ok, MINUS aitken and stock, watertwat has been responsible for a huge number of hits, more then i knew of and theres some surprises in this list

 

http://www.pwl-empire.com/discog.html

 

ok... 95% were VILE... but there were a few i liked....

 

tracey ullman, princess, mel and kim.... go on, peruse the list, ADMIT to the ones YOU like! :lol:

im surprised he was involved in these tracks.... most i dont like.

 

10-Jun-72 Garry Glitter Rock And Roll (Parts 1 & 2) 2 Promotion

5-Aug-72 Mardi Gras Too Busy Thinking About My Baby 19 Promotion

 

27-Jul-74 Hues Corporation Rock The Boat 6 Promotion

26-Apr-75 Disco Tex & The Sex-O-Lettes I Wanna Dance Wit Choo 6 Promotion

11-Oct-75 The Trammps Hold Back The Night 5 Promotion

1-Apr-78 The Michael Zager Band Let's All Chant 8 Promotion/Publishing

6-Oct-79 Viola Wills Gonna Get Along Without You Now 8 Remixed

3-Nov-79 Matchbox Rockabilly Rebel 18 Loose End

1980

19-Jan-80 Matchbox Buzz Buzz A Diddle It 22 Loose End

1-Mar-80 Lambrettas Poison Ivy 7 Loose End

10-May-80 Matchbox Midnite Dynamos 14 Loose End

24-May-80 Lambrettas D-A-A-ANCE 12 Loose End

27-Sep-80 Matchbox When You Ask About Love 4 Loose End

29-Nov-80 Matchbox Over The Rainbow/You Belong To Me 15 Loose End

Albums:

5-Jul-80 Lambrettas Beat Boys In The Jet Age 28 Loose End

11-Oct-80 Matchbox Midnite Dynamos 23 Loose End

25-Sep-82 Musical Youth Pass The Dutchie 1 Loose End

16-Oct-82 The Piranhas feat Boring Bob Grover Zambesia 17 Loose End :

28-Aug-82 Tygers Of Pan Tang The Cage Loose End

15-Jan-83 The Belle Stars Sign Of The Times 3 Loose End

12-Mar-83 Tracey Ullman Breakaway 4 Loose End

3-Dec-83 Tracey Ullman Move Over Darling 8 Loose End

7-Jul-84 Laura Branigan Self Control 5 Publishing

28-Jul-84 Tracey Ullman Sunglasses 18 Loose End

11-Aug-84 Miami Sound Machine Dr Beat 6 Promotion

3-Aug-85 Princess Say I'm Your Number One 7 SAW

9-Nov-85 Princess After The Love Has Gone 28 SAW

1-Mar-86 Blow Monkeys Digging Your Scene 12 PWL Remixed

26-Jul-86 Five Star Find The Time 7 PWL Remixed

20-Sep-86 Mel & Kim Showing Out (Get Fresh At The Weekend) 3 SAW

17-Jan-87 Pepsi & Shirlie Heartache 2 SAW

7-Mar-87 Mel & Kim Respectable 1 SAW

9-May-87 Depeche Mode Strangelove 16 PWL Remixed

30-May-87 Pepsi & Shirlie Goodbye Stranger 9 PWL Produced

20-Feb-88 Eighth Wonder I'm Not Scared 7 PWL Produced

12-Mar-88 Climie Fisher Love Changes (Everything) 2 PWL Remixed

14-May-88 Desireless Voyage Voyage (1988 Remix) 5 PWL Remixed

1-Apr-89 Holly Johnson Americanos 4 PWL Remixed

24-Mar-90 Snap! The Power 1 Promotion

7-Apr-90 Jesus Jones Real, Real, Real 19 PWL Remixed

30-Nov-96 Atlantic Ocean Waterfall (Re-Release) 21 PWL Remixed

15-Aug-98 Sash! feat Tina Cousins Mysterious Times 2 Promoted

 

 

Face it. Stock Aitken and Waterman were geniuses. Perhaps their music isn't to every taste, but they were WAY ahead of their time in treating music as a product and exploiting all commercial angles.

