Bananarama Venus Zippy
For their second album, underwent a telling change in persona, from the flyaway-haired, overall-clad everygirls of into a sleeker and glammier look. Similarly, the album has a much more polished feel than the occasionally scattershot debut, which is not always a good thing; sticking with and to produce the whole thing (the duo had shared production duties with three others on the debut), traded their early tropical-tinged playfulness and ironic overtones for a more commercial sound that scored well on the charts (the terrific opener 'Cruel Summer' was a worldwide hit, and several other tracks were U.K. Hits) but was less unique than before. What's most unusual about is the content of the songs.
Lyrically, the album is surprisingly serious, with topics ranging from sectarian violence in Ireland ('Rough Justice') to domestic violence ('King of the Jungle') to drug use ('Hot Line to Heaven'), none of which are in keeping with the trio's frothy image. Indeed, under the singalong chorus, the album's best track, 'Robert de Niro's Waiting,' turns out to be the traumatized musings of a teenage rape victim, set to an improbably dreamy, carefree melody.
Even comparatively light songs like 'State I'm In' and 'Dream Baby' have an oddly paranoid tone to them. Of course, the detour into mature themes didn't last long, as the group's next album introduced the chart-bound frivolity of into the picture, but in an intriguing and often excellent side trip. Important discographical curiosity: original U.S.
Copies of included an extended seven-minute take of 'Hot Line to Heaven.' After the fall 1984 release of the single 'The Wild Life' (the theme to 's second movie), U.S. Copies of were altered to include the new single at the start of side two, followed by the superior single edit of 'Hot Line to Heaven.'
Bananarama Venus Album
A full generation has grown up thinking of Bananarama's admittedly fine high-energy dance cover of 'Venus' as the definitive version of the song; many undoubtedly don't even know it's a cover. It's a shame, because the Shocking Blue's original 1970 single has a creepy atmosphere that suits the foreboding lyrics better than Bananarama's speedy electro-stomp. Taken at a more measured tempo, with a prominent acoustic rhythm guitar loping along behind an extremely of-its-time electric piano part, the arrangement evokes a certain mystery, and lead singer Mariska Veres (a Hungarian-born Gypsy) sings with a tantalizingly hard to place accent that makes even her obvious mispronunciations - she sings the first line as 'The god-ness on the mountaintop' - oddly alluring. Taken as a whole, it's all slightly cheesy, but compared to the rest of the so-called 'Dutch Invasion' of 1970 (heard 'Little Green Bag' recently?), it's a small pop masterpiece.