Bananarama celebrate over 40 years at the top with the release of ‘Glorious – The Ultimate Collection’ on March 8th, 2024. They launch the album alongside the euphoric new track ‘Feel the Love’, which continues the stellar form they established with 2022’s ‘Masquerade’. In addition, they also announce details of a special London Palladium show on Wednesday 3rdApril, 2024.
‘Glorious- The Ultimate Collection’ effectively charts the lives of founder members Sara Dallin and Keren Woodward via their personally curated career highlights. It takes them from the early days of breaking through with ‘Really Saying Something’ with Fun Boy Three through to their phenomenal ‘80s success (‘Cruel Summer’, ‘Venus’, ‘Love In The First Degree’, ‘Robert De Niro’s Waiting’ and many more), ‘90s (‘Only your Love’, ‘Preacher Man’, ‘Movin’ On’ and ‘Last Thing on My Mind’) and into 2005 when they were riding flying high in the singles chart with ‘Move In My Direction’ and the US dance chart smash ‘Look on The Floor (Hypnotic Tango)’
But the Bananarama story certainly didn’t stop there. Touring and recording constantly, they founded their own IN SYNK label and embarked upon a remarkable resurgence which saw the 2019 album ‘In Stereo’ introduce them to a whole new generation with a show-stealing set at Glastonbury and win Classic Pop’s Best Pop Album award. Last year’s ‘Masquerade’ was stronger still and held special personal significance for the duo as Sara’s daughter Alice co-wrote a handful of the album’s tracks. Sara and Keren also covered one of Alice’s own songs, ‘Favourite’, which is included here in this collection. And in addition to ‘Feel the Love’, the collection includes another brand-new track in the shape of the pulsating ‘Supernova’ as well as a new version of ‘Cruel Summer (3am Mix)’.
Not only are Bananarama immortalised in the Guinness World of Records for the most internationally charted hits by an all-female group, they’ve remained an ongoing and vital pop presence. It’s also testament to the duo’s enduring talents as they wrote or co-wrote almost every song in this 40-track collection. Sara says, “We wanted this to be a unique collection, a celebration of all the twists and turns in our career. We compiled endless lists of songs, album tracks and hit singles and whittled it down to forty: our favourite tracks from the past four decades. Leafing through my early lyric books transported me back to that teenage girl writing poems and scribbles that would eventually be turned into songs. Each track … is a piece of the jigsaw and a connection to me. Together they create the bigger picture, the story of us as artists. It has been one almighty journey.”
Keren adds, “At times we have maybe felt that we haven’t received the credit, respect, and recognition we deserve, certainly sometimes purely down to the fact we were born female. I feel the collection of songs we have amassed over the last four decades hopefully speak for themselves, so I don’t have to. Putting the music together for this project… made me realise how much we have achieved and how determined, tenacious, and hardworking we are.”
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