In September 1979, friends Siobhan Fahey, Sarah Dallin and Keren Woodward formed a pop group. Their first demo, a version of an obscure song sung in Swahili, was heard by Demon Records which led to the girls getting signed by Decca. Their big break came when they were snapped up for a Fun Boy Three collaboration, "Really Sayin' Something" in 1983. The song hit the Top 5 and the landscape of popular music was changed forever. Previously, you couldn't have a hit with three old slags singing out of tune. Now, you could.

HATS!

The 'nana's scored more hits off their debut album "Deep Sea Skiving", including "Shy Boy" and "Na Na Na (Hey Hey)", both following the previous template of the three girls singing chorus-like into the same microphone at the same time, meaning no-one had to do anything clever like harmonise. My favourite Bananarama song is "Cheers Then".

The "Bananarama" album in 1984 was a more serious effort, mixing pop and rape. "Cruel Summer" was a notable hit, and the girls appeared on "Do They Know It's Christmas" by Band Aid, enabling them to later become the only act to appear on both this and the 1989 re-make (they would be seen around the stage door of the "Band Aid 20" remake many more years later, but nobody would let them in).

The bands biggest success arrived, however, on the gold-plated back of one Uncle Pete Waterman, who snapped them up during sessions for their "True Confessions" album in 1986. The result was "Venus", a massive dance hit. Despite the girls not being able to sing, or dance, and looking a bit like scrubbers, Uncle Pete would ensure their success to the end of the decade.

"Wow" - hit laden

The next album, "Wow", was a wholly PWL effort, spawning the hits "I Heard a Rumour", "I Can't Help It" and "Love In The First Degree", all of which went Top 10. Meanwhile, Siobhan announced she was bisexual, yet this didn't stop her from snaffling up Dave Stewart's love baguette - she married the crazy Eurythmics Synth God and left the group.

It looked as though the Nana's were doomed.

The Jacquie O'Sullivan Years - a young Maren of the Sisterhood of Karn

The group employed beak-nosed chanteuse Jacquie O'Sullivan to replace Fahey. Smash Hits would soon feature her in their article "The One No-One Fancies" listing the most undesirable member of various current pop bands. In canny Sugababes-esque fashion, the band re-recorded "I Want You Back" and "Nathan Jones" with O'Sullivan and released a Greatest Hits. In 1989, they recorded a cover of the Beatles "Help!" and got French and Saunders to dress up as them in the video for Comic Relief. Joe Public laughed heartily, and the single reached Number 3. Twas the last flutter of success.

Jacquie was worried the band were auditioning for her replacement

Alas, things were never quite the same after the line-up change, and "Pop Life" (1991) scored lesser hits, the lost single "Only Your Love" being the highest charting, and that barely scraped the Top 30. Jacquie then left to form her own band, Slippery Feet, (squealing that her involvement with the two Wives of Frankenstein had been "purely a business deal") and was NEVER HEARD OF AGAIN. Until she turned up recently as a lesbian like nightclub owner.

An old dog, yesterday

Undeterred, the 'Nana's entered the duo/wilderness years. The "Please Yourself" album in 1993 reduced them to covering Steps and, again, the well of Top 20 hits remained bone dry. For "Ultra Violet" (1995) the hits dried up completely, and they were last heard from covering George Michael for a French-only single in 2001. Pity the Keren.

Peter Cunnah of D:Ream insulted them at an awards ceremony, so the control-no-ladylike's beat the shit out of him, Dallin grabbing his face and Woodward kicking his legs as he fell to the ground. Nice.

Dallin - grabbed a gay man's face

In 1998, Fahey returned from the mists to perform a shabby rendition of "Waterloo" with Keren and Sarah on Channel 4 soft porn outing Eurotrash. In 2001, following the flop "Exotica" album, they released another "Best Of" and performed at a 20th Anniversary concert at London Astoria. Some attendees may have been homosexual.

In 2005, there was a surprising comeback when Keren and Sarah, looking oddly younger than they did in 1981, scored a Top 20 hit (their first since 1991) with "Move in my Direction", a song uncannily like Geri Halliwell's "Ride It". However, the "Drama" album flopped like a bendy old jumbo sausage at #169 in the charts. Bizarrely, "Hypnotic Tango" was their first US hit since 1992, however.

In March 2007, all the tatty old albums were re-issued with bonus tracks, a treat reserved only for bands and groups that no-one really loves anyway. Dallin and Woodward last climbed out their coffins for Retrofest in September 2007.

They're the 189th most successful chart act of all time, ahead of both Dr Hook and Timmy Mallett.

The excitingly titled "Greatest Hits and More More More" (ooh, songs that wern't hits as well? You are spoiling us!) is odd in that it re-uses the cover of the previous "Greatest Hits" as part of its design. And for frick's sake, how unfair of them is it to omit Jacquie from the cover again? At least the song sung in Swahili is on here. And "Cheers Then". No "Help" though!!

"The Drama Remixes Volume 1" has got to have niche appeal. VOLUME 1?!?



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Bananarama today - like Eternal, only younger looking