Face it. Stock Aitken and Waterman were geniuses. Perhaps their music isn't to every taste, but they were WAY ahead of their time in treating music as a product and exploiting all commercial angles.

 

no they were not.... yes they produced a reletively successful commercial product, but respect? influence? awards? innovation?... none. they pinched Hi NRG from the american gay disco scene and successfully transcribed it to uk pop... for a short while, but they sold sweet fa in terms of shifting units in the 80's and none of their tracks figured in the top selling 100.. so maybe they werent such a successful commercial venture.

 

but this thread aint about SAW, its about waterman, whos been in the business longer, much longer then the colaberative SAW.

 

id suggest that music shouldnt be a marketing commodity, a money making vennture, music is an art form that supposed to convey an expression , an emotion, through sound. not a quick fix happy disposable three minute ditty...

I'm just playing devil's advocate tbh :P

Until he met up with Stock and Aitken his main job was as a record plugger / A&R man with brief periods of managing acts - including The Specials in their very early days. He was also a club DJ for many years so was able to gauge audience reaction to the songs he was plugging in his day job as well as pick up on the sort of music the punters wanted to hear - and especially to dance to. It was a combination of all 3 - DJ, promoter and A&R man that led him to move into the area in which SAW were to excel. But to get there, as you can see from that list, he did put in many years effort and I'd imagine not always for much monetary reward.

 

In a way you could say that he got his ultimate period of success (with SAW) in the music industry by hard work and effort over many years in much the same way that a pub band suddenly strikes it lucky after years of plugging away with little recognition. The difference though, of course, is that he was approaching it from the business, not musical, side of things. Unfortunately once he'd formed SAW and the three of them hit on a winning formula they just kept at that same formula and it is that which probably cheeses off many people. He must have done something right over all the years though as, despite him appearing to me to be full of himself, he has maintained friendly relations with many of the acts with which he has worked, back to the 70s.

 

From a musical point of view Waterman, both before SAW and with SAW represents the side of the industry that we don't like, the men who are pulling the strings but like it or not it is an industry and they'll always be there...

Until he met up with Stock and Aitken his main job was as a record plugger / A&R man with brief periods of managing acts - including The Specials in their very early days. He was also a club DJ for many years so was able to gauge audience reaction to the songs he was plugging in his day job as well as pick up on the sort of music the punters wanted to hear - and especially to dance to. It was a combination of all 3 - DJ, promoter and A&R man that led him to move into the area in which SAW were to excel. But to get there, as you can see from that list, he did put in many years effort and I'd imagine not always for much monetary reward.

 

In a way you could say that he got his ultimate period of success (with SAW) in the music industry by hard work and effort over many years in much the same way that a pub band suddenly strikes it lucky after years of plugging away with little recognition. The difference though, of course, is that he was approaching it from the business, not musical, side of things. Unfortunately once he'd formed SAW and the three of them hit on a winning formula they just kept at that same formula and it is that which probably cheeses off many people. He must have done something right over all the years though as, despite him appearing to me to be full of himself, he has maintained friendly relations with many of the acts with which he has worked, back to the 70s.

 

From a musical point of view Waterman, both before SAW and with SAW represents the side of the industry that we don't like, the men who are pulling the strings but like it or not it is an industry and they'll always be there...

 

a good point, he DID put in the work, just a pity that most of his records were utter cack. i didnt know he was responsible for 2 untalented either!!!

 

but did SAW excell?..... just lok at the top ten selling tracks of 87, 88, 89, SAWs peak period, only 5 out of the 30 tracks were SAWs, hardly 'chart domination', in truth many of their releases charted very poorly.

SAW really just started the rot as far as dumbing down great British Pop music goes.... Of course, the likes of Cowell and Walsh have taken this dumbing down process to vastly greater heights than SAW could have ever imagined..... I would say SAW killed the British pop single.... Because it was around this time that single sales began to tail off... Cant really be a coincidence surely..... They're not geniuses in any kind of musical sense, they didn't actually create anything, or come up with any kind of innovations... Depeche Mode (in particular Alan Wilder) were remixing their material for clubs LONG before SAW hit on the idea, so if anyone can take credit for that, then it's DM, not SAW..... SAW were merely jumping on a bandwagon that was already rolling out the station....

