Stock Aitken Waterman: S/D

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We've discussed them before but never searched and destroyed. So what were the highpoints and horrors?

My own view has always been that their best singles were those that totally captured the spirit of the very moment, even the second, they were released (at their peak, they really did seem that on-the-button AND DIDN'T SEEM TO REALISE THE IMPORTANCE OF WHAT THEY WERE DOING: this is the best thing about Waterman's utter refusal to apply any sort of value judgements to his music) and their worst were those that could have been the pop of any time and / or aspired to think in terms of "soul" (which is just not what people as free from value judgements as Waterman do well). Therefore: search Mel and Kim and the Reynolds Girls, destroy Rick Astley. But what of the rest? Or those three, come to that.

― Robin Carmody, Monday, 11 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I recently saw a Rick Astley video (Take Me to Your Heart, I think) and it was GRATE. So search Rick. Love in the Third Degree (?) by Bananrama should also be searched.

― Peter Miller, Tuesday, 12 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Mel and Kim - interesting how people treat 'pop-star' deaths differently than rock-star deaths, eh? Where are the T-shirts with her horribly flaking skin, where are the people picketing ozone depletion holding placards with Melanoma Appleby? Perhaps because with pop records, it's unclear (and irrelevant) if the personality was actually on the record, so there's not that connection with the fans? Or is it simply that the societal role of the SAW single is so unfairly constricted that it seems vaguely innapropriate to overload their hits with mortal significance, or to even THINK about the people behind these 'disposable' (yeah right!) songs, which would spoil the desired (or 'whatever you're told to desire', fellow cynicism fans)effect as sure as a Mel-ignant skin growth ruins your trip to Ibiza?

Anyway, I think "Respectable" would make a really good theme tune for Russian gangsters, Central American death squads, corrupt cops on their weekend collection round, urban mujahedin, etc. "Conversation is interrogation" - an 'ironic' slogan for the Santiago Sport Stadium Cleanup Crew's Saturday kick-about jerseys. Those sampled "Ta-a-ay's" - best use of half-a-word as a hook, if not the first, anyone can tell me earlier examples? - could be taser-gun shocks, or kinky electrodes. This interpretation also helps me out with that fucking police siren in the middle that's the only blemish on a perfect track. "FLM" is a more conventional bottom- feeder gangsta narrative (SSC could update this), but "Respectable" is monolithic - maybe SAW fancied themselves as pop superpredators? (If so, job well done.)
I also liked the way SAW inverted the standard rules of 'good' production, i.e. taking the bass out to boost the treble and high mids, to get that hectoring, in-yr-face sound (SAW sez it was to make the tracks stand out from the other hi- energy tracks in gay clubs - advert producers use the same trick, by law you're only allowed to go up to a certain amount of dBs, but by emphasising certain frequencies you can make the track seem a lot 'louder' than it really is) - the exact opposite of that Roni Size-type glistening wad with max separation (although SAW stuff sounds a but more spacious than their detractors admit as well, but only because they reached base competence in the studio before unleashing their singular visions, a step today's basement producers usually don't have the opportunity to take)

― dave q, Tuesday, 12 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

You Spin Me Round - Dead Or Alive & What Do I Have To Do - Kylie Minogue, are my personal faves. You Spin Me Round was their first release, as far as I can remember.

― Jez, Tuesday, 12 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

No theyd put out stuff with Hazel Dean and a few other hi-NRG people before that - it was their first No.1 though.

Those sampled "Ta-a-ay's" - best use of half-a-word as a hook, if not the first, anyone can tell me earlier examples?

Does the "-flex-flex-flex-flex" in "The REflex" count?

Dave Q is spot on about the production - the last (?) (maybe first too?) pop producers to make their records sound kit-built, disposable, bakelite (oft-used adjective "plastic" never more deserved than by SAW) whereas pop today tries to bully other sounds off the radio.

― Tom, Tuesday, 12 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Freeez's 'IOU' used half-letters as hooks, half-words are prog-rock in comparison. Actually it was half-letters as a solo, not hook. So who is prog and who is not I cannot tell.

― Peter Miller, Tuesday, 12 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

What about "and I wonder, I wa wa wa wa wonder" Runaway, Del Shannon.

Search. Respectable, Shocked (Kylie) Roadblock (the 12" mix rather than the 7") Destroy. Take me to your heart, I'm doin fine, That Sun newspaper Ferry aid single was them too........

