Monday Music...".Venus" by Bananarama

My Apologies to my readers,   I have been busy with scouts and work and was too brain fried..well more brain fried than normal.   I was unable to publish my Monday Music on Monday and Tuesday.  I almost didn't decide to publish it today because soo much time has elapsed.  But I decided to do it anyway.    I was racking my brain because normally I get an idea for a song while I am going to work or on the way home...but I was riding the bike this week so I had no music from my Sirius XM.  Well I decided to roll with "Venus" by Bananarama.  There was an older version by "Shocking Blue".  I found this out much later since the Bananarama version was the first version I had heard.
     This song came out while I was stationed at Fort Devens and I would catch the video on MTV in the breakroom where we all congregated at waiting to march to class.   Bananarama was part of what I called the "Girl bands" from the 80's like the Go'sGo's and the Bangles.  I liked all of them..they may be a bit corny by today's standards, they did have talent to have several hits and the music video's did help their popularity.

True Confessions is the third album by the British girl group Bananarama. Released in 1986, the album was not a commercial success in the UK, but achieved their biggest sales and chart success in the U.S., making the US top 20. The lead single "Venus" hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100 (an achievement they never obtained in their home country).

"Venus" had been a part of Bananarama's repertoire for several years before they actually recorded it. The team's three members, Sara Dallin, Siobhan Fahey, and Keren Woodward, had the idea of turning the song into a dance music tune, but they were met with resistance from their producers at the time, Steve Jolley and Tony Swain. Bananarama brought the idea to the production trio of Stock Aitken Waterman, and it became Bananarama's first collaboration with them.
Dallin, Fahey, and Woodward had nearly completed recording their third album, titled True Confessions, with Jolley and Swain. Stock, Aitken and Waterman also resisted the idea because they believed that "Venus" would not make a good dance record. After persistence by the women, SAW relented, and the result was a worldwide smash. Bananarama's "Venus" went to number one in the U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Switzerland, Mexico, and South Africa. It hit number two in Germany and Hong Kong and was a top ten success in Italy, Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, Portugal, Spain, and their native UK (#8 on UK Singles Chart). It also went to number one for two weeks on the U.S. Dance chart.
The collaboration on "Venus" led Bananarama and SAW to work together on the group's follow-up album Wow! the following year.
A new mix of the track appeared as b-side to the 1989 limited release "Megarama '89" in Germany and France. Bananarama has since re-recorded the track for their 2001 album Exotica and it was later remixed by Marc Almond, with re-recorded vocals, and included on their 2005 album Drama.

The music video for the song received extensive play on MTV and video channels across the world, and presented Bananarama in various costumes, including a she-devil, a French temptress, a vampiress, and several Grecian goddesses. In one sequence of the video, The Birth of Venus, the painting by Sandro Botticelli, was reenacted. The video marked a pivotal shift towards a more glamorous and sexual image for the girls that contrasted with the tomboyish style in their earlier work. Choreography by Bruno Tonioli. Music video directed by Peter Care.