Of course, I knew the hits - Venus and Cruel Summer and Shy Boy. They seemed like they were having fun and also poking fun at the coordinated dance step/girl group tropes.
Youâve got them right from the beginning, Steve. They pretty much launched their career through those FB3 collaborations. If I remember correctly, they only had one single out before that. Same here, those fantastic FB3 records were my introduction to them as well.
And I completely get what you mean. They always came across as three friends having a great time together. That image was certainly part of their appeal. At the same time, there were splits, tensions, and a few bumps in the road along the way, stories Iâll come back to in future episodes, so it wasnât always quite as carefree as it seemed.
One of the things that struck me most while researching this episode is that although they often looked like three fun-loving girls stumbling into success, they actually knew exactly what they wanted and were remarkably focused on achieving it.
Thanks for reading and sharing your thoughts, Steve. Wishing you a wonderful weekend ahead!
Great story, Derek. I took a look at your Substack and Iâm definitely going to dive into it properly. Thanks for reading and for taking the time to react!
What a great deep dive. I love that track, and it was fascinating to read about the backstory, which I didn't know. I have a lot of respect for Bananarama and the hugely important role they played in paving the way for the girl bands that followed from the 90s onwards. Brilliant work!
Thanks Andy. Glad you enjoyed the deep dive, and youâre absolutely right about their influence. Bananarama also became a blueprint for later girl groups because of their longevity. They managed to build a successful career that lasted well over a decade, which really isnât that common.
One of the things I discovered while researching this piece was that they were far more in control of their career than I had imagined. For some reason I always had this impression that they belonged to the âsois belle et tais-toiâ category đ But they clearly didnât, and my reaction while reading about it was simply, âgood for them!â
Thanks Mark. Itâs exactly like I mentioned in my reply to Dan. Itâs fascinating to see how differently people on both sides of the Atlantic connected with Bananarama. Cruel Summer wasnât a hit at all here in the Benelux. For us it really started with It Ainât What You Do, that first collaboration with FB3.
I also have a complicated relationship with SAW, as I suspect many do if they're being honest. Take Kylie and Jason's Especially For You for example, pure cold blooded commerce yet that chord change into the chorus gets me every time. SAW are responsible for both the timeless uplift of Never Gonna Give You Up and the sublime understatement of Kylie's Je Ne Sais Pourquoi, yet in my book they also ruined Donna Summer. I'd loved All Systems Go, a superior album of sophisti- pop for adults, but it flopped, badly, so it was off to London for Donna to make a record for teens. Nothing wrong with that if you're Sonia, but for an artist with such a rich legacy as Summer, it was such a retrogressive step that I still find the results unlistenable. As for Bananarama, obviously much was gained commercially from the collaborations with SAW, but as a fan of the cool next door "amateurishness" of the early eighties, I feel something ultimately more valuable was lost .
Again, I fully agree with you Paul! Those Donna Summer productions by SAW were kind of awful and really havenât stood the test of time very well. And yes, they were beneath the level of artist Donna Summer actually was. At the same time, I completely understand why she made that move. The eighties hadnât been particularly kind to her career.
All Systems Go is actually an album I know less well. My personal favorite of her eighties work remains the album she did with Quincy Jones.
The transition Bananarama made from âalternativeâ to âpoppyâ is, in many ways, completely emblematic of the mid-eighties. I deliberately didnât go too deeply into that aspect because my goal nowadays is to make the A-side articles shorter and punchier, not longer đ The fact that I managed to keep this one under 10 minutes reading time already felt like a major victory in itself đ
Anyway, Iâll definitely come back to them in future episodes.
Thanks for reading and reacting Paul. Have a great Sunday!
Everyone loves Kylie! And this song. âVenusâ and Bananarama so outlived their peak â I remember both still being everywhere in â97. And justifiably so! Canât wait to listen to it and âYou Spin Me Roundâ back to back later. I had no idea âVenusâ was a SAW production. A great read here Pe!
The irony of you saying this when itâs a four-day holiday weekend for me but itâs gonna be cloudy and rainy the whole time isnât lost on me đ€Ł but thank you anyway!
haha⊠Come to Belgium Max (or any place in Western Europe for that matter). We have tropical temps this weekend. Well exceeding 30° celsius, around 90° Fahrenheit.
Every time Iâve been to mainland Europe (Berlin in particular), the temperature goes above 80 F, and since we Americans are used to central air, i wind up feeling so hot all the time đ
Interesting to hear about Bananarama's early days. I first became acquainted with them via "Cruel Summer" - a big club and pop hit! "Venus" really but them on top though! I love the original by Shocking Blue but Bananarama made it their own. I didn't know about the connection to Dead or Alive but it makes sense. Their music was also everywhere at the time!