― Kris England, Tuesday, 12 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I strongly dislike most SAW music.

However, I really really really like "I Should Be So Lucky" and some of the Bananarama singles. and it is rightly pointed out that "You Spin Me Round" is a total winner of a track, a floorfiller at goth discos.

Does anyone know what the SAW Judas Priest album is like?

I always liked Pete Waterman as a pop ideologue, though. It was always nice to know that someone was making records for children and teenagers, it's just a pity that most of them were rubbish.

― DV, Tuesday, 12 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Now come on Robin, are we not forgetting that SAW's greatest work was also the most "soulful" one, namely Lonnie Gordon's "Happening All Over Again" where Ms G's extraordinary kicking-against-the-pricks vocal practically brings the whole empire crumbling down!

― Marcello Carlin, Tuesday, 12 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Does the "-flex-flex-flex-flex" in "The REflex" count?

maybe. but it does = the first instance of "glitch"! saw are better than oval!

(oh, like that's hard...)

― jess, Tuesday, 12 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

"first instance of glitch" my rubber cookie glass it is! Art of Noise? hmm, perhaps you're right.

I once mimed in drag to Respectable, so that's an easy win for me.

"You don't have to have ability, yeaa-ah, so listen kiddies it's true what they say, you don't need respectability"

― Alan Trewartha, Tuesday, 12 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Erm, if you lot want glitch, wot about Paul Hardcastle's "19"?!?! (from 1985) Or for that matter Max Headroom!?!? Or early turntablist tracks like Grandmaster Flash's "Wheels of Steel"?!?!? Or even some of the older avantgarde tape loop stuff that the likes of Steve Reich and Stockhausen were messing around with!??!?!?

Ahem, anyway!!!! Back to the subject!!!! SAW- actually, I got a bit annoyed with using variations of the same chorus in their post-1985 stuff (and even later, variations of the same verse!!!), but some of their early-to-mid-period stuff stands up really well!!!! Maybe someday in the future when Pete Waterman stops playing around with his choo-choo trains and insulting people on Pop Idol, he'll be able to stop worshiping Goffin & King/Mann & Weill/Bacharach & David/Bjorn & Benny/etc. for long enough to do some top tunes like wot he used to do in the 80s!!!! Like these ones:

Search

Hazell Dean- "Whatever I Do", "Who's Leaving Who" (and the follow-up whose name I have forgotten)
Dead Or Alive- pretty much the whole of the "Youthquake" LP.
Divine- "You Think You're A Man", and the brilliant gutting of Frank Valli's "Walk Like A Man"!!!!
Sinitta- "Toyboy" and "Big Red GTO" (Bit of a euphamism there?!?!)
Mel & Kim- Pretty much most of the "FLM" album, especially the title track and "Showing Out (Get Fresh For The Weekend)".
Princess- "Say I'm Your Number One" and "After The Love Has Gone"
Banarama (v2)- "I Heard a Rumour", "I want You Back", and the ace cover of "Venus". Almost as good as some of the FB3/Swain & Jolly work with the Bananas...
SAW- "Roadblock". Bit cheeky of them to try and sue MARRS for sampling this tune, given that that started of their career blatently ripping off nearly every dance hit in their productions- most infamously New Order's "Blue Monday", but a lot of their early production style is a straight take-off of early 80s Bobby Orlando. Anyway, nice tune!!!!
Kylie- "I Could Be So Lucky", "Je Ne Sais Pourquoi", "What Do I Have To Do?", "Step Back In Time", "Better The Devil You Know"- Kylie probably sung some of SAW's best songs. The accelerating key changes in the verse of "... Lucky", rocketing upwards to meet the chorus, is probably a bit more ambitious for a pure pop song than Pete Waterman would like to admit to. (Mind you, SAW did seem pretty big on putting the verse on a lower key than the chorus, thus turning revamping the traditional corny-key-change-upwards-at-the-final-chorus trick into a vital link between verse and chorus.) And "Je Ne Sais Pourquoi" even sounds a little adult for SAW.
Rick Astley- "Never Gonna Five You Up". Sorry, Robin, I did like this one!!!! (Mind you, the rest of his stuff was pretty crap).
Reynolds Girls- "I'd Rather Jack". OK, it's not exactly a brilliant record to be honest, but it's an interesting timepiece. Especially given that it's partly SAW's attempt to react to the appearance of house, (Which was basically the beginning of the end of SAW) sand show they're still down with "the kids"!!!

