Rate Please Yourself!

Ave. rating: 3.5 from 11 votes.

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In 1992, after both the departure of both Jacquie O'Sullivan and Hilary Shaw, their long time manager, Bananarama were coming to a point where they were beginning to run out of steam. New ideas were frantically being throuwn about as to how new life could be breathed into the group. One such idea, from Pete Waterman was that they should use ABBA as a template and in his words create "ABBABANANA"!

Returning to Stock/Waterman (Aitken had left, rather ackrimoniously) after their collaboration with Youth on the fabulous Pop Life album (their most experimental to date), must have felt like a huge step backwards to the girls. and unfortunately it shows. This album was somewhat of a let down. Movin' On would have to be the stand out track. A perfect song about leaving the past where it belongs, and getting on in life. It could be seen as a song about Jacquie, but is also ironic as the group steps backwards by going back to S/W to work.

The other tracks, while they're good songs, seem to lack the punch and excitement of their previous work with SAW, or the drive of their work on Pop Life. It's almost like a cabaret version of Bananarama, instead of the hard dance beats of their previous work. I remember someone describing it as karaoke, or Bananarama taking the mickey out of Bananarama! Upon further listens though, it grew on me, as it was classic Nana's harmonies and melodies. Steps' version of Last Thing On My Mind is musically stronger, and perhaps the girls could've used an edit of the Hi-NRG mix as their single instead, which may have been more successful.

The cover of More, More, More is a great update of the old Andrea True Connection tune. Other songs worthy of a mention would have to be Is She Good To You, Only Time Will Tell, You're Never Satisfied and particularly You'll Never Know What It Means, which had the potential to be harder edged dance sounding. Perhaps one of these songs (particularly Only Time Will Tell, or You'll Never Know What It Means) would've been better choices for singles. Give It All Up For Love is probably the strongest track in terms of a good beats and a solid sound, whereas most of the other songs sound more airy and toned down. I Could Be Persuaded, is an interesting ballad, dominated by the male backing vocals.

Limited copies of the CD featured a bonus CD of classic Bananarama remixes, available for the first time on CD (also available on Cassette), However this failed to incentivise any big spending by the pulic and the album sadly stallled in September 1993 at a dismal UK#46.