Bananarama – Wow!

I’m not gonna have a lot to say about Bananarama, a British girl group. In those cruel summers of the mid-’80s, they seemed like pure pop perfection, and I enjoyed the heck out of their singles. This album, their fourth, included “I Heard A Rumour,” “I Can’t Help It,” and “Nathan Jones” as the standout tracks (to my ears). A bigger hit in the UK (and No. 1 in Australia) than in the US, it featured slick ’80s production. It’s a period piece, but mostly a fun period piece.

I bought it used (a promo copy for $3.99), and I’m pretty sure I bought it after getting the greatest hits collection, in order to see if there was more to the group than what their hits revealed. There was not, really. Other than the songs that ended up on my mix tapes, I listened to it in album form not at all.

In fact, just for the sake of this blog, I gave the entire disc another listen. It was not easy. Everything about the production sounds dated and grating (as most stuff from the mid-’80s does). I did not uncover a forgotten gem. In fact, I wondered how I had been able to like the songs that I did like – this kind of production is not my thing.