 

And then "Blue Monday" by New Order just exploded onto the scene and created an appetite for House/Dance music.... Sorry, but SAW created nothing, they were just clever businessmen....

a good point, he DID put in the work, just a pity that most of his records were utter cack. i didnt know he was responsible for 2 untalented either!!!

 

but did SAW excell?..... just lok at the top ten selling tracks of 87, 88, 89, SAWs peak period, only 5 out of the 30 tracks were SAWs, hardly 'chart domination', in truth many of their releases charted very poorly.

PWL had to strive to have hit after hit in order to survive from a financial point of view and as a result they were probably guilty of releasing too many tracks in order to do that - Magnet, the label at which Waterman cut his teeth in the mid 70s had a similar approach and he seems to have adopted a similar approach with PWL. The outcome was the market was flooded with SAW / PWL tracks and it just seemed as if they were everywhere. Perhaps this meant they couldn't promote every single track to its full "potential". But SAW didn't just do well in the singles market, they also had the best selling albums of 1988 (Kylie) and 1989 (Jason Donovan). And having one sixth of the top 10 best selling singles from each year of 1987 to 1989 wasn't bad.

 

I'm no fan of Waterman, SAW and PWL but I think he, and his partners in crime do get a bit of a rough ride for the success they had in the 1987 to 1989 years. It was lowest common denominator pop but the big labels and acts of that era were giving up on the singles market due to wanting to sell more albums and had been doing so before 1987. At least (at first) he and his cohorts brought some vibrancy, focus and freshness back to the singles chart.

SAW really just started the rot as far as dumbing down great British Pop music goes.... Of course, the likes of Cowell and Walsh have taken this dumbing down process to vastly greater heights than SAW could have ever imagined..... I would say SAW killed the British pop single.... Because it was around this time that single sales began to tail off... Cant really be a coincidence surely..... They're not geniuses in any kind of musical sense, they didn't actually create anything, or come up with any kind of innovations... Depeche Mode (in particular Alan Wilder) were remixing their material for clubs LONG before SAW hit on the idea, so if anyone can take credit for that, then it's DM, not SAW..... SAW were merely jumping on a bandwagon that was already rolling out the station....

 

And then "Blue Monday" by New Order just exploded onto the scene and created an appetite for House/Dance music.... Sorry, but SAW created nothing, they were just clever businessmen....

Singles sales had been in decline since 1980 and accelerated after the big acts and labels began to abandon the singles market after the extraordinary success of Thriller and its several singles. In 1986, the year before SAW went into overdrive, singles sales fell to their lowest for a decade. Although sales did continue to decline it could be argued that SAW cushioned the decline in singles sales - once SAW had faded as a force in 1990 singles sales went into freefall.

 

But as for being innovative - well, producing music to sell to kids (which is what the target audience for SAW was), is never going to produce innovation. It takes a certain business mentality to market the lowest common denominator pop and SAW excelled at what they did in the 1987 to 1989 period. Chinn and Chapman and Mickie Most did much the same back in 1972 to 1975.

He was responsible for 2 of the best tracks of the 80s - Dead or Alive's 'You Spin Me Round' (and several of their others) as well as Divine's 'You Think You're A Man'.

 

Plus superb remixing duties on Eighth Wonder's delicious 'I'm Not Scared' (surely one of the greatest singles of the 80s). And not forgetting Desireless's 'Voyage Voyage', a gay classic from the latter end of the 80s.

 

Not forgetting some fantastic Bananarama moments - I Heard a Rumour, Love Truth and Honesty and Love In The First Degree (was never too keen on Venus).

 

And talking of Bananarama - they've covered 'Voyage Voyage'...and it's rather lovely in a dreamy French europop kinda way.... have a gander....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YcGRqtge3RI

^

 

That's a good version of Voyage Voyage!

