Greatest Stock-Aitkin-Waterman Production?

I have to go with Donna Summer since the Bananarama choice is a cover and that's far from their best SAW collaboration ("I heard a rumour" would be a much better choice.) The same for Kylie; it should've been "Better the devil you know."

I HATED their stuff, except for Dead or Alive. Everything they did was so cookie-cutter.

Truthfully, it would be Kylie's "I Should Be So Lucky".

My vote is for Donna as well. However, my favorite track from that album is "Love's About To Change My Heart"....

Who?

Me too for Donna. "Dinner With Gershwin" was also good.

R6,

That's another great relatively unknown Donna tune, However, it's not a SAW production.

Don't forget Mel & Kim!

Almost voted for "You Spin Me Round" but went for "other" since, as r1 pointed out, "Better The Devil You Know" wasn't on the list.

The best IMHO:

Say I'm your #1 by Princess. LOVE THAT SONG!

After the Love is Gone also by Princess is pretty good too.

[quote]I've selected the songs most familiar to U.S. audiences...

That was your mistake right there. SAW's UK hitlist is much, much more extensive. Princess, Sinitta, Mel & Kim (as noted), Pepsi & Shirlie, Jason Donovan, Lonnie Gordon, Boy Krazy, Sybil, plus much more successful tracks from Kylie, Rick Astley, Bananarama, and Dead or Alive.

Princess, Say I’m Your Number 1; Donna, Dinner With Gershwin

Kylie's entire Rhythm of Love album. Sonia's "Can't Help the Way I Feel" is a great track.

r11, that's why I also said:

"but also an option for other, as there are plenty."

This board has a primarily U.S. readership, and since the poll options limit one to 10, I decided to go with the songs that most everybody would be familiar with.

BARF!!!! I could not stand that pinball machine sounding crap.

You Spin Me Around jumps out of speakers. It'll be played at parties for many decades to come.

In OP's list I picked Rick but there are so many good ones. My link, however, is to the infamous, reviled song that started SAW's downfall. Truly tragic in every way; the public uproar at the time was deafening. "I'd Rather Jack" - ummm, no you wouldn't.

DINNER WITH GERSHWIN IS NOT A S.A.W. Track! Enough, idiots. It's not even Donna's best. Christ.

This is a favorite of mine that wasn't a hit anywhere because it wasn't released as a single. Also, this album came out after the PWL heyday had passed.

Boy Krazy, "That Kinda Love"

I love this shit, and have never been ashamed to acknowledge that.

The majority of records they produced always made me happy. I love music that does that.

Brother Beyond - "The Harder I Try"

Not the greatest, but I think this should have gotten higher on the charts than #48. I remember hearing it a lot.

Branigan--"Shattered Glass"

This time I know it's for real . Donna Summer's vocal transcended the bubble gum and banal synth pop in the track. She basically took piss and turned it into a fine wine.

SAW themselves said that Donna's album was their strongest work. Kylie's "Rhythm of Love" and Bananarama's "Wow!" are two of my other favourite albums of theirs. When they worked with artists with some sense of independent personality and vision, they hit the jackpot (DOA, Bananarama, "the sexy phase" Kylie, Mel & Kim) but every such name was offset by at least three embarrassments (Yell, Jason Donovan, Sonia, and countless other interchangeable supermarket cashiers and blond gays from provincial towns.)

A serious question -

Was it known at the time that all three guys in Big Fun were gay?

Wikipedia says that SAW instructed them not to be out while they were an artist under their umbrella, but was it known anyway?

They have to be one of the more successful groups with all gay guys as members.

Someone up-thread mentioned boy Krazy, which reminded me of this song. Still a great song, very poppy and makes me want to sing along and dance.

Lonnie Gordon - Happening All Over Again

I love Venus by Bananarama (the 12" version is the best) but I prefer I Heard A Rumour

I have a soft spot for Boy Krazy's That's What Love Can Do.

And I also like Dead or Alive songs

But the majority of SAW was pure crap

r26 that's one of my favorites. I heard that Donna Summer was offered that song, but turned it down. Too bad she did.

Was this the beginning of the end of pop music?

Are there any current running music threads where we can post what we are listening to in 2015?

Here you go, r30.

Please fill it up with your recommendations.

Thank you so much R31!

Didn't really love their work with Donna Summer. Most of APAT seemed to be the best of Donna filtered and homogenized. But I did like Dinner with Gershwin.

Oh--and Kylie's "What Do I Have to Do" was SAW at their peak. Dance Pop perfection.

“Better The Devil You Know” one of theirs? If so add that to the handful I like.

Also Hazel Dean “High Energy”(?)

Sinitta was, arguably, the nadir

Samantha Fox - "I Only Wanna Be With You"

Is Sybil's When I'm Good and Ready a SAW production, or was that after they broke up?

