They certainly had their moments, probably more than I'm aware of. My personal favourite is the LP Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know by Dead or Alive, of which about two-thirds is highly listenable great pop.
Yes, and even Rick Astley's Together Forever hit #1 in the US while it peaked at number 2 in the UK. It was a bit strange that only a select few SAW songs hit in North America. Kylie hit the top 10 with Locomotion while I Should Be So Lucky and even It's No Secret hit the Top 40. But none of her songs from Enjoy Yourself charted and then we didn't hear from her for another 13 years. Shame, because I think the singles from Rhythm of Love - Better the Devil You Know, What Do I Have to Do, Shocked and Step Back in Time - are some of Kylie's and SAW's best work. I love SAW but do agree that they could get a little lazy, but I think they reached their true potential with those four golden Kylie Rhythm of Love songs. With Kylie, they had to step up their game because she was much more than another cookie-cutter singer they could put on the SAW factory line. She was bigger than SAW and I think they knew that, perhaps, begrudgingly. Their early years were definitely their best. There were a number of reissues of SAW-produced albums this past decade (mostly by Cherry Pop). I was really impressed by O'Chi Brown's album which featured "Whenever You Need Somebody" which, of course, was recorded by Rick Astley. The Dead or Alive Youthquake and Mad, Bad, and Dangerous to Know are excellent albums. And I personally love the Bananarama collaborations. WOW! is one of my favourite '80s albums.
They made a handful of great pop records - particularly early on - but on the whole I didn't enjoy their sound. It didn't help that a lot of their records started to sound the same to my ears around 1987ish. Having said that I really love the work they did with Princess - "Say I'm your number one" and "After the love has gone" are quality records and still sounds amazing today!
The only SAW records I own are Rick Astley's, and they have the thinnest bottom end ever etched on a piece of wax, which is weird, because they used to play those songs at the dance clubs a lot.
The SAW team had some good pop songs, in a conveyor belt sort of a way. But there just got to be so many releases from them, and they all sounded the same. You could predict within seconds what was going to happen next on every single song. I taught music at the tail end of the 80s, and I went through music history and ended the "sermon" with a nine minute medley I had put together of SAW songs. One of my brighter students got it. "Now, this is a bit unfair. We don´t want all those songs at once - one now and then would be completely alright." Which was my point! I wouldn´t say they had any classic songs, but they had plenty of catchy ones. In many ways they reminded me of Motown - just without the soul, funk and heart of those songs. They also reminded me of Frank Farian´s work for Boney M., Eruption and others. Very catchy, very effective pop - but perhaps not a lot going on. No substance. I still love Boney M., though. But it was very predictable that they got together after one of their many "tiffs" to produce two volumes of remakes of their greatest hits remixed by PWL, SAW´s company. They created one memorable pop hit for Cliff Richard - "I JUST DON´T HAVE THE HEART". Not a favourite of mine, but a solid, good pop hit aimed squarely at the dance floor. It worked. A year later they "remixed"/remade one of his best songs ever - "WE DON´T TALK ANYMORE". I am just glad they did not produce the original - Alan Tarney, through Bruce Welch, had his own version of the synth wall of sound, but this worked a lot better than the SAW one, IMO. Listen to this remake - or rather: Don´t. This is the extended nightmare... Sorry. The extended 12" version.
Good point about the similarity to how Motown worked. I think they were very much influenced by Motown even down to calling themselves The Hit Factory which was derivative of Motown's Hitsville.
Yes, I think there is a similarity to the approach to making the music. (And the names - I hadn´t thought of that!) I must admit that the results were better in Detroit, according to my personal taste, but yes, they both "industrialised" the making of pop music. Nothing wrong with that, as long as it works. SAW took it just that tiny bit too far, IMO. But I still enjoy "Never Gonna Give You Up", "Too Many Broken Hearts", "Respectable" and a few others. I don´t usually go to the trouble of seeking them out, but I am glad I have them. Joyful music. Most of the SAW "legacy" I avoid, though. Too much of a fairly meh thing...
I liked the early SAW stuff like Divine and Dead or Alive and then really fell in love with Mel & Kim ( their record is still one I spin regularly). I loved the first three Kylie albums although it was her pre-SAW version of ‘Locomotion’ that I preferred. I bought that single at 13 years old and played it to death. I loved the work they did with Bananarama on their ‘True Confessions and Wow!’ albums and also really enjoyed the first Rick Astley record. I loved the two singles they produced for Samantha Fox too and thought that the Donna Summer record was great. Anything with Jason’s name or ‘voice” on to my ears was dreadful.
I was spending quite a bit of time traveling back & forth to England between '89 & 2000, pretty much the onslaught of SAW. 10 minutes of UK radio was no different than an hour of UK radio during this time because SAW productions were literally spun back-to-back-to-back & the similarities became immediately obvious. Yea, they made some records I totally dug. I think their album with Brother Beyond had some terrific tracks. Kylie's SAW albums all had a few killer tracks, as did their albums with Bananarama (but not as many as suspected, really). Rick Astley's SAW material is unique because it's their rare work that I can't hear anyone else in the farm singing but him. 99%, including Kylie's, of their output could be interchanged with anyone else on their roster. Mel & Kim's "Respectable", Doead Or Alive's "You Spen Me Round" & Divine's "You Think You're A Man" are all undeniable classics & they all have one thing in common--they all brought something to the table SAW couldn't provide. Just about all the other SAW acts came to the table with nothing more than a napkin. Donna Summer was clever to work with SAW, but while a good deal of her fans consider this album among her best, I think it's just awful. Juvenile, insipid, sterile, not to mention the endless supply of remixes of these tracks that sound as different from each other as the color tan is different from the color light brown. I will say that "This Time I Know It's Real" is a super sing-along, but again, any SAW tool could have been used to get the product on the radio.
