— William Shaw
The week of March 12, 1989 may have been the apogee of the Stock Aitken Waterman production/songwriting team. Sure, four singles in the Top 40 was just a routine showing for them but they all occupied places in the upper half of the chart and were all of significance. Three of the top four spots were SAW compositions and/or productions. Jason Donovan was enjoying a second week at number one with "Too Many Broken Hearts", an exuberant bit of pop fluff in which the Neighbours star just about manages to sing his way through without cracking. Two places below was Bananarama's charity cover of The Beatles' "Help" along with comedians Dawn French, Jennifer Saunders and Kathy Burke which was that year's Comic Relief single. One notch down from it was "This Time I Know It's for Real" by disco legend Donna Summer.
What's amazing about this is that SAW had three potential number ones in competition with each other. Donovan's singing career started slowly with the poor "Nothing Can Divide Us" the previous September (still a Top 5 smash) but his star was on the rise, especially after the chart topping success of "Especially for You" alongside fellow Australian Kylie Minogue just after Christmas. The 'Narns had come up short of the top spot a couple times and "Help!" was widely tipped to be their first chart topper, especially since they had the charity single advantage. Summer hadn't been at the top of the UK charts in a dozen years but her offering was the best of the lot and might have stood a chance of equaling "I Feel Love" under the right circumstances.
The fourth SAW record on that week's top 40 is probably the most influential. At number twelve (and soon to be in the top 10) was "I'd Rather Jack" by The Reynolds Girls. Having been ignored by voters at that year's Brit Awards, the trio resolved to put out the most feeble protest song imaginable in response. It didn't matter that their sales were way in front of everyone else in pop at the time, the critics didn't like them and DJ's weren't playing them (both over-simplifications mind you) and that just wouldn't do. As if proving their detractors' point that SAW could put out any old crap sung by a pair of no-names and still have a hit with it, "I'd Rather Jack" did well. It struck a chord with kids who felt that a mind-numbingly boring single like "Belfast Child" by Simple Minds had no business being number one hit, even if absolutely no one bought their attempt to align themselves with the burgeoning house music scene.
It is the legacy of "I'd Rather Jack" that is the most troubling. As I stated above, The Reynolds Girls were nobodies. Liverpool sisters Linda and Aisling Reynolds sent mogul Pete Waterman a demo and the wheels were in motion. They were meant to represent the average pop fan in the late-eighties as they railed against "Pink Floyd, Dire Straits, it's not our music, it's out of date". They weren't plucked from an Aussie soap like Kylie and Jason, they weren't groomed for stardom like Rick Astley, they weren't an established pop act like Bananarama, they weren't even a struggling band in need of a hit like Brother Beyond: they were a pair of girls having a laugh and this seemed reason enough to make them into stars. As the year progressed, Astley, the 'Narns and the Yond all began to walk away from the SAW stable. Their replacements were the likes of Sonia and Big Fun who were very cut from the same cloth as the Reynolds Girls (Neil Tennant even commented that if the Reynolds Girls could be combined into one person the result would be Sonia). Your average person could seemingly be a star and this was something that would carry over into Pop Idol and The X Factor in the future. Pop music has never fully recovered.
SAW looked to continue their dominance into the nineties. Though some of their name acts were in the midst of moving on, they still had a strong selection of stars to work with. The had risen to the challenge of collaborating with Donna Summer and it was hoped more hits would be on the way. A planned second album would end up being nixed after the singer was unable to return to the UK. This would have to be considered a huge missed opportunity for SAW. Not only did they lose out on the finest vocalist they ever worked with, they also missed the boat in terms of other American acts they could've helped revive. The expectation was on Summer coming to them but why didn't they travel across the Atlantic in order to record her? Setting up shop in Los Angeles would have then allowed them easier access to Barry Manilow, Dionne Warwick and a host of aging talents in need of some chart action.
But, then, why would they come to any of their acts when their acts could come to them? If Summer wasn't available then why not recruit a would-be diva who was? This amounts to how they ended up gifting "Happenin' All Over Again" to Lonnie Gordon when it was meant for the Queen of Disco.
Obviously Summer would've made more of it but Gordon does all right herself. Borrowing from Italian house, her voice is manipulated not unlike Black Box's massive "Ride on Time". Indeed, there's a strong Eurodisco vibe which suggests SAW were subtly trying to change up the formula for a new decade. In any event, the vocalist present is in fine form which just about hides the fact that the songwriting team was running on fumes. William Shaw's enthusiastic review mentions Summer's hit from a year earlier and how this is a return to that pumping sound of old. True but I'm not so sure that's a good thing. Neither is the line early in the song about how the antagonist put his "hand upon [his] heart" which is a callback to Kylie's hit from the previous year. Referencing earlier material, using a little-known vocalist in place of a superstar, borrowing tricks from house music: perhaps SAW were losing their sharpness.
None of this mattered at the time as "Happenin' All Over Again" went top 5. In spite of the new bells and whistles, this was the SAW of old and that was good enough. The shiny, glorious pop of "Showing Out", "Love in the First Degree", "Never Gonna Give You Up", "I Should Be So Lucky" and, yes, "This Time I Know It's for Real" was back and it was set to happen all over again. Unless, of course, SAW were about to dry up. At least they had one big star left for them to funnel all their remaining great songs through. What had Kylie been up to?
~~~~~
Also of some cop
Everything but the Girl: "Driving"
My god, what a poor crop of singles we have this fortnight. I don't have much of an issue with Shaw's choice of SOTF because the rest of the competition is so dismal. Coming in second is the latest from Everything but the Girl. There's a lot of the late-eighties to "Driving" (slick production, loads of sax) but Tracey Thorn can overcome a lot with her voice. It would definitely have been better had her and Ben Watt kept things simple with acoustic guitar strumming and maybe a delicate piano as backing. Something they might want to return to if they ever get round to recording together again.
No comments:
Post a Comment