Official Chart Pop Gem #24: Bananarama – Love In The First Degree

This 1987 classic from the good-time girls of British pop finally gets Pop Gem status.

It’s tough being a girlband. While all boybands have to do is look dreamy, pull on a tight T-shirt and throw a few shapes, it always seems like girlbands have a lot more to prove. They’ll be criticised for their looks, singing voices, being too outspoken, not being outspoken enough, and accused of being bitchy or secretly hating each other – the list goes on.

So when it came to selecting a girlband classic for this week’s Pop Gem, we were very excited when suggestions started coming in for the first girl group to really not care what anyone thought of them and just have a laugh. Yes, it’s Sara, Keren and Siobhan. Bonjour Bananarama.

By the time we reach the release of the tune we chose for our Pop Gem, this week, Bananarama are already 11 Top 40 hits into their career. It’s October 1987 and the band are in something of an ‘imperial phase’. Their version of Venus had been a Number 1 hit in the US the previous year (Number 8 in the UK, believe it or not) and the girls had been working with men-of-the-moment producers Stock Aitken and Waterman on their album Wow! – packed with pop zingers as far as the eye could see.

But the zingiest of them all was Love In The First Degree, one of their biggest UK hits, reaching Number 3 in the Official Singles Chart. Sara, Keren and Siobhan performed the unashamedly fun track – which has more justice system references than a stenographer’s blog – at the 1988 BRIT Awards. Siobhan had already made the decision to leave the group and the bawdy performance, complete with oiled up male go-go dancers doing a spot of cardio in the middle of the Royal Albert Hall, was their last hurrah as the original trio. They had one more hit together, I Can’t Help It, before Siobhan ran off to her urgent appointment with a lot of eyeliner and black hair dye and formed Shakespear’s Sister.

A new member, Jacquie, only stuck around for one album, leaving Sara and Keren to continue as a duo. They still release and perform – their last Top 40 hit was 2005’s Look On The Floor (Hypnotic Tango) – and Love In The First Degree usually gets an airing at their concerts. Crowds at Bananarama gigs can often be heard shouting “Do Guilty!” when requesting the track; their cries usually met with an eye-roll from the ladies ("Yes, OK, let's do Guilty, as you lot call it.") before that famous drum beat kicks in. Their set was one of the biggest highlights of December 2012’s Hit Factory Live (which we are still talking about at Official Charts HQ – it was too amazing) and after all these years, they’re still best friends larking about having a laugh.

Watch Bananarama perform Love In The First Degree at the 1988 BRIT Awards. (It cuts to the official video after a minute and then goes back to the performance – we’re not sure why. Maybe someone accidentally taped the news over the middle part.)

Got a Pop Gem?

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