I always remembered that the engineers on Kylie's SAW recordings were Karen Hewitt and Yoyo. I can't seem to find much about Yoyo online. I do remember him briefly appearing on an early Kylie tour documentary. However I have found this interesting interview with Karen Hewitt from a few years ago: National Film and Sound Archive curator Karen Hewitt on life in London working with hit machine Stock, Aitken & Waterman
"This Time I Know It's For Real" is by far my favorite s-a-w production. I've loved that song since it came out and I still think it sounds great.
I agree completely about SAW. Their same sound quickly got old for me for me at the time. I still remember flinching when I first heard Donna Summer’s This Time I Know It’s For Real while sitting in a restaurant with music videos playing on their big screen. I love Donna but at this point I hated SAW and was severely bummed by this combo. I dearly love the song now and my fandom for Kylie forced me to except SAW and revisit their output. I greatly enjoy her early albums and remixes. As for Motown, I feel their artists had more distinction and bigger personalities than the SAW crowd of artists. I bought a lot of their albums, especially the Jackson 5 and Diana Ross. They each have the Motown sound and yet each is still distinctive.
I agree about Motown - their ways of recording the music was similar to SAW, but there was a lot more personality and warmth to their product. And, to be honest - a lot more lasting careers came out of Hitsville than SAW. I think Rick Astley had an excellent singing voice - still does - but most of those SAW si gers have been forgotten by now. A bit sad.
Motown was in the business of developing talent so the label would get a healthy return on their investment in doing so. A refined artist could potentially mean years of revenue. SAW was in the business of churning out product. New faces on the record covers were simply new ways of marketing the same product to differing audiences. Some record buyers might like this song more if a group of blonde boys were on the cover. Others may like an extremely similar song if an foxy chick was on the cover. Motown sold songs with artists as capable as the material they were performing.
Exactly. A "refined" way of approaching marketing, without any sense of there actually being a talent there to begin with. (Though I repeat that I do like Rick Astley´s voice.) Now, SAW went south for obvious reasons, but a lot of their methods live on. Sadly.
Sure. I can't deny that SAW indeed turned out some talent that most likely would have ended up with charting careers without their help, notably Rick Astley & Kylie Minogue. Both have had careers that have gone beyond having to owe their accomplishments to their involvement with SAW. Even Jason Donovan would have coughed up a few hits in the hands of other producers. They've also done some top shelf work for artists who'd already been established, if I'm being fair. Also, in their defense, when compared to Motown, SAW did start their winning streak in an age when image was a much more integral part of the marketing equation. Sure, since the sale of records began everybody wanted to have pretty record jacket, but SAW began their hey day in an era when image became part of what prompted a music consumer to make a purchase, tune into a television segment or attend a live show. That they exploited that so very shrewdly speaks to their business acumen, not their prioritizing a great recorded piece of music. That Motown & Berry Gordy consistently turned out great recorded music that was often sold in plain white 7" jackets speaks to their priorities, when the music was on top.
There’s no doubt in my mind that Rick Astley’s voice was the bigger reason those songs were a hit moreso than SAW’s production. I still remember the kick it was when I first saw his video and heard this big, big voice coming from a slender red hair kid.
It's obvious there is still some love for SAW. A number of the SAW-produced/affiliated reissue albums are not out of print. Both the Ricky Astley and Jason Donovan 2-CD discs from Cherry Pop from years back go for high prices online. The mega Kylie super deluxe sets are now out of print. Rather surprisingly, the Let's Get to It deluxe went out of print early on (perhaps because it's one of her least popular albums, it only got a very limited number of pressings). The Singles box set that came out a few years ago went out of print (great set, btw). I think Rick and Kylie were two of the breakout stars of the SAW era. They both had that special something that could take them beyond SAW. Who knows what would have happened with Mel & Kim if Mel hadn't died tragically at the age of 23.
Your post reminds me that Kylie had a deal with SAW that she would own her masters after 25 years. I have not heard of other SAW having this sort of deal so I assume this was a clause negotiated by her manager Terry Blamey. So Kylie now owns her recordings from that time.
100%! I think he is one of the few SAW artists who would have been successful without that conveyor belt production. He even wrote some of his songs himself.
The ‘Cool & Breezy’ dub of Mandy Smith is a classic. Used to get a lot of play in certain London clubs.
I can see what you are saying but I could see most SAW artists potentially having success with other producers. I am not saying they would have necessarily had a long lasting career but given that most of them could at least hold a tune I think that any other pop producer of the period could have provided them with a hit if they could come up with the right song that the public could latch on to. Kylie had already had a big hit in Australia before she joined SAW so she could have quite easily gone with other producers.
True, of course. The career of Kylie always surprised me. Based on her initial British hit, "I Should Be So Lucky", I would not have expected her to have a long and illustrious career at all. She seems absolutely charming, but I don´t think her voice is all that special. But that´s just my opinion. She is obviously doing quite a few things right. Good on her! I do love her single "Confide In Me", especially the video mix. I was lucky enough to get hold of an expanded version of the album that included that mix. For some reasons I bought the expanded versions of her first four albums. I watched them grow in value - and I have not even played them!
