"Cruel Summer" & Bananarama: How the New Wave Ronettes Dominated The 80s I New British Canon

As a sub-genre, girl groups have gifted us with so many moments of pop perfection. For the most part these were groups assembled by a producer for the purpose of creating chart hits with little musical input from the performers. But formed in 1981, Bananarama were different.

Spurred on by the DIY ethos of punk and the out-there fashion of the New Romantics, they hit the scene in Doc Martens, dungarees and bird-nest hair, self-possessed and spewing hits. A bevy of early covers would make way for some of the finest British pop of the 1980s - their calling card a scorching dog day confection infused with shambolic dance moves and the mother of all marimba lines. This is New British Canon and this is the Story of “Cruel Summer.”

#bananarama #80spop #musicdocumentary

Fact-checking by Chad Van Wagner.

Thanks also to Bananarama Fan Club and London Records for having archived a lot of this footage

00:00 Introduction
01:20 Keren Woodward, Sarah Dallin & Siobhan Fahey
04:45 The Early Singles of Bananarama
11:54 "Cruel Summer" & Being Taken Seriously
20:05 Stock Aitken Waterman, "Venus" & Their Legacy

Bibliography
Really Saying Something: Sara & Keren - Our Bananarama Story by Sara Dallin & Keren Woodward, 2020, Hutchinson London
Sweet Dreams: The Story of the New Romantics by Dylan Jones, 2020, Faber
Young Guns Go For It: Bananarama (1999) dir. Kate Meynell
Smash! - The Bananarama Story (2002) dir. Roz Edwards
"Fun Boy Three & Bananarama" by Ian Birch, Smash Hits, Jan 1982
"Meet Bananarama — Three Fun Girls With A-Peel" by Toby Goldstein, Creem, Dec 1982
"Bananarama: Q&A" by Neil Tennant, Smash Hits, Jun 1983
"Bananarama: We All Broke Down And Cried" by Ian Birch, Smash Hits, Mar 1984
"Bananarama: Mean Streaks and True Confessions" by Susan Williams, NME, Apr 1984
"A few home truths about Bananarama" by Chris Heath, Smash Hits, Aug 1985
"Bananarama: These Charming Girls" by Iman Lababedi, Creem, Dec 1986
"Who the hell do BANANARAMA think they are?" by Tom Hibbert, Q Magazine, Sep 1988
"Bananarama: Girls Together Outrageously" by Caroline Sullivan, Melody Maker, Jul 1990
"Bananarama: Sisters Undie The Skin" by Betty Page, NME, May 1991
"The Producers" by Richard Buskin, Recording Musician, Apr 1993
"What makes a great summer pop hit?" by Jude Rogers, The Guardian, Jul 2009
"'We're like teenagers again': Bananarama peel back the years" by Liz Jones, Daily Mail, Aug 2009
"Interview With Tony Swain" by Jez Wells, Journal on the Art of Record Production, Apr 2015
"‘People wet their knickers when they find out I was in Bananarama’: the 80s trio return" by Rebecca Nicholson, The Guardian, Apr 2017
"'Did you enjoy being pregnant?' - Bananarama revisit old Smash Hits questions" by Mark Savage, BBC, Apr 2017
"We Heard A Rumour… – Bananarama Interview" by uncredited, Classic Pop, Aug 2017
"Bananarama: how we made Robert De Niro's Waiting" by Jack Watkins, The Guardian, Nov 2017
"‘She can’t wear heels, she’ll be taller than me’: why I left my girl band" by Malcolm Mackenzie, The Guardian, Jan 2019
"The Number Ones: Bananarama’s “Venus”" by Tom Breihan, Stereogum, Jan 2021
"Album By Album: Bananarama" by Mark Lindores, Classic Pop, Mar 2022
"Bananarama look back: ‘The dresses were fitted with chicken wire – and totally extraordinary’" by Harriet Gibsone, The Guardian, Jul 2022
"Bananarama on gay bars, LGBTQ+ fans and the 80s: ‘Cher booted us off stage’" by Patrick Kelleher, PinkNews, Jul 2022

Soundtrack
Luar - Citrine (  / luarbeats  )
Jesse Gallagher - The Golden Present
Luar - Into (  / luarbeats  )
Luar - Anchor (  / luarbeats  )

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