Once again ass holes have to come into a thread poll, that is of no interest to them, other than shitting all over the place, about their dislike, stay the fuk out a holes, we don't care what you don't like !!

When he took time out from molesting young boys, Cliff Richard had a good song with PWL.

"I Just Don't Have The Heart"

"Say I'm Your Number One" by Princess is great but it was very atypical of their work in the sense that it was more their attempt to ape that "rare groove" thing that was sort of popular at the time but they really didn't know what to do with her in the long run.

I have to admit that Mandy Smith's "I Just Can't Wait" is a guilty pleasure of mine, particularly that Balearic version which was a club hit at the time.

I loved "Success" from Sigue Sigue Sputnik and would play this 12-inch at high volume.

I loved this crap back then though my music collection was all Smiths/New Order all the time. SAW had a sense of humor about it all and even made fun of their assembly line approach in this video (which disappeared from Youtube for a good long while and like a miracle is back today). Today's popstars could use a lesson in lightening up and not taking themselves too seriously about being "hard".

Hazel Dean was the first ladygay I ever heard of, and (for the times) went against the stereotype. (I hadn’t even heard of the name Dusty till PSB collar)

Roadblock is regarded their best claim to (slight) credibility

Donna's work with them was fantastic

I love Donna's version of Dinner Qith Gerschwin

There was always something so cheap, amateurish, and desperate about Hazell Dean that I could never truly warm up to her. Actually, she had one song I enjoyed, "They Say It's Gonna Rain", which wasn't a SAW production. She's one of those people who'll be doing doing the Gay Pride circuit even in 10 years from now, playing her two or three Hi-NRG hits.

Jason Donovan's "Too Many Broken Hearts" still makes me smile. And "Robert DeNiro's Waiting" by Bananarama was amazing too.

And, as I said in another thread, had a major crush on Rick Astley though his work became formula even faster than SAW's did somehow.

Bananarama only worked with SAW on a half of "True Confessions" and "Wow!". Arguably, "Pop Life" is their best album but that was a sort of a clubby, housey record done with a different producer. Once that failed commercially, they went back to what was left of SAW with their tail between their legs and put out a sort of an unremarkable, substandard ABBA sounding record.

[quote] "Robert DeNiro's Waiting" by Bananarama was amazing to

That wasn't SAW.

R28 Happenin All Over Again, was written for Donna, for a second album with SAW, she decided to pass, she didn't want to record with them again, which is a pity !!

They had a few obvious gems, but for the most part their output is irritatingly repetitive and childish.

I have to say, as much as I despise the eldergay cult around the unfunny cunt Divine et al, You Think you’re A Man is being fucking mugged in this poll! Listen to it again, its much better than you remember

I stand corrected, had no idea SAW wasn't the force behind all of Banarama's run. Whoever did "DeNiro", it's classic, that's for sure.

Thanks for the info.

Donna Summer apparently turned down several good opportunities in the 80s and 90s. Her best 80s album was the one she did with SAW, I wonder why she didn't want to work with them again.

R10 - I thought I was the only one who liked that album and hit singles on it from Princess. After the Love Has Gone is one of my all time faves. There's just something I like about it even though it sounds dated and clunky now. She had a great voice and it's a CD that I still listen to today.

In fact, the Princess CD was rereleased in 2009 and has some added remixes. You can get it cheaply on eBay if you don't have it.

Good times!

[quote] Her best 80s album was the one she did with SAW, I wonder why she didn't want to work with them again.

I think it may have been a writing credits issue.

Is Hazell Dean actually a lesbian or just lesbian adjacent, like Alison Moyet?

Hazell Dean was quite manly looking.

Dead or Alive - Brand New Lover, Lover Come Back to Me, My Heart Goes Bang Bang Bang Bang

Laura Branigan - Shattered Glass

Donna Summer - This Time I Know It's for Real, Love's About to Change My Heart

Rick Astley - She Wants to Dance With Me

Kylie Minogue - I Should Be So Lucky

I've only heard a little Hazell Dean but she seems a perfectly competent singer. It seems a little strange that on a thread featuring Bananarama, Dean is getting calle out...

Will you Donna Summer fucktards STOP bringing up "Dinner With Gershwin"! It has NOTHING TO DO WITH S.A.W. Seriously, what the fuck is wrong with you?

SAW were famous for recording the same songs with 2 different artists, an example, both Hazel Dean & Kylie Minogue recorded " Turn It Into Love" here is another, O'Chi Brown recorded "Whenever You Need Somebody" before it was recorded by Rick Astley !!

It's hard to categorize the Dead or Alive albums that SAW worked on as part of that Hit Factory sound.

Not only did DOA write all their songs (SAW didn't even co-write any of them), but they also play their instruments. No PWL drum machine for them.

