Please Yourself is the sixth studio album by English pop act
Bananarama. It was released on 29 March 1993 by
London Records, the group's last release under the label. It is also the first album from Bananarama as a duo – with original members
Sara Dallin and
Keren Woodward continuing after the departure of
Jacquie O'Sullivan in 1991. Please Yourself also reunites Bananarama with two-thirds of the
Stock Aitken Waterman production team (Stock and Waterman). Musician Gary Miller was brought in to do keyboards and guitar and would be Bananarama's next collaborator on their following album Ultra Violet. The concept of the album was first suggested by Pete Waterman as 'ABBA-Banana', a record that would feature pop songs in the style of
ABBA, but updated for the 1990s. Ultimately, however, much of the album ended up incorporating a ‘90s Euro-disco sound with only “Movin’ On” and “Last Thing On My Mind” utilising an ABBA-esque influence.
Please Yourself was the first Bananarama album not to be released in the United States. Upon its release in the UK, it was panned by critics and charted at a low number forty-six.[1] A limited double CD edition featured 12" remixes of some of the band’s past singles. Dallin and Woodward have later admitted in interviews that they are not fond of this album. Two of the songs on the album would later be reworked by Pete Waterman for use with the band
Steps. "
Last Thing on My Mind" would be their second single and the track "
Movin' On" would be included on their second album Steptacular.
Critical reception
In July 2018, Mark Elliot of Classic Pop ranked Please Yourself as the 14th best album ever produced by
Stock Aitken Waterman. He presented the album as "a concept project [Waterman] billed "ABBA-Banana", and considered "Movin'On" and "Last Thing on My Mind" as "classics".[4]
Gene Orloff (concertmaster), Matthew Raimondi, Sanford Allen, Max Ellen, John Pintavalle, Charles Libove, Elliot Rosoff, Regis Iandiorio, Stanley Hunte, Seymour Wakschul - violin
Alfred Brown, Julien Barber, Harry Zaratzian, Richard E. Spencer - viola