— Richard Lowe
The team of Mike Stock, Matt Aitken and Pete Waterman last earned themselves a Single of the Fortnight all the way back in the summer of 1984 with the much-better-than-I-thought-it-would-be "You Think You're a Man" by Divine. An awful lot changed in the four years since: the SAW production team's client base grew and writing songs became a much more standard part of their MO and they enjoyed their first UK number one with Dead or Alive's memorable "You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)". They took in established acts like Bananarama and had a US chart topper with their cover of seventies hit "Venus". They began making stars out of performers such as Sinitta and Rick Astley. Divine, who had one of their first hits, passed away in March of 1988. And, on a seemingly unrelated note, an Australian soap opera began broadcasting episodes on the BBC.
Neighbours was a smash and proved to be even more successful in the old country than down under. Everyone seemed to watch it and you just knew that those snobs who claimed to never watch it secretly did. I came to the UK that August with no awareness of it whatsoever and went about my first five days there similarly ignorant of it. Then, we visited our distant cousins in the north east of Essex and they showed it to my sister and me. From then on, we never missed it for the remainder of the year we spent there. From that first viewing, it was clear that the star of the show was a frizzy haired young woman who was kind of mouthy. On the show, her name was Charlene but in real life she went by Kylie, a name I'd never heard before. Nicola, Becky and Chris, our fourth or fifth cousins, told us that she was also a pop star. (Little did I know that she was already on the charts back in North America, no mean feat considering Neighbours never meant anything across the pond)
Kylie Minogue didn't invent the concept of soap stars cutting records but she certainly popularised the practice. Before her, actors on soaps might put out a single and possibly have a hit; after her, it was assumed they all would. And while many became successful, no one pulled of the career shift as well as she did. She tried her hand at films but they never usurped music. Nowadays singers try to make the jump to the more lucrative field of acting; Kylie went the other way and she achieved far more success making records then she did on TV and movie screens.
Minogue's relationship with SAW was different than any of their other acts. She quickly became their cash cow and deserved to be the focus of their attention during their waning years in the early nineties. Other acts would depart but she remained loyal to them. By 1989, their output was rapidly declining but she seemed to receive first refusal of all their best stuff. Recruits to the SAW stable — Sonia, Big Fun, the bloody Reynolds Girls — became increasingly uninteresting which only made her stand out more. Even the stuff they were handing off to Neighbours co-star Jason Donovan wasn't quite as strong as what they gave her. Her image would change drastically and she made a push for greater creative control but she was reluctant to break away from the people that made her.
It took some time, however, for Minogue to get their prime cuts. Her first hit was "I Should Be So Lucky" which has a certain moronic charm and it remains insanely catchy (annoyingly catchy, sure, but catchy nonetheless) but "Got to Be Certain", the follow up, has little to captivate beyond Kylie's cheeriness. It's more of the same, just nowhere near as good. It probably doesn't help that it's a recycled SAW product. Originally recorded by Mandy Smith earlier in the year, it remained unreleased until her debut album Mandy was reissued in 2009. With her glamourous image and infamously getting involved with Bill Wyman of The Rolling Stones when she was just thirteen, the song's narrative of a bright girl trying to learn lessons from heartbreak probably suited Minogue better than Smith, who was more at home doing pop based around wrapping boys (and, to be sure, aging rock stars) around her little finger.
Re-using their originals was nothing new for SAW. The UK follow up to the global smash (and still culturally relevant) "Never Gonna Give You Up" was the forgettable "Whenever You Need Somebody", which had already been recorded in considerably different fashion two years earlier by female vocalist O'Chi Brown. In turn, Astley would go on to reject the insipid "Nothing Can Divide Us" which SAW then handed off to the more vocally lacking Donovan. The Minogue album track "Turn It Into Love" ended up getting into the charts after being released as a single by longtime stable vet Hazell Dean.
SAW were hardly the types to put a great deal of care into their compositions but they were at their best when they wrote with an eye on their charges. Stock and Aitken have claimed to written "Never Gonna Give You Up" with Astley in mind and the hit singles they had with sister act Mel & Kim reflect the duo's tough, working class backgrounds. Even "I Should Be So Lucky", which was famously rush written as Minogue was waiting to meet them for the first time, was perfect pop fare for Kylie the girl next door. (There's an even more obvious case of the trio tailor-making a song which we will get to soon)
The debate, as Richard Lowe says, would go on for some time. SAW's records kept selling and the charts would be awash in their hit factory sound. Kylie Minogue would bear the brunt of the backlash against them but she came out of it with a bit of a creative renaissance and is still going strong in her fifties. I don't imagine many people would've bet on her career having these kinds of legs.
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Also Reviewed This Fortnight
Elton John: "I Don't Wanna Go on with You Like That"
Ah, that "popping" percussion. Richard Lowe is taken by it and I have to agree that it's the one saving grace of a grim tune. While Elton John's slow songs post-"Sacrifice" began to get increasingly sappy and predictable, it is his piano-based rockers from around this time that commit even greater sins. This was long before YouTube and Spotify and "I Don't Wanna Go on with You Like That" counts on people's memories of the likes of "Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting" or "Philadelphia Freedom" being sketchy so they will assume that this is vintage Elton. It isn't. Whereas David Bowie, Bob Dylan and Paul McCartney were in similar creative doldrums at the time, they would all find their way back to something approaching their old heights, the Rocket Man never did. Still, that popping sound is pretty neat, huh?
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