For us in Europe, the Bananarama story actually started a little earlier with âIt Ainât What You Doâ, the track they recorded with the Fun Boy Three. âShy Boyâ was a hit too. Strangely enough, âCruel Summerâ wasnât that big over here at first, while at the same time it was the song that really broke them in the US. But once they took off, their music was absolutely everywhere.
Thanks for reading and taking the time to react, Dan. Hope you have a great and sunny weekend!
The rhythm section is one of the most recognisable elements of the SAW sound, and they gradually developed it through the early Dead Or Alive and Bananarama productions. On this weekâs B-Side Iâll include a fascinating video that explains exactly how they built that sound. It really was like a DIY construction kit they could reuse and refine from track to track. đ
Thanks for reading and reacting, Ellen. Hope you have a great and sunny weekend!
I really enjoyed this, Pe.
I have always had a conflicted relationship with Stock, Aitken & Waterman. On one level, they were a production juggernaut, and there were times when the machine became almost too visible: the sound, the structure, the commercial precision, the sense that everything had been engineered for maximum impact.
But that is also why it worked.
As much as part of me wanted to resist it, I could never fully dismiss SAW, because the records did exactly what they were built to do. They moved. They locked in. They understood the dancefloor with a clarity that a lot of more âseriousâ music never managed. Even when the formula was obvious, the physical effect was undeniable.
For me, Bananarama were right at the top of that list. âVenusâ was everywhere, but it never felt accidental. It had that strange late-80s force where underground club energy, commercial pop, camp, image, and pure momentum all crashed into each other and somehow became irresistible.
What I really appreciated here is the reminder that Bananarama did not simply appear as polished pop product. There was post-punk, DIY culture, club culture, and a much stranger route into the mainstream behind them. That makes âVenusâ much more interesting than just a massive hit single. It becomes one of those records where you can actually hear pop changing shape.
Great piece, and a really sharp way of dealing with SAW without either dismissing them or pretending the complications are not there.
Well Howard, as you know from my piece, I have a similarly conflicted relationship with them. And what you took away from this weekâs episode is exactly what I hoped to convey. So your reaction truly means a lot to me. Thanks for reading and reacting. Have a great weekend!
As always, a great essay and I learned so much! I had no idea who SAW was (and I didn't say that just to include a great palindrome). But I know so much of their work. I was never really aware of producers or production teams back then. I was aware of Bananarama, though. And from their early days. Well, maybe not super early. I feel like it was their teaming with Fun Boy Three that made me love them first (though I can't recall if I'd heard their own stuff before the FB3 collab). "Really Saying Something" and "It Ain't What You Do..." were all over KROQ, the new wave station in southern California. I just played them right now and love this Top of the Pops video.
https://youtu.be/vfbR__bcuKY?si=Ur88JDaGzot7tXk8
Of course, I knew the hits - Venus and Cruel Summer and Shy Boy. They seemed like they were having fun and also poking fun at the coordinated dance step/girl group tropes.
Youâve got them right from the beginning, Steve. They pretty much launched their career through those FB3 collaborations. If I remember correctly, they only had one single out before that. Same here, those fantastic FB3 records were my introduction to them as well.
And I completely get what you mean. They always came across as three friends having a great time together. That image was certainly part of their appeal. At the same time, there were splits, tensions, and a few bumps in the road along the way, stories Iâll come back to in future episodes, so it wasnât always quite as carefree as it seemed.
One of the things that struck me most while researching this episode is that although they often looked like three fun-loving girls stumbling into success, they actually knew exactly what they wanted and were remarkably focused on achieving it.
Thanks for reading and sharing your thoughts, Steve. Wishing you a wonderful weekend ahead!
I love the earliet Bananarama albums, but the reboot of Venus is really good and maybe because it reboots Spin!
It certainly has got the same power! đ
I love Bananarama and the 12â version of Venus is one of their very best.
Iâve also met them on several occasions as a friend of mine got married to a guy who was one of their backing dancers! True story
Read some more daft music related stories here:
https://paradisoalcatraz.substack.com/s/one-foot-in-the-rave
Great story, Derek. I took a look at your Substack and Iâm definitely going to dive into it properly. Thanks for reading and for taking the time to react!
What a great deep dive. I love that track, and it was fascinating to read about the backstory, which I didn't know. I have a lot of respect for Bananarama and the hugely important role they played in paving the way for the girl bands that followed from the 90s onwards. Brilliant work!
Thanks Andy. Glad you enjoyed the deep dive, and youâre absolutely right about their influence. Bananarama also became a blueprint for later girl groups because of their longevity. They managed to build a successful career that lasted well over a decade, which really isnât that common.