Destroy

Brother Beyond / "The Hard I Try"- they were weak enough before they got the most stereotypical SAW tune & backing track imaginable!!!
Anything by Jason Donovan- the first time I heard Jase "singing" in "Especially For You" on the radiogram, I laughed!!!! Mind you, so did everyone else in the room!!! And who could forget his desperate performance on the first series of The Word?!? His voice got better of course- after all he took the lead role in "Joseph & The Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat"- (Mind you, he took over from Phillip Schofield!!!!!) but the songs were still bloody boring!!!!! And add to that the spectacular own goal of suing The Face over jokey reporting about some poster campaign threatening to "out" Jase, (And others- In fact, the "campaign" turned out to a rather amusing media stunt in itself.) resulting in running jokes about the "very heterosexual Jason Donovan" in satire mags, and the complete collapse of Jase's rather sizeable gay following, which in turn reduced his audience and therefore his ability to get hit records!!!!
Sinitta / "So Macho"- the worst SAW record ever!!!! Sounds like some some wee kid with a Fisher Price Disco Keyboard!!!!!!
Any SAW-related work with Sigue Sigue Sputnik- "Let's work with SAW!!!" Probably sounded like a great idea to Tony James at the time. But it wasn't. In fact, it was probably the worst pairing since Leoard Cohen hooked up with Phil Spector!!!!!!!!!
Most SAW post-1988 - to be honest SAW, with the odd exception (eg Kylie) were completely past it by the time acid house and "Madchester" really hit the UK. Come on, who really remembers their stuff for Lonnie Gordon, or their attempts to resurrect Donna Summer in a house stylee?!?!??! It might have worked for Cher a few years later, but at least that was a decent record, and by then dance really was mainstream pop. But the SAW equivalent sounded like they pressing a button marked "House" on some cheapo Casio keyboard!!!! And anyway, we already had the real house thing, so why bother with some pallid imitation by yesterdays hitmakers?!?!??!

And, er... That's it!!!!! The End!!!!!

― Old Fart!!!!, Tuesday, 12 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Those sampled "Ta-a-ay's" - best use of half-a-word as a hook

Erm, actually, I thought it was a full word, the word in question being "take"- as "Take or leave us/Only please believe us/We ain't never gonna be respectable"...

(Nurse!!!! I remember the words to the chorus of Mel & Kim's "Respectable"!!! Double my dosage at once!!!)

― Old Fart!!!!, Tuesday, 12 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Indeed, Marcello: I was thinking about the Rick Astley meme rather than the Lonnie Gordon meme. "Happenin' All Over Again" is indeed marvellous, as is Donna's "This Time I Know It's For Real" (Old Fart's too dismissive here: the rest of his assessment is excellent). The singles off Kylie's third album were a surprisingly good blueprint for where they could have gone: cool, pared-down production values and, on "Shocked", the only non-embarrassing early 90s rap break in a mainstream pop record.

Dave Q on Mel and Kim is magnificent: if I ever actually compile my long-promised definitive collection of essays on the anti- traditionalist impulse and meaning of the 1980s, it'll be the first entrant.

Utter classic: Bananarama's "I Heard A Rumour". Dud to end all duds: that one they did with CLIFF RICHARD!

― Robin Carmody, Tuesday, 12 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Classique: Sonia's "You'll Never Stop Me From Loving You," specifically the remix of it on the single where the music is replaced by the "French Kiss" riff (anybody remember "French Kiss"?). Love it.

― Douglas, Tuesday, 12 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

"WOW" by bananarama was the first tape i ever owned, i still own it and i still love it as much as i did when i got it, like 15 years later. and don't destroy rick astley, he was a cutie pie. hey aren't steps SAW? cos they should be DESTROYED.

― di, Tuesday, 12 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

To my knowledge, they're just W, not S or A. But they've split now anyway.

― Robin Carmody, Tuesday, 12 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

What are Stock and Aitken up to now their old mucker (and ex- plaintiff or was it the other way round) is on his way to becoming a National Treasure?

Bananarama's Greatest Hits I only have on vinyl and it really makes me wish for a turntable. I'm pretty sure it's better than the Kylie equivalent - Kylie never did anything like "Love In The First Degree", and is it my imagination or does the beat on that go slightly too fast for the vocals, giving the impression of breathlessness (not too hard w/ the Rama who were no divas I suspect)

― Tom, Tuesday, 12 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I have a terrible memory that S and A had something to do with the Robson and Jerome records.

