Listen to Bananarama's new single Masquerade below: We used to sit, twiddling buttons, and now things take two seconds. The technology’s there, so it’s always going to sound more current.

Now, when we’re in the studio, the tools we have to hand mean things aren’t so longwinded like they were in the eighties. Sara: Yeah, that album sounds so heavily eighties but brings it up-to-date. Keren: I’ve loved watching how The Weeknd’s evolved Save Your Tears and that whole album was great. It also helps that the eighties are experiencing a huge revival right now. There is this revival of the eighties sounds, so it might be a case of us being in the right place at the right time, but electro-pop is definitely where we’re happiest.

Sara: We never sit down and think ‘let’s see what’s on trend’ or ‘let’s write in this vein.’ We always write from the heart and don’t follow fashions. It's a nod to the past, but also feels very current and chart-ready. This album is quintessentially Bananarama. Keren: I think, as much as we always did what we wanted to do and planned our own moves, in hindsight you can always think ‘we could’ve done that differently, even better.’ But you learn by your mistakes. We’ve reached a really great point in our career. Times have changed, you can release your own stuff without a huge record company. We weren’t manufactured, so we wrote our own music and dressed the way we wanted to, but we didn’t know anything about the business. In the beginning we didn’t really know what we were doing, it was completely new but we tried to keep control as much as we could. Sara: This has been a very self-sufficient decade for us. Hey, Bananarama! You're really doing things your own way with the Masquerade album. Speaking to Official Charts, the band reflect on four decades of Bananarama, how they fought 'twice as hard' to be heard and why they've no plans to stop any time soon. The timing couldn't be more apt, the group having shaped the pop scene since their very first release in '81.Ĭelebrating 40 years in music, Sara Dallin and Keren Woodward have released the infectious title track from their upcoming twelfth studio album. So, it makes total sense for Bananarama to return with their brand new album Masquerade. From The Weeknd and Dua Lipa's synth-pop sounds to Kate Bush's unprecedented surge in streaming numbers, the eighties continue to influence the current musical landscape.

Maskerade music