I always liked that cover though it only makes sense in a Monty Python way but i never judge a record by it’s cover
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Oh, you’re absolutely right , I somehow forgot about that and was thinking in Mk II, III, IV and VII terms, my bad! Mk I had pop elements, so I left them out and thus wrote “from 1969 onwards” to indicate that. [Also, the third DP album (= “April” in Germany), recorded and released in 1969, was the least poppy one of the Mk I trilogy.]
Slaves & Masters was of course poppy, but to my ears less poppy than Rainbow’s DTC and BOOS, maybe the same slightly dryer poppiness SBTE had.
I appreciate Slaves & Masters, but it is to my mind more an AOR album featuring Blackmore, Glover, Lord and Paice than a real DP album. Not that there is anything wrong with that, as an experiment the album is historically interesting and enriches DP lore. It also spelled the beginning of the end of Ritchie’s reign - Roger, Jon and Little Ian needed to experience how it was to have Big Ian out of the band and they soon enough drew their own conclusions.
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And to the defense of the DP organization’s business ethics, they did try to identify the pictured men on the cover (it’s retold in Martin Popoff’s bio) to pay them a due license fee - Payne as an attorney-at-law was adamant about that (and if only to avoid legal complications later which is a valid reason too). But it was to no avail, they simply couldn’t find/identify them, apparently not devoted THS readers then either … 
Well, maybe the two banana vendors/harvesters (likely Tamils by their look) will still collect their license fee one day. If they have so far been oblivious of the commercial use of their picture, then statutes of limitation have likely not expired yet.
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Payne an attorney-at-law?
Bananas contains some of my all-time favourite lyric bits as well, that have become an idiomatic part of my in-head dialogue:
It’s almost Disney
I’m working on my thinking and I think it’s improving
I may be crazy but I’m not stupid
The strangest people have the power to lead me to my darkest hour
And I must say that House of Pain is a pretty much perfect opener that sets the tone for the record. It’s not too serious, and yes, not proggy, but still very much going places. Calling Bananas “pop” is actually quite fitting, as it has a certain not entirely unlike schlager mentality, in a good way. The songs are concise and have hooks, except when it’s time to Walk On and that is extended in a very tasty manner (to my ears anyway).
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I said this already in another thread but why is Bananas not on streaming services? It’s a sleeper hit for chissakes. 
(Realistically, I’m guessing contractual problems as to who owns the music and wants to ( = does not want to) make money off it.)
I also think that there might probably be rights issues… It might be the same reason why there is no vinyl reissue. Most rights of EMI Switzerland belong now to Universal Music.
Walk on is indeed a song that could have been even longer though i do understand why it has a rather pop appeal.
What i love about Bananas is that the whole album has a dreamy and almost optimistic undertone
Yes, the lyrics are outstanding in many ways, our wordsmith Ian did a great job
I don’t think Bruce was licensed to practice, but AFAIK he has a law school degree.
I must disagree on the almost Disney, somebody kiss me line in Sun Goes Down.
I actually think that’s Ian’s worst lyric ever - everytime I hear it I cringe inside over how awkward and cheesy it comes across as to me.
IMO, it doesn’t work at all, I have seen Ian do far better as a lyricist, including within Sun Goes Down.
My theory is it’s about vampires, but who knows!
The rest of the lyrics on Bananas are pretty good, but not that particular one.
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Didn’t you know? He was an entertainment and booking lawyer, the States are full of them.
Jackie Fox, the Runaways bassist, became one too after she left the band. Went to law school together with Barack Obama, no joke.
When I first heard Bananas, I breathed a sigh of relief and thought to myself: DP will survive the loss of Jon. The production of this new album sounds a little messy, but they have not run out of ideas.
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I’ve only read that he went from being their booking agent to manager.
Mind you, it’s just the “It’s almost Disney” part of the couplet! 
Whether the expression is old or new, it is the first place where I encountered it (us non-native speakers living in non-English speaking countries have this disadvantage of never knowing the background of anything unless we put the work in)
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I like the song House Of Pain, rocky beautiful, mainly because Ian Plays armonica.
If I remember right, this is the last song with it.
I’ d like more than.
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Re Bruce Payne & Thames Talent: Not everything in the Purple Universe is always sunny skies …
https://caselaw.findlaw.com/court/ct-supreme-court/1474228.html
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I don’t get the connection: does it mean Payne took a “banana” up the ass?
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Be careful, AndreA, I have only recently learned that all anal references (even if scientific in nature as with fase anale) - KAYBD perhaps excepted where participation in such practices seems to be inherently linked to social climbing if I can insert a fleeting thought here - are strictly verboten in the Forum, there seems to be a sphincter-like anti-sodomy reflex with Doug, you know how it is still outlawed in many US States.
The connection is of course a period one (not in a biological sense I hasten to add so poor Doug doesn’t misunderstand things yet again), Herr Payne’s unrequited approaches happened in the same year as the release of Bananas from whatever orifice of creation you might be thinking about. Who knows, maybe our Bruce was even humming Doing It Tonight while going about things? Shudder the thought, did he want to take Ms Angela Malizia to the House of Payne?
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Not a fan of that album, the songs are so-so, House of Pain sort of sets the tone and the album doesn’t really take off from there. I did find Haunted to be genuinely interesting (except for the bit near the end where Gillan’s pitch goes awol) and imagined that could actually grab them new audiences if it was aired more widely but too many of the others (Razzle Dazzle etc) are filler to my ears and the lyrics are banal. I have no problem with the cover, far better to my eyes than the teenage-metal-fantasy cartoons of S&M and TBRO.
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If for this reason Bananas had been reprinted with a different cover, first editions with the original cover would now be worth a lot of money among collectors.
It’s a shame for us that Payne and the record company didn’t decide to change the cover to protect their image rights.