Bananarama originally consisted of Sara Dallin, Keren Woodward and Siobhan Fahey. Dallin and Woodward had been school friends growing up in Bristol and they met Fahey when they moved to London to study fashion. Their first single, called ‘Aie a Mwana’, was a song with Swahili lyrics. They had their first UK chart success when they teamed up with Fun Boy Three who consisted of a number of members of the band The Specials. Bananarama would go on to score 30 UK hits (this counts the ’89 remix of ‘Cruel Summer’ separately to the original ’83 mix) and by the end of the 80’s were second only to The Supremes for number of UK hits by an all-girl group (they have subsequently dropped to 3rd with Little Mix having past both them and The Supremes). They would see 9 US chart hits and would top the charts there with ‘Venus’. Their best peak in the UK would be number 3 which they managed with 3 of their hits. In 1987 Fahey married Dave Stewart from the Eurythmics and a year later (after Bananarama had seen their last SA chart hit) Fahey left the band. She would later return to the music scene as a member of Shakespear’s Sister.
| Date of entry | Song | Peak (weeks at 1) | Weeks |
| 11-Nov-1983 | Cruel Summer | 3 | 18 |
| 15-Jun-1984 | Robert de Niro’s Waiting | 7 | 14 |
| 31-Aug-1986 | Venus | 1 | 25 |
| 22-Oct-1987 | I Heard A Rumour | 23 | 6 |
| 25-Feb-1988 | Love In The First Degree | 10 | 17 |
| Total hits | 5 | ||
| Total weeks | 80 |
| Biggest climber awards | 3 |
| Star rater climbs | 12 |
| Biggest fallers | 4 |
| Weeks with oldest in the charts | 1 |
| Longest run in the charts (weeks) | 25 |
| Weeks with more than 1 in the charts | 0 |
| Biggest gap between hits (weeks) | 101 |
| Top 30 points ranking | 81 |
| Top 20 points ranking | 98 |
| Top 30 points | 1299 |
| Top 20 points | 593 |
Bananarama had the highest weeks count for an all-girl group on our charts.
SA Singles Charts 