― Robin Carmody, Tuesday, 12 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

R & J are certainly not on my copy of THE HIT FACTORY, Pete Waterman's Greatest Hits, though - shudder - Undercover are. Not sure whether S & A were still on board for them but certainly they fall firmly into the destruction zone. Other tracks I'd forgotten include Hazell Dean's marvellous "Whatever I Do (Wherever I Go)" which is heading straight for the Grokepile, the Jackson 5's "I Want You Back (PWL Remix)" (a work which truly can stand alongside the finest moments of Mr B. Liebrand), and also the apparent involvement of Waterman at least in those two definitive 80s hits "I Won't Let The Sun Go Down On Me" (Nik Kershaw) and "Pass The Dutchie" by Musical Youth!!! Renaissance Man OR WHAT!

― Tom, Tuesday, 12 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I have a terrible memory that S and A had something to do with the Robson and Jerome records.

Yes. They also produced Scooch (damp squib Steps-a-likes from a year or so ago).

One of the earliest SAW tracks I've come across is 'The Upstroke' by Agents Aren't Aeroplanes (c.1984 and awful).

― David Inglesfield, Tuesday, 12 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

advert producers use the same trick, by law you're only allowed to go up to a certain amount of dBs, but by emphasising certain frequencies you can make the track seem a lot 'louder' than it really is

Yes. Because human hearing is more sensitive in the mid range. Anything with very heavy bass will always sound 'quieter' in comparison.

― David Inglesfield, Tuesday, 12 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

scooch:damp squibs? maybe, but their swan song single `for sure' is fantastic

― , Tuesday, 12 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I heard somewhere a few years ago that either the S or A had died. I think it was Aitken, can anyone check this out?

― Old Fart!!!, Wednesday, 13 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Untrue I think.

― David Inglesfield, Wednesday, 13 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

While the foundations of Pete's PWL empire were laid in the eighties when a string of hits from the likes of Rick Astley, Mel and Kim, Kylie Minogue, Jason Donovan and then 2 Unlimited bulged his company's coffers and reputation to bursting point, his return with a new pool of pop talent in 1998 is shaping up to be even more lucrative.

2 unlimited then (also a bunch ov 'nana stuff I can't remember the titles of, & "I should be so lucky". One wonders if wee kylie ever ponders that "ISBSL" is surely as good as she'll ever do (& better that namy acts could ever manage) "credible" newer direcktion or whatever. Oh, and "Youthquake" r0x0r3d also.)

― Norman Phay, Wednesday, 13 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

- best use of half-a-word as a hook, if not the first, anyone can tell me earlier examples?

Don't forget this one - Ah, ba ba ba ba Barbara Ann, Ba ba ba ba Barbara Ann, Oh Barbara Ann, take my hand...

― static, Wednesday, 13 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Were 2 Unlimited actually part of Pete's empire?!?! I thought that was some other European producer team behind them- at least, when they were having hits with "Get Ready For This" and "No Limits"... (Both criminally underrated IMHO!!)

― Old Fart!!!!, Thursday, 14 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Were 2 Unlimited actually part of Pete's empire?!?!

Not produced by him I don't think, but quite possibly licenced/signed to his label.

― David Inglesfield, Thursday, 14 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Inglesfield's right here: the 2U records were Dutch productions I think but were definitely released in the UK on Waterman's PWL Continental label, which he reserved for the poppier end of Eurodance.

I'm sure Norman's thinking of the Nanas' "I Heard A Rumour": my word that song *thunders*.

― Robin Carmody, Thursday, 14 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

The best thing about Stock Aitken Waterman was their absolute refusal to bow down before any aesthetic standard whatsoever. They are to dance music what Baudelaire was to poetry, only much more amoral. I respect them so much for that. I'd like to know how Dave Q knows so much about what went on inside the studio? It seems like the kind of thing the police would trick out of you during a murder interrogation.

― maryann, Friday, 15 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

You might want to read my SAW article for Tangents: http://www.tangents.co.uk/tangents/main/saw.html

Search: "A ton of hits: hit factory vol 4" compilation released in 1990. A megamix of 81 (count them!) of their hit singles, from the early days through to Kylie's "Better The Devil You Know".

Also: Pete Waterman's autobiography. Full of unlikely little anecdotes such as John Peel being the first DJ to play a SAW record on the radio...

Destroy: any records made with footballers.

