Creativity Quote by Siobhan Fahey

It is, on the surface, a scrappy underdog story. Underneath, its real charge comes from how casually Siobhan Fahey rewrites the usual pop-music power map. The line "written off from day one" isn’t just about critics being snobby; it points to a whole ecosystem that treats certain kinds of success as illegitimate before the first single drops. Bananarama were young women making bright, hook-heavy music in an industry that liked its female acts either manufactured or "serious" on terms set by men. Being dismissed early is almost the point: it sets up a narrative where every chart entry becomes an act of defiance.

The sharpest move is the repetition of "despite". It’s not "with help" or "against the odds" in a fairytale way; it’s adversarial. "Despite the record company" is a particularly nasty tell, because labels are supposed to be the machinery of belief. Fahey suggests the machinery was either indifferent or actively obstructive - that institutional support gets rationed according to who seems culturally acceptable, not who connects with audiences. "Despite the press" lands as a second front: gatekeepers policing taste while the public keeps dancing anyway.

There’s also a quiet insistence on collective identity: "Nobody believed in us but us". In pop, where mythology often centers on a single genius, Fahey frames belief as internal and communal, a shared refusal to accept the industry’s verdict. The intent isn’t nostalgia; it’s a corrective. She’s staking a claim that their hits weren’t a fluke - they were proof that legitimacy can be manufactured from the outside, but momentum is earned in plain sight.