Bananarama - I'm Waiting (1999)

Following the departure of Jacquie O'Sullivan from the group in 1991, Bananarama continued as a duo of Sara Dallin and Keren Woodward, and scored another hit single, with 'Movin' On' hitting the UK Top 30 as the first single from their 1993 album 'Please Yourself'. More singles were extracted from the record, with a cover of the 1976 Andrea True Connection song 'More, More, More' reaching number 24, after which they left London Records for a deal with Form Records. Their next offering was 1995's 'Ultra Violet', which was only released in some European countries, North America, Japan, and Australia, but not in Britain. In 1998, Dallin and Woodward asked Fahey to join them to record the ABBA track 'Waterloo' for the Eurovision celebration 'A Song For Eurotrash' on Channel 4, although Fahey made it clear that it was a one-off, and that she was not formally re-joining the group. In 2001, Dallin and Woodward recorded the album 'Exotica' for the French label M6 Interactions, which included a cover of George Michael's 'Careless Whisper', alongside reinterpreted versions of four of their earlier hits, and some Latin- and R&B-influenced dance songs. It was produced by Pascal Caubet and was only issued in France in 2001, with two promo-only singles being released from the album, although 'If' was abandoned shortly before release. The album was not a commercial or critical success, and the few copies of 'If' which made it to the French market have become one of the rarest items ever by the band, heavily sought after by fans and collectors. While recording with Caubet, the group taped a number of additional songs which were left off the final track-listing, some of which have circulated on the internet since they leaked, so I've gathered them all up (including a drastically reworked version of 'Boom!') and compiled a companion record to 'Exotica', which could have followed that album in 2002 or 2003, to tide the fans over until 'Drama' emerged in 2005. 

Track listing

01 I'm Waiting
02 You And I
03 Your Love Tastes So Sweet
04 Middle Of Nowhere
05 Blue Skies
06 Be My Lover Tonight
07 Boom!
08 Breathe
09 You Are Not Me (Above The Clouds)
10 I Like It
11 U R My Baby

Bananarama - Nothing Lasts Forever (1989)

In 1988 Bananarama were is a state of flux, as after eight years as a trio producing a string of hit singles, Siobhan Fahey left the group. Her last gig as a member was performing 'Love In The First Degree' at the Brit Awards in February 1988, and she would later resurface as part of the BRIT Award–winning pop duo Shakespears Sister, alongside Marcella Detroit. After Fahey's exit, Jacquie O'Sullivan (formerly of the Shillelagh Sisters) joined in March 1988, and their next single 'I Want You Back' was re-recorded with O'Sullivan's vocals, as was The Supremes cover 'Nathan Jones'. 'Love, Truth And Honesty' was released as a single from their 1988 retrospective 'Greatest Hits Collection', and at the same time the group entered the Guinness Book of World Records as the all-female group who'd had the most UK chart entries in history, a record they still hold. Tensions soon began to appear within the new line-up though, with O'Sullivan complaining that there were no photographs of her displayed at the Soho launch of 'Greatest Hits Collection', and her bandmates were uncomfortable with her partying lifestyle, but these seem to have been resolved in time for their 1989 world tour. After the tour was complete, they started recording their fifth album with producers Stock, Aitken and Waterman (SAW), but were dissatisfied with the results of those sessions, thinking the majority of the songs were of sub-par quality, although 'Ain't No Cure' and 'Heartless' were eventually included on the album. They started looking for other producers, first working with David Z with whom the group recorded 'Some Boys', but felt it was not the direction they wanted to follow, and the song remained unreleased until 2013. They then worked with Steve Jolley who, along with Tony Swain, had produced the group's first three records, and one song co-written by him, 'Is Your Love Strong Enough', did end up on the album, while another remains unreleased. They settled with Youth, who had been Sara Dallin's boyfriend some years before, to produce the majority of the album. The record was a departure from Bananarama's previous albums as it incorporates a much more diverse range of musical genres, including flamenco guitar (on a cover of the Doobie Brothers song 'Long Train Running', featuring Alma de Noche, a pseudonym for the Gipsy Kings), retro-rock ('Only Your Love', 'Outta Sight'), acid house ('Tripping On Your Love'), reggae ('What Colour R The Skies Where U Live?'), experimental club ('Megalomaniac'), and their hallmark Euro disco sound ('Preacher Man', 'Ain't No Cure'). The band completely re-recorded the SAW track 'Ain't No Cure' with Youth, intending to place it on the album, but a furious response by SAW ultimately saw the band relent, and include the original recording on the album. On its release, 'Pop Life' received positive reviews from critics, although it just missed the UK Top 40 charts, and four mid-charting singles were issued from it. Following the release of 'Tripping On Your Love', O'Sullivan left the group, leaving founder members Sara Dallin and Keren Woodward to continue as a duo. Although the band were happier with the finished 'Pop Life' album, fans have often wondered what a completely SAW-produced album would have sounded like, and enough demos of the songs they recorded together have emerged over the years to piece it together and compare it to the officially released album, so here it is for you to decide which would have been the better record.   

Track listing

01 One In A Million

02 Outta Sight
03 Heartless
04 Long Train Running

05 Wake Up And Love Me

06 Don't Throw It All Away
07 Ain't No Cure
08 I Don't Care
09 Love Generation
10 Nothing Lasts Forever

Various Artists - Never Mind The Ballads (2010)

The current court case involving John Lydon and his former band-mates Steve Jones and Paul Cook, over whether the band's music can be used in a forthcoming biopic, reminded me just what a unique band The Sex Pistols were when they first appeared in 1976. This is borne out by the fact that I can't recall ever having heard a cover version of one of their songs - and although I know that there are loads out there, it's just that they aren't by any bands that I've ever been that interested in hearing. There are perhaps two exceptions, with Galaxie 500 covering 'Submission' for a John Peel session, and Bananarama attempting 'No Feelings' for the soundtrack to the 1982 film 'Party Party', but the rest have generally passed me by. I though that in the ensuing 40-odd years there must be some intriguing covers out there, so I attempted to put together an album along the lines of my earlier 'A Slow And Quiet Sabbath' post, with covers that almost verged on easy listening. It wasn't easy to find ballad versions of these most raucous punk songs, but mostly I managed it, and to my ears it sounds pretty good. The Bad Shepherds is the band led by former Young Ones star Adrian Edmundson, and adding pipes to 'Anarchy In The UK' was inspired. Hayseed Dixie can always be relied on to provide a yee-ha country twang to any song that they cover, while Nouvelle Vague and Sofia Allard & Carl-Michael Herlofsson really pull off the easy listening vibe. Hotrats were a band formed as a side project by former Supergrass members Danny Goffey and Gaz Coombes, and Twinkle Twinkle Little Rock Star make albums full of lullabye versions of punk classics, and in the end I found a subdued version of every track from the 'Never Mind The Bollocks' album, now retitled as 'Never Mind The Ballads' (and I know they're not all strictly speaking ballads, but the title was too good not to use).      

Track listing

01 Holidays In The Sun (Hayseed Dixie)
02 Bodies (Veruca Salt)
03 No Feelings (Bananarama)
04 Liar (Micro Grande)
05 God Save The Queen (Nouvelle Vague)
06 Problems (Twinkle Twinkle Little Rock Star)
07 Seventeen (Detune)
08 Anarchy In The UK (The Bad Shepherds)
09 Submission (Galaxie 500)
10 Pretty Vacant (Sofia Allard & Carl-Michael Herlofsson)
11 New York (Opium Jukebox)
12 E.M.I. (The Hotrats)