So what SAW did for DOA was limited to the mixing/engineering.

That's very different from the majority of their artists - Bananarama being the other exception because those ladies wrote or co-wrote most of their songs and played bass guitar (believe it or not) on many.

But since their 2nd and 3rd albums were PWL productions, then one of my all-time favorite songs from their collaboration is

"My Heart Goes Bang" - Dead or Alive

(and not the album version, but the one mixed for radio/club play)

Hazel appeared at a club I was DJ'ing @ She was excellent live, very down to earth !!

Has anyone mentioned that Donna Summer song, "Dinner with Gershwin" yet?

Another vote for Donna Summer. "Dinner with Gershwin" is da booooooomb, boo!

"Turn It Into Love" Hazel Dean

"Turn It Into Love" Kylie Minogue

Aside from Princess "Say I'm Your Number One", which to this day is better than most modern soul, I'd say the original "Whenever You Need Somebody" by O'chi Brown and "Showin Out" by Mel & Kim are classics.

I am amazed their urban hits were way more advanced in sound and rhythm than their later well-known pop hits by Kylie, Jason, Sonia , Rick etc.

I loved the Princess* album and to a lesser extent Mel & KIM but then I fell under the spell of Hounds OF Love wonderful weirdness. It wasn’t till I should Be So Lucky that I woke up again to dance music -- weirdly as this sounds now, ISBSL sounded like nothing I’d heard before and the fucking future (I didn’t know about Blue Monday etc!)..soon got sick of those awful Linn drums, 8bit sampler pitched vocal repeats and and syrupy echo/chorused vocals. So I went indy boy.

...Inner City’s “Good Life” would in time rescue from that hell and of course Acid House!! Good Life indeed!

*Dont know if it’s strictly speaking SAW as opposed to PWL coproduction?

Check out the bridge in the song. Way ahead of its time.

BBC documentary on SAW.

Holy shit does Pete Burn look frightening now!

R52, Jolley and Swain were the producers of Bananarama's second album which had many hits including Cruel Summer, Hotline to Heaven and the fab State I'm In. Great album.

Get fresh @ the weekend, showin out

BTW, the girls from Bananarama wrote their songs...not just Jolley and Swain or SAW. The money they get from Cruel Summer is huge.

"Respectable" Mel&Kim takes the cake.

[quote]Once that failed commercially, they went back to what was left of SAW with their tail between their legs and put out a sort of an unremarkable, substandard ABBA sounding record.

Hmm...I'm not crazy about that album, Please Yourself, but the track 'I Could Be Persuaded' is brilliant!

Best thing Pete Waterman ever produced is Pass the Dutchie -- Musical Youth

A fluke surely

The extended mix of "Use It Up And Wear It Out" -- what blissful memories!

"Whatever I Do, Wherever I Go" by the legendary Hazell Dean!

By far, the greatest SAW production ever!

Mel & Kim's "Respectable"!

"Golden Oldies!

Rolling Stones!

We don't want them back!

I'd rather JACK than Fleetwood Mac!"

Production wise, I think I Heard A Rumour. Better the Devil You Know is a close second.

This, of course:

Mel & Kim's 1988 classic, "That's The Way It Is"!

"I Heard A Rumour" is uncomfortably similar to this. Allegedly, SAW paid an out of court settlement to Fortunati.

Such a shame Pete Burns went from this...

To this...

R86 R87. And to probably something like this...:

R85 Holy crap. They stole the song, even the production. Disappointing though I like the original

Speaking of Hazell Dean, here's a song of hers I like also on her SAW album.

r24, wow. I didn't know all of them were gay. Their album, A Pocketful Of Dreams, is one of the first CDs I bought as a kid.

Their early productions were much stronger and less factory-sounding. They were often more R&B-leaning like O'Chi Brown.

Youthquake is a great album.

Yes! Youthquake was the shit in my kiddie years. I wore out the tape listening to it.

I was reading somewhere that starting with NUDE, Dead or Alive decided to produce their own material because Pete Burns was tired of waiting for the SAW team because Bananarama was top priority.,

Interesting you bring that up r93 because I think NUDE is a a great album and proved that Dead or Alive didn't really need them anymore. And by 1989, SAW was peaking and I think DoA was doing a better job at SAW material than SAW themselves.

Eldergays, Spotify playlist, please!

Go fuck yourself, R95, you fucking useless piece of shit Millennial who can't do anything for himself.

SAW originally released Boy Krazy's "That's What Love Can Do" in 1991; the version at R25 that became a hit was a remix released in 1993. I love ’em both.

R45 "They Say It's Gonna Rain" most certainly is a S/A/W production. They did not write it, however.

That one, Better the Devil You Know, Love in the First Degree, Happenin' All Over Again, Respectable, and Brand New Lover are all PWL standouts that still sound fresh.