Rate WOW!

Ave. rating: 4.5 from 13 votes.

ExcellentVery GoodGoodFairPoor

In 1987, Bananarama released their fourth album - WOW! The title was inspired by the WOW emblazoned on the girls knickers in the I Heard A Rumour video and was apparently suggested by Dave Stewart. The band also decided that it could be an acronym for "Wild Or What". Wow is the last album to feature the contribution of co-founding member, Siobhan Fahey and produced five UK Top 20 singles: I Heard A Rumour (UK#14) Love In The First Degree (UK#3), I Can't Help It (UK#20), I Want You Back (UK#5), and Nathan Jones (UK#15) with release dates spanning from July 1987 to December 1988. Ever since Bananarama's collaboration with producers Stock/Aitken/Waterman on Venus, Bananarama have been wrongly condemned as "just another S/A/W act" - this is such an injustice considering that WOW is the only full album that they recorded with S/A/W (although S/A/W also produced a two tracks for Pop Life and a couple of singles in 1988/89) until 1993 (when bullied/persuaded to record their ill-fated Please Yourself album). Bananarama are also one of the few acts under the production guidance of S/A/W to have directly contributed to their music - insisting on co-writing every track with them.

Legend has it has that during the writing of its album, Siobhan refused to write any songs about love. Considering that pop songs are quintessentially about love - this was a daunting task (and keeping in mind Bananarama's ill-fated previous attempts to not write love songs, e.g. Hot Line To Heaven, Rough Justice, King Of The Jungle, Hooked On Love). Siobhan was apparently persuaded to writing songs without mentioning the word love. Consequently, WOW! is an album about relationships, and all bar one of the Bananarama written songs do not directly mention "Love". The exception is Love In The First Degree. The outcome on Wow is a forced effort to describe relationships using clever metaphors and euphemisms.

However, during the writing of the WOW album, tensions between the band and megalomaniac Peter Waterman became increasingly stiffling. More often than not, Pete Waterman's presence in the recording studio would catalyse into furious and heated arguments. In an attempt to smooth over their animosity, Pete was absent from the studio during the recording sessions. Dissension was also growing between Sarah/Keren and Siobhan. Siobhan was becoming increasingly dissatisfied with the creative process, no longer satisfied with gimpy pop music as a thirty-year old, she wanted more grown-up music and less banal pop and ultimately envisaged Bananarama as the antithesis of the traditional girl-group. This contrasts with Sarah and Keren whom were more satisfied to be a modern-day Supremes pop act. Troubles came to a head during the recording of the track Strike It Rich - Siobhan felt that the lyrics promoted materialism which she found disgusting and thus refused to sing the line "gotta keep on going 'til you strike it rich" . Her objections were so strong that during the recording of the vocals she would dramatically place her hand over her mouth to indicate her refusal to sing. However, she was over-ruled and the track made it onto the album.

Release History

Irrespective of recording difficulties, Bananarama managed to collate a strong collection of pop songs that stand as a strong testament to the variety of styles of pop music that prevailed in the mid 80s. Irrespective of what the "serious music press" thought of the album - WOW! is a tribute of 80s pop and stands beside Faith as a classic UK pop album. Bananarama's efforts were rewarded with strong sales of the album. Initially the album was printed on all three formats - with the LP (also available as a gatefold) and cassette versions including the standard ten tracks (some cassettes included two bonus 12" versions of Strike It Rich and Some Girls). The CD issues supplanted the standard versions of Strike It Rich and Some Girls with the 12" versions - making digital versions of the standard versions of these two songs rare. Bananarama also increased their "not-too-serious" image by using extensive pictures from the I Heard A Rumour shoots on the inner sleeves. Infact the most innocuous of the photos appeared in the CD inlay. Also, during WOW! Bananarama attempted to adopt a new "symbol" on their records. From Aie A Mwana to More Than Physical the Kooky Bird and Fish had appeared on all the UK 12" singles - the WOW! LP was supposed to replace this symbol with a red cupid - but it never took off.

The first three singles (I Heard A Rumour/Love In The First Degree/I Can't Help It) are a tribute to Bananarama's new-found fun with fabulous accompanying videos (directred by Andy Morahan). By 1988 it was obvious that Siobhan was less involved with the band. She had been steadily withdrawing from interviews and promotion duties and spending more time with her new husband (Dave Stewart) and her son Sam (born Nov '87). At the peak of their career, they finally earnt themselves a BPI award for Love In The First Degree. By this stage, everyone behind-the-scenes knew of Siobhan's pending departure to form her own musical vehicle, and in great Bananarama tradition they decided to "go all out" for Siobhan's farewell performance. The result was a risque performance at the BPI awards in February 1988: Bananarama decked out fourteen male dancers in socks and knickers to parade around behind them, while they paraded around in tight black frocks. Such a mocking anti-stereotypical exploitation of men was unheard of in the mid-late 80s and was a dig at all the misogynist rock bands who had been using pretty girls to doll up their videos for years. What Bananarama had started in jest, the sexploitation of men in their videos for their amusement, turned into a major fashion for all female acts - the development of himbos in pop videos. Of course, using well-oiled well-tanned and well-greased male dancers in their videos also accellerated their gay appeal and boosted their camp status significantly (already high from the overt campness of the Venus video complete with S&M overtones).

Of course, after the departure of Siobhan, Bananarama were peruaded that they were very much visualised in the public eye as a trio and needed to recruit a new member. Sara and Keren were more comfortable with being a duo, but conceded that their image did evolve around three friends - friendship had always been the common denominator in their band (talent was peripheral). Sarah thought of a good friend of their's - Jacquie O'Sullivan - who had been a mate in the formative Bananarama years and had since formed and disbanded her own girl-band The Shillelagh Sisters. With Siobhan gone, Jacquie was substituted to take her place as the new girl (a label which grew heavy after four years, and she too succumbed in 1991).

With their new member, Bananarama set to re-recording the vocals on their new track - I Want You Back (complete with Kylie-esque I-I-I-I-I's) which was chosen for its apt title and instant S/A/W pop sensibility. Timed with new-found interest in the band because of their new member, the song peaked at UK#5 giving Jacquie a baptism by fire. WOW! was re-issued to capitalise on the success of the I Want You Back single, appearing as a new gatefold LP issued with a bonus 12" featuring The Bananarama Mega-Mix, Ecstasy & Mister Sleaze. The single version of I Want You Back also supplanted the previous album version. In Australia, this second issue was also released as a 13 track CD (including both the 12" versions & standard versions of Some Girls & Strike It Rich as well as The Bananarama Mega-Mix).

The departure of Siobhan also coincided with rumours of Bananarama as "the most successful British All-Girl Group" based on Top 40 singles, and these two events made the perfect platform for the issue of Bananarama's The Greatest Hits Collection in October 1988. But one more single from WOW! was issued, (albeit with the interim single Love Truth & Honesty in between) Nathan Jones was resurrected and remixed nine times over to be issued as a single in December 1988 and was also nomiated for "Best Video" at the BPI Awards that year. Two versions of Nathan Jones remain that are obviously Siobhan-vocal versions; the album version, and the Bass Tone Mix (which is a slightly extended album version): theoretically the remaining seven mixes retain Jacquie's vocals.