Edited November 16, 200915 yr by Robbie

Singles sales had been in decline since 1980 and accelerated after the big acts and labels began to abandon the singles market after the extraordinary success of Thriller and its several singles. In 1986, the year before SAW went into overdrive, singles sales fell to their lowest for a decade. Although sales did continue to decline it could be argued that SAW cushioned the decline in singles sales - once SAW had faded as a force in 1990 singles sales went into freefall.

 

But as for being innovative - well, producing music to sell to kids (which is what the target audience for SAW was), is never going to produce innovation. It takes a certain business mentality to market the lowest common denominator pop and SAW excelled at what they did in the 1987 to 1989 period. Chinn and Chapman and Mickie Most did much the same back in 1972 to 1975.

 

i thought singles sales peaked in 1983, bottoming out in 1990 with new kids on the block having the lowest selling #1 ever (up to then). i dont think SAW cushioned the effect at all, they sold bugger all in comparison to other years c 75,000 tops. agreed with everything else!

i thought singles sales peaked in 1983, bottoming out in 1990 with new kids on the block having the lowest selling #1 ever (up to then). i dont think SAW cushioned the effect at all, they sold bugger all in comparison to other years c 75,000 tops. agreed with everything else!

Singles sales peaked in the 1978 / 1979 years for physical singles.

 

These sales are taken from the BPI from 1964 to 2008:

 

1964 64.0 (million)

1965 56.0

1966 46.0

1967 46.0

1968 44.0

1969 41.0

 

1970 41.0

1971 43.0

1972 46.2

1973 54.6

1974 62.7

 

1975 56.9

1976 56.9

1977 62.1

1978 88.8

1979 89.1

 

1980 77.9

1981 77.4

1982 78.6

1983 74.0

1984 77.0

 

1985 73.8

1986 67.4

1987 63.413

1988 60.118

1989 61.114

 

1990 58.858

1991 56.302

1992 52.921

1993 56.276

1994 63.049

 

1995 70.711

1996 78.264

1997 87.0

1998 79.4

1999 80.1

 

2000 66.1

2001 59.5

2002 52.5

2003 36.4

2004 37.2

 

2005 53.2

2006 71.5

2007 89.3

2008 116.9

 

since 2004 sales include downloads

 

sales hit a low in 1992 and then rose again, rising dramatically in the mid to late 90s before going into freefall once again and then taking off once downloads were counted.

He'd probably liked now to erase that Gary Glitter promotion thingy.

Singles sales peaked in the 1978 / 1979 years for physical singles.

 

These sales are taken from the BPI from 1964 to 2008:

 

1964 64.0 (million)

1965 56.0

1966 46.0

1967 46.0

1968 44.0

1969 41.0

 

1970 41.0

1971 43.0

1972 46.2

1973 54.6

1974 62.7

 

1975 56.9

1976 56.9

1977 62.1

1978 88.8

1979 89.1

 

1980 77.9

1981 77.4

1982 78.6

1983 74.0

1984 77.0

 

1985 73.8

1986 67.4

1987 63.413

1988 60.118

1989 61.114

 

1990 58.858

1991 56.302

1992 52.921

1993 56.276

1994 63.049

 

1995 70.711

1996 78.264

1997 87.0

1998 79.4

1999 80.1

 

2000 66.1

2001 59.5

2002 52.5

2003 36.4

2004 37.2

 

2005 53.2

2006 71.5

2007 89.3

2008 116.9

 

since 2004 sales include downloads

 

sales hit a low in 1992 and then rose again, rising dramatically in the mid to late 90s before going into freefall once again and then taking off once downloads were counted.

 

thanks for that :)

He was responsible for 2 of the best tracks of the 80s - Dead or Alive's 'You Spin Me Round' (and several of their others) as well as Divine's 'You Think You're A Man'.

 

Plus superb remixing duties on Eighth Wonder's delicious 'I'm Not Scared' (surely one of the greatest singles of the 80s). And not forgetting Desireless's 'Voyage Voyage', a gay classic from the latter end of the 80s.

 

Not forgetting some fantastic Bananarama moments - I Heard