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"Venus" was covered by girl group Bananarama, reaching number six in 1986.
The song is a 1969 number-one song by the Dutch band The Shocking Blue, which again reached number four in 1990 based on a remix version.
"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 met with resistance from their producers at the time, Steve Jolley and Tony Swain. Undaunted, the women brought the idea to the production trio of Stock, Aitken, and Waterman, or S.A.W., who had just recently scored a global hit producing Dead or Alive's "You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)."
Venus - Bananarama
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An excerpt from Bananarama's 1986 version of Venus
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Dallin, Fahey, and Woodward had nearly completed recording their third album, titled True Confessions, with Jolley and Swain, and being fans of the Dead or Alive selection, they sought out the SAW team in order to make their version of "Venus" sound like "You Spin Me Round." Ironically, 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, Venezuela, Norway, Portugal, Spain, and their native UK (#8 on UK Singles Chart).
The music video to the song received extensive play on MTV across the world and presented Bananarama in various costumes, including a she-devil, a French temptress, a vampiress, and several Grecian goddesses; only in one sequence of the video, however, was The Birth of Venus, the painting by Sandro Botticelli, reenacted. The video marked a pivotal shift towards a more glamourous and sexual image that contrasted with the tomboyish style of their earlier work.
The collaboration on "Venus" led Bananarama and SAW to work together on the group's follow-up album Wow! the following year.
Bananarama has since re-recorded the track for their 2001 album Exotica and it was recently remixed by Marc Almond, with re-recorded vocals, and included on their 2005 album Drama.
Bananarama version in popular culture
* Included in the film Romy and Michele's High School Reunion
* Included in the film American Wedding
* The music video was seen and commented on by Beavis and Butthead.
* The song is a major part of Gillette advertisements.
* It was the first ever song which a contestant on the UK version of Don't Forget the Lyrics failed to complete
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