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"Venus" is a song by the band Shocking Blue, reaching number one on the Billboard Hot 100 on February 7, 1970. On July 18, 1981, Dutch act Stars on 45 reached number one with a medley which included the opening guitar riff from "Venus". Five years later, British girl group Bananarama covered the song and likewise scored a major hit worldwide: the song was number one on the Billboard Hot 100 for the week of September 6, 1986 and it was also the top single of 1986 in Australia. This makes it the only song in the history of the Billboard charts to hit number one three times (albeit the Stars on 45 song only included a portion of it). When auditioning for the Spice Girls in the early '90s, Victoria Beckham recorded a version of the song for a demo tape, never intending for it to actually be released. However, the original recording has since leaked onto the internet. The winner of the Eurovision Song Contest 2004, Ruslana, has recorded this song. Norweigan act Erlend Øye also recorded part of the song in a medley on his album that was part of the DJ-Kicks series. Japanese singer Hitomi has also covered this song in the "Japanese Girl" single as a B-side in 2005. It was also used as a Gillette Venus razor song, featuring Hitomi herself on a rock of a lagoon in Hawaii. (A different version was also included in North American ads by the same company.)
Bananarama version "Venus" had been a part of Bananarama's repertoire for several years before they recorded it. Group 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 Waterman (SAW), who had just recently scored a global hit producing Dead or Alive's "You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)". Dallin, Fahey, and Woodward were nearly completed recording their third album True Confessions with Jolley and Swain, and being fans of the Dead or Alive track, 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 U.K. The music video to the song received extensive play on MTV across the world and presented Bananarama in various costumes including a devil, a French temptress, a vampire, and Grecian goddesses. 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 the 1986 version was recently remixed by Marc Almond and included on their 2005 album Drama. Shocking Blue version Bananarama version Hitomi version Charts Bananarama version | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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