― Dickon Edwards, Saturday, 16 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

You won't want to know this, Dickon, but Waterman was on Sky Sports earlier today, during Walsall vs. Fulham. Apparently he has some connection with the former club ...

― Robin Carmody, Saturday, 16 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Were 2 Unlimited actually part of Pete's empire?!?!
Uh, no, Robin: produced by a BELGIAN guy. If I remember well he did it above the garage of his parents. The girl and guy were however Dutch. I think she actually was a police woman or something. Vague memory I want to erase completely. hah!

― helenfordsdale, Saturday, 16 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Belgian Waffle Techno

― helenfordsdale, Saturday, 16 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Come on, who really remembers their stuff for Lonnie Gordon, or their attempts to resurrect Donna Summer in a house stylee?!?!??!

Erm, have to say I do. The Lonnie Gordon single is just fantastic as is the Donna Summer single from the same period but yeah they were definitely on the slide.,BR>
Something he doesn't brag about much is his involvement in producing the first Farmer's Boys LP. Good to see he was indie years before it hit big.

― Billy Dods, Saturday, 16 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

one year passes...

I really like Princess' 'Say I'm Your Nuimber 1'

― Alice Keymer, Tuesday, 9 December 2003 01:07 (twenty-one years ago)

Seek Mel & Kim, obviously.

Sound-wise, the S/A/W production have dated better than most productions from the late 80s. Generally, I think electronic music from the late 80s sound a lot more dated today than electronic music from the early 80s - mainly because "analog" synth sounds became fashionable again in the early 90s and have been ever since.

― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Tuesday, 9 December 2003 01:18 (twenty-one years ago)

I remember being totally amazed that SAW did "You spin me round". easily the best SAW track IMHO. Does anyone know if they also produced this one?:

Hazell Dean - "They say it's only rain" (well, something like that anyway)

― Rudolf (Rudolf), Tuesday, 9 December 2003 05:56 (twenty-one years ago)

I never liked the "hard" sound of "You Spin Me Round". Never liked "Relax" either for that matter. I just strongly disliked the new "harder" synth sound that was about to become fashionable around the mid 80s.

― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Tuesday, 9 December 2003 09:17 (twenty-one years ago)

"Good Byeee Good Byeeee wipe a tear baby dear from your eye eeee"

That was the first one...

― mark grout (mark grout), Tuesday, 9 December 2003 10:59 (twenty-one years ago)

three years pass...

Dud to end all duds: that one they did with CLIFF RICHARD!

I can't agree less - "I Just Don't Have the Heart" was the best thing Cliff did since "We Don't Talk Anymore". In fact the *only* good thing!

― Grandpont Genie, Wednesday, 25 April 2007 12:42 (eighteen years ago)

truth

― blueski, Wednesday, 25 April 2007 12:43 (eighteen years ago)

I can't agree less - "I Just Don't Have the Heart" was the best thing Cliff did since "We Don't Talk Anymore". In fact the *only* good thing!

"Wired For Sound" wasn't too bad.

― Geir Hongro, Wednesday, 25 April 2007 12:52 (eighteen years ago)

The best thing he'd done since "Some People."

― Marcello Carlin, Wednesday, 25 April 2007 12:58 (eighteen years ago)

My all-time SAW Top 20:

1. Better The Devil You Know - Kylie Minogue
2. This Time I Know It's For Real - Donna Summer
3. Love In The First Degree - Bananarama
4. You Spin Me Round (Like A Record) - Dead Or Alive
5. What Do I Have To Do - Kylie Minogue
6. Whatever I Do (Wherever I Go) - Hazell Dean
7. Shocked - Kylie Minogue
8. You Think You're A Man - Divine
9. Back In My Arms (Once Again) - Hazell Dean
10. Respectable - Mel & Kim
11. Hand On Your Heart - Kylie Minogue
12. I Should Be So Lucky - Kylie Minogue
13. Never Gonna Give You Up - Rick Astley
14. Roadblock - Stock Aitken Waterman
15. Happenin' All Over Again - Lonnie Gordon
16. I Just Don't Have The Heart - Cliff Richard
17. Love Is War - Brilliant
18. In Love With Love - Debbie Harry
19. I Heard A Rumour - Bananarama
20. I'd Rather Jack - Reynolds Girls

― mike t-diva, Wednesday, 25 April 2007 13:10 (eighteen years ago)

I have never heard Brilliant. Wasn't Jimmy Cauty in that band?