One of the things I discovered while researching this piece was that they were far more in control of their career than I had imagined. For some reason I always had this impression that they belonged to the âsois belle et tais-toiâ category đ But they clearly didnât, and my reaction while reading about it was simply, âgood for them!â
This was fantastic PĂ©! I didnât know Bananaramaâs background and I guess Iâd always assumed that theyâd emerged purely from the dance pop realm. Iâm thinking I must have heard âCruel Summerâ first and thatâs probably my favorite song by them although admittedly Iâm not overly knowledgeable of their music. But âVenusâ was definitely a banger and brings back some great memories. I donât know how I never made the connection with Dead or Alive because I loved their hits in that era and had the 12â of âYou Spin Me Roundâ on vinyl. Iâve heard of SAW a lot over the years but donât know much about them so am looking forward to learning more on the B Side!
Thanks Mark. Itâs exactly like I mentioned in my reply to Dan. Itâs fascinating to see how differently people on both sides of the Atlantic connected with Bananarama. Cruel Summer wasnât a hit at all here in the Benelux. For us it really started with It Ainât What You Do, that first collaboration with FB3.
I also have a complicated relationship with SAW, as I suspect many do if they're being honest. Take Kylie and Jason's Especially For You for example, pure cold blooded commerce yet that chord change into the chorus gets me every time. SAW are responsible for both the timeless uplift of Never Gonna Give You Up and the sublime understatement of Kylie's Je Ne Sais Pourquoi, yet in my book they also ruined Donna Summer. I'd loved All Systems Go, a superior album of sophisti- pop for adults, but it flopped, badly, so it was off to London for Donna to make a record for teens. Nothing wrong with that if you're Sonia, but for an artist with such a rich legacy as Summer, it was such a retrogressive step that I still find the results unlistenable. As for Bananarama, obviously much was gained commercially from the collaborations with SAW, but as a fan of the cool next door "amateurishness" of the early eighties, I feel something ultimately more valuable was lost .
Again, I fully agree with you Paul! Those Donna Summer productions by SAW were kind of awful and really havenât stood the test of time very well. And yes, they were beneath the level of artist Donna Summer actually was. At the same time, I completely understand why she made that move. The eighties hadnât been particularly kind to her career.
All Systems Go is actually an album I know less well. My personal favorite of her eighties work remains the album she did with Quincy Jones.
The transition Bananarama made from âalternativeâ to âpoppyâ is, in many ways, completely emblematic of the mid-eighties. I deliberately didnât go too deeply into that aspect because my goal nowadays is to make the A-side articles shorter and punchier, not longer đ The fact that I managed to keep this one under 10 minutes reading time already felt like a major victory in itself đ
Anyway, Iâll definitely come back to them in future episodes.
Thanks for reading and reacting Paul. Have a great Sunday!
Everyone loves Kylie! And this song. âVenusâ and Bananarama so outlived their peak â I remember both still being everywhere in â97. And justifiably so! Canât wait to listen to it and âYou Spin Me Roundâ back to back later. I had no idea âVenusâ was a SAW production. A great read here Pe!
Another connection made, another piece of the puzzle falling into place đ. Thanks Max! Hope you have a great and sunny weekend!
The irony of you saying this when itâs a four-day holiday weekend for me but itâs gonna be cloudy and rainy the whole time isnât lost on me đ€Ł but thank you anyway!
haha⊠Come to Belgium Max (or any place in Western Europe for that matter). We have tropical temps this weekend. Well exceeding 30° celsius, around 90° Fahrenheit.
Every time Iâve been to mainland Europe (Berlin in particular), the temperature goes above 80 F, and since we Americans are used to central air, i wind up feeling so hot all the time đ
Interesting to hear about Bananarama's early days. I first became acquainted with them via "Cruel Summer" - a big club and pop hit! "Venus" really but them on top though! I love the original by Shocking Blue but Bananarama made it their own. I didn't know about the connection to Dead or Alive but it makes sense. Their music was also everywhere at the time!
For us in Europe, the Bananarama story actually started a little earlier with âIt Ainât What You Doâ, the track they recorded with the Fun Boy Three. âShy Boyâ was a hit too. Strangely enough, âCruel Summerâ wasnât that big over here at first, while at the same time it was the song that really broke them in the US. But once they took off, their music was absolutely everywhere.
Thanks for reading and taking the time to react, Dan. Hope you have a great and sunny weekend!
Thanks for this backstory, Pe. I didn't know any of this and it's fascinating.
That is no question an incredible song. Hearing it again, I'm blown away by the arrangement but especially by the drum sound.
Love the rebranding story too, from punk to camp. Brilliant.
The rhythm section is one of the most recognisable elements of the SAW sound, and they gradually developed it through the early Dead Or Alive and Bananarama productions. On this weekâs B-Side Iâll include a fascinating video that explains exactly how they built that sound. It really was like a DIY construction kit they could reuse and refine from track to track. đ
Thanks for reading and reacting, Ellen. Hope you have a great and sunny weekend!