When Siobhan Fahey left Bananarama, hopes were not high for any solo projects she might have planned. The stroppiest, most talented and fearsomely hedonistic Banana had left to marry the beardy one from the Eurythmics, and the assumption was that she'd hung up her dungarees to become a Rock Wife. It turned out she had bigger things up her sleeve.
Fahey had become a loose canon. She was the one who made Bananarama explore lyrical themes such as rape and "the troubles" in Ireland, telling Pete Waterman they wouldn't sing songs with the word "love" in the title and entertaining the idea of recording Malcolm McClaren's composition Don't Touch Me (Down There Daddy).
When Fahey returned with Shakespears Sister it was one of the boldest reinventions in British pop, and they remain so 20 years on from their debut. Smash Hits was as surprised as anyone. Presenting the seriously de-glammed, gothed-up Fahey (sporting a ridiculously wide-brimmed Grace Jones-style hat), the headline of their article yelped, "This woman used to be in Bananarama!".
Along with partner Marcella Detroit, Fahey created music that was both bright and dark, danceable and troubled. Their "beauty and the beast" vocal pairing added extra tension; on You're History, Dirty Mind and, of course, Stay, Detoit's angelic soprano was the charming ego to Siobhan's id; a panting, hungover growl.
The differences were not just vocal, however, and Fahey and Detroit parted ways after five years citing "musical differences". But the truth of their separation can perhaps be better explained in the wonderful Sophie Muller-directed video for Goodbye Cruel World or I Don't Care.
Fahey would later be admitted to a psychiatric unit to be treated for severe depression, but after her recovery she recorded one more Shakespears Sister album without Detroit. The lyrically brilliant #3 album touches on the stinging comparisons to her former partner (I Could Never Sing Anyway) and offers a blackly comic view of her own well-documented partying (Opportunity Knockers). But musically it wasn't quite the same.
Pop could do with some of their bawdy yin and yang again, and if there's one reunion I'd like to see happen it's Shakespears Sister.
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