In 1970, the Dutch rock group Shocking Blue hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 with “Venus.” The group made history as the first-ever Dutch band to top the coveted U.S. music chart, per The Current.
“Venus” appeared on Shocking Blue’s 1969 album Scorpio Dance, and it featured singer Mariska Veres, who had joined the group a year earlier. The hit song was written by founding member and guitarist Robbie van Leeuwen, who aspired to write a song about the Roman goddess of love, but made one mistake. According to Stereogum, van Leeuwen mistakenly wrote down the opening line as “the godness on the mountaintop” instead of “goddess,” and Veres sang it that way,
A hit remake in the ‘80s
Shocking Blue broke up four years after hitting it big with “Venus,” but their song lived on. Fast forward 16 years, and “Venus” was a hit again, this time for English pop group Bananarama.
Bananarama’s version of the song hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 on Sept. 6, 1986. It was the third single from the girl group's third studio album, True Confessions.
The group, originally a trio that featured Sara Dallin, Siobhan Fahey, and Keren Woodward, delivered a dance version of the 1970 song. In an interview with Classic Pop magazine, Fahey explained why Bananarama put the club-worthy spin on the classic song
“As soon as we heard Dead Or Alive’s 'You Spin Me Round,' we knew – that’s where we’re going,” she shared. “I loved that record. At that point, we were all on the same page. It was like, who produced Dead Or Alive’s single? Let’s do Venus like that. We’d been struggling with that third album, and we didn’t have a lead single and suddenly we had a single, and it turned everything around.
Woodward added that the success of “Venus” changed the bandmates’ lives “massively” as they achieved sudden international fame.
The cover version changed van Leeuwen’s life, too. Speaking with Interview magazine, Woodward said of “Venus,” “It’s done well for us, that one. It’s been a massive hit."
Dallin chimed in to add that Shocking Blue songwriter van Leeuwen later thanked Bananarama for their version of the song. “It’s done well for the writer," the Bananarama singer shared. “We met him in Amsterdam, and he thanked us for making him a millionaire. He got on his knees and kissed our feet, if I remember correctly.”
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