― Grandpont Genie, Wednesday, 25 April 2007 13:18 (eighteen years ago)

Reynolds Girls truly were the Scoobius Pip vs Dan La Twat of their day.

― Dom Passantino, Wednesday, 25 April 2007 13:19 (eighteen years ago)

Or would have been had they been up to it, instead of a twee video in which they gave each other piggyback rides on the Mersey ferry and various twee interviews where they admitted to liking Fleetwood Mac. Waterman has admitted that if Mel Appleby had survived her cancer it would have been a Mel & Kim record.

― Marcello Carlin, Wednesday, 25 April 2007 13:26 (eighteen years ago)

Search the three tracks they did with Judas Priest in about 1986. And if you find them, put them online!

I have never heard Brilliant. Wasn't Jimmy Cauty in that band?
-- Grandpont Genie

As I recall, their early stuff was brilliant. Their later stuff was slick. I thought it was Youth who formed the band - or was Cauty involved too?

― moley, Wednesday, 25 April 2007 13:28 (eighteen years ago)

Yes he was. And Bill Drummond did their PR.

My favourite SAW record is the 12-inch of "I Just Can't Wait" by Mandy Smith.

― Marcello Carlin, Wednesday, 25 April 2007 13:28 (eighteen years ago)

"I Just Can't Wait" was great. I know nothing about the 12", but I liked the 7 inch a lot.

That being said, their greatest moment remains "Showing Out" by Mel & Kim.

― Geir Hongro, Wednesday, 25 April 2007 13:29 (eighteen years ago)

Jummy Cauty, yes. And Youth, and a lady singer whose name escapes me. (Oh, OK, June Montana.) "Love Is War" was a kind of poppified take on the Jam/Lewis sound.

― mike t-diva, Wednesday, 25 April 2007 13:31 (eighteen years ago)

i keep thinking 'Wired For Sound' came before 'We Don't Talk ANymore' for some reason.

― blueski, Wednesday, 25 April 2007 13:31 (eighteen years ago)

Best fake SAW records:
Deeper And Deeper - Madonna
Pray - Take That
He's On The Phone - Saint Etienne

― Marcello Carlin, Wednesday, 25 April 2007 13:32 (eighteen years ago)

Best SAW-by-proxy records (i.e. done in their studios and produced by their engineers but not actually involving them directly):
Nitzer Ebb - Join In The Chant
DOSE ft Mark E Smith - Plug Myself In

― Marcello Carlin, Wednesday, 25 April 2007 13:34 (eighteen years ago)

Donna Summer's "This Time I Know It's For Real" and "I Don't Wanna Get Hurt" epitomize and break the subgenre.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Wednesday, 25 April 2007 13:37 (eighteen years ago)

Best fake SAW records:
He's On The Phone - Saint Etienne

Steve "Motiv8" Rodway as the continuation of SAW by other means? See also "Ooh Aah Just A Little Bit" and many more.

NB, Xenomania began work in Rodway's studio, the first Xenomania output being a very Motiv8-esque re-working of Katrina & The Waves "Love Shine A Light". And so the wheel turns...

― mike t-diva, Wednesday, 25 April 2007 13:41 (eighteen years ago)

Incidentally, "Roadblock" was MASSIVE at the 1987 Notting Hill Carnival, on both days - probably second only to "Cross The Track" in sound system ubiquity - and that was after its unmasking as SAW.

― mike t-diva, Wednesday, 25 April 2007 13:44 (eighteen years ago)

And indeed Brian Higgins is credited as engineer on "He's On The Phone."

Piece of trivia about "Roadblock"; SAW did record a full lead vocal for the track - sung by Jimmy Ruffin, no less - but decided against including it since they thought it made the track a little too "authentic"...

― Marcello Carlin, Wednesday, 25 April 2007 13:52 (eighteen years ago)

All this talk of "He's On The Phone" reminds me of that other Love Muscle classic, and hence the best SA-minus-the-W record: Tatjana's "Santa Maria".

― mike t-diva, Wednesday, 25 April 2007 13:58 (eighteen years ago)

I'd love to hear that Ruffin version of Roadblock. Has it ever leaked?

― NI, Wednesday, 25 April 2007 14:26 (eighteen years ago)

six years pass...

Not sure if I have the stamina for more than one of these - so which SAW book from the wikipedia entry is recommended?

