Bananarama - In Stereo

2019 release from the veteran British pop duo. For the past three decades, Bananarama's Sara Dallin and Keren Woodward have been one of pop's most influential and revered groups. Their hit packed career happened because they were the mould-breakers. Sometimes reminders of pop genius come in the slightest of touches, the subtlest of triggers. In Stereo, their 11th studio album, is full of them. The electro pulses throbbing through newly revealed track 'Dance Music'; the moody echo vocal effect on the bridge of 'I'm On Fire'; the boisterous Saturday night pure disco 'Stuff Like That'; the Blondie-ish buzz to 'Looking for Someone'; the spare, house music bassline to 'Tonight'. Finishing on a ballad, as all the best Bananarama albums do, on the sad and gorgeous 'On Your Own'. In Stereo is Bananarama back to their pinnacle best, a ten-track total recall on their irresistible pop storytelling capacity. The band have also collaborated with producer royalty Richard X on the stomper 'Love In Stereo'. Richard is not just one of UK pop's great pop producers, he's one of it's great scholars, too. Bananarama are, self-evidently, one of it's greatest parables, the group who shoved the door open for girls in pop to do things entirely on their terms as the '80s mopped up the mess of punk and turned it into something real and affecting.