Bananarama

I’d love a Siobhan autobiography at this stage. I think her evolution would be very good reading and would love to hear more details of the tension she had with SAW during WOW!’s recording leading to her not featuring at all on some tracks (to my ears anyway) and breaking away from Bananarama and forming Shakespears Sister.

 

I couldn't care less about Keren & Sara's 'partying'. If the book actually went into detail on their music, I would be interested.

 

Got a feeling Siobhan would be much more 'warts and all'/honest in her recollections, which would make them more interesting to read.

 

Keren and Sara confirmed Shuv didn't sing on some of those songs in the book. I suspect the ones they got solos on were those tracks.

 

I can hear her on the singles plus Come Back but nothing else. We know she took issue on Strike It Rich, S&K do the vocals on Bad For Me….. just not 100% sure on Some Girls or Once In A Lifetime as I can normally pick Siobhan out clearly but can’t on those.

 

It sounds like I'm wrong, but the deeper 'bad for me, I don't care' chorus backing vocals sound Siobhan-esque to me... though I can't spot her voice elsewhere on that track.

 

Hence we need a Siobhan book explaining her input or even better a leak of the stems from those WOW! sessions!

 

I think Siobhan doesn't sing on Some Girls or Bad For Me. They say she covered her mouth for the line Strike It Rich, but I sometimes think it is just Sara and Keren on the whole song.

It would have been fab had they released Some Girls right after I Want You Back. Jacquie could have taken the second verse, as Sara sings both verses on the album, and Keren sings the bridge. Bananarama and SAW doing Freestyle. Perhaps a slight remix for the single version, too. I daydream too much.

 

Some Girls, Bad For Me, Once In A Lifetime are for me as good as the singles - if not better.
My teenage mind was blown that a group would have such good songs hidden inside an album.

 

Some Girls would certainly have made a much better single than Nathan Jones, it's amazing. I always imagine that Once In A Lifetime would have been a great winter single. It's my favourite Banana ballad.

 

They should've continued the WOW! era a bit more I think, with more singles, the material was there.

 

Like a gay Thriller/Rhythm nation

 

Yeah I always found a bit weird they never released at least one more single off Wow! after I Want You Back. Nathan Jones released around late May with a re-release of Wow with mixes tacked on the end like they did in Australia, and with Jacquie on the cover, and then go full swing on the Greatest Hits era with two new songs.

I guess they were preparing the Japanese tour of '88 and the '89 World Tour, but waiting 6 months between singles after introducing a new member seems a long gap then.

Also, always found a bit disrespectful not including Jacquie on the Greatest Hits cover, despite having only released 1 song with them at the time. She was promoting it, after all.

 

Come Back and Once In a Lifetime should have been ~softer~ singles to show their versatility.

 

It would have been more disrespectful to Siobhan who sang on the majority of the songs to have had Jacqui on the front cover. They should have had Jacqui on the back cover at least.

 

I always thought it must have been very disheartening for Jacquie to have been left off the cover of the greatest hits despite being in the group at the time. Obviously Siobhan deserved her spot too having only recently left so something like this would have been more appropriate

 

Nah the cover was fine, just bad timing. Everyone knew Bananarama were three girls, having four women on the cover would've been bad marketing.

This would've been cute!

Or they could've had J on the repress cover after Help!

 

She was indeed, on my Spanish LP issue

 

I don't know, that seemed to be no problem for the Sugababes who had the same timeframe when Mutya left, then released a Best Of months later with Amelle on the cover.

 

That WAS a disgrace.