Harding, Phil. PWL From The Factory Floor, Cherry Red Books, 2011.
Waterman, Pete. I Wish I Was Me, Virgin Books, 2000.
Stock, Mike. The Hit Factory, New Holland Publishers, 2004.

― derrrick, Tuesday, 4 February 2014 02:54 (eleven years ago)

i believe from the factory floor has a the most technical stuff in it, that's the one i'm after

― föllakzoidberg (electricsound), Tuesday, 4 February 2014 03:00 (eleven years ago)

The Waterman book is probably the most reliable in terms of explaining what SAW did and how and why they did it. The Stock book is a very bitter anti-Waterman tirade with added right-wing grumpy old man moaning.

― Here he is with the classic "Poème Électronique." Good track (Marcello Carlin), Tuesday, 4 February 2014 09:22 (eleven years ago)

Thanks; that's the one to avoid then.

― derrrick, Wednesday, 5 February 2014 07:03 (eleven years ago)

might be a laff

― föllakzoidberg (electricsound), Wednesday, 5 February 2014 07:05 (eleven years ago)

six years pass...

Mel & Kim were better than I remembered.

― TikTok to the (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 8 September 2020 01:49 (four years ago)

“They Say It’s Gonna Rain” is in there twice, Alfred, but by now I’ve become convinced you leave those double entries in on purpose. I will have to listen to it now, because it’s the only one I don’t remember.

― No mean feat. DaBaby (breastcrawl), Tuesday, 8 September 2020 06:18 (four years ago)

Hate them. Hate them hate them hate them.

I was a kid in the late 1980s and worked part-time in my dad's shop, and SAW-associated acts were on the radio morning, noon and night. That horribly cheap keyboard sound that they always used still brings me out in hives if I see an SAW video while surfing the music channels on TV.

Apart from Say I'm Your Number One, which is amazing, and a tiny handful of other singles I'd fire their entire back catalogue into the sea.

― does it look like i'm here (jon123), Tuesday, 8 September 2020 10:49 (four years ago)

So yeah, “They Say It’s Gonna Rain” is pretty good!Interesting track, in that it’s not an SAW original, but a cover (explains the very un-SAW Zulu chant); it flopped in the UK (explains why I wasn’t familiar with it), but was a big hit in Scandinavia and also in South Africa – no doubt in large part because of that chant.

Alfred, you don’t care much for SAW Kylie I suppose? She’s got so many great tracks with them apart from “Lucky” – of the early ones I especially love "Je ne sais pas pourquoi" and "Turn It into Love", and "Better the Devil You Know" and several of the other early 90s Kylie-Make II singles are ace too.

― No mean feat. DaBaby (breastcrawl), Tuesday, 8 September 2020 20:45 (four years ago)

"Shocked" would make my top two: she was on fire in the early '90s.

― TikTok to the (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 8 September 2020 20:50 (four years ago)

have always loved the remix they did of nick straker's 'a walk in the park'. pure cheese but those beats give me the mad fidgets

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXy5gCes-qU

― this is my clean tone (NickB), Tuesday, 8 September 2020 21:00 (four years ago)

Contemporary parody

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XKDTOiNqdE

I had this single and had no idea of what it was making fun of, but used to love it and listen to it all the time anyway, to be fair I was 8

― Anti-Cop Ponceortium (Camaraderie at Arms Length), Tuesday, 8 September 2020 21:04 (four years ago)

featuring tony hawks, just before he made it big in skateboarding

― this is my clean tone (NickB), Tuesday, 8 September 2020 21:09 (four years ago)

when it comes to Summer/SAW singles “Love’s About To Change My Heart” gives “This Time...” a run for its money.

― No mean feat. DaBaby (breastcrawl), Tuesday, 8 September 2020 21:34 (four years ago)

"I Don't Wanna Get Hurt" is a terrific fake Pet Shop Boys song, released when PSB were studying SAW.

― TikTok to the (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 8 September 2020 21:38 (four years ago)

nine months pass...

can't stop listening to "this time i know it's for real" and looking over the genre SAW oeuvre i realize i like them a lot more than i would've liked to have thought so. lingering "guilty pleasure" big other feelings

― 《Myst1kOblivi0n》 (jim in vancouver), Friday, 2 July 2021 22:04 (three years ago)

three years pass...

Really loving this very SAW-inspired Euro track B.B. Sally - Melanie's Melody right now:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1c0q-Pmhjs

― Chewshabadoo, Thursday, 7 November 2024 09:28 (seven months ago)

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