Bananarama
's first album is by far their best. Before they fell in with the lucrative but often boring
Stock, Aitken & Waterman
assembly line starting with 1986's
True Confessions
,
Siobhan Fahey
Sarah Dallin
, and
Keren Woodward
were unashamedly poppy, but they had enough artistic credibility to create a debut album that, barring a couple of small missteps, actually works as an album instead of a collection of singles with some filler. (They were even hip enough for their first single to be produced by ex-
Sex Pistol
Paul Cook
.) Of course, the singles are terrific. There are four British chart hits in these 11 songs, and every one of them still sounds terrific, where later hits like
"I Can't Help It"
are terribly dated. The slinky
"Shy Boy"
and a rattling cover of
the Marvelettes
'
"He Was Really Sayin' Somethin'"
(co-starring the trio's early mentors
Fun Boy Three
) are classic
girl group
songs updated for the '80s, every bit as credible as any mid-level
Spector
or
Motown
singles. That
Cook
-produced debut single,
"Aie a Mwana"
(oddly left off the album's first U.S. edition), now sounds mostly like a curio of the brief tropical craze that hit the U.K. in 1981/1982, but
"Cheers Then"
is a heartbreaker, an absolutely lovely lost-love song that's possibly the best thing
ever did and certainly one of the top singles to come out of Great Britain in 1982. Surprisingly, though,
Deep Sea Skiving
has some album tracks that are the equal of the singles. A funky version of
Paul Weller
's
"Doctor Love"
(originally written for
Weller
's then-girlfriend
Tracie Young
, whose version came out in 1984) is a killer, as is the countrified
"Young at Heart,"
written by the trio and
Fahey
's then-boyfriend,
Robert Hodgens
of
the Bluebells
(who did their own version on 1984's
Sisters
). Three more
Dallin
/
Woodward
compositions present a well-rounded portrait of young girls on their own in the big city, with the bouncy, glammy
"Hey Young London"
like a night out on the town and the resentful
"What a Shambles,"
a morning-after snit about an out-of-touch star from the point of view of three struggling working-class girls. It's the closing
"Wish You Were Here,"
though, that caps the album's widely varied moods with a romantic wistfulness that's like the emotional flip side of
"Cheers Then."
is not perfect.
"Boy Trouble"
is awfully slight, and a cover of
Steam
"Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye"
is okay, but basically pointless. Still, it's
's finest album by far, and an underappreciated
pop
gem of its era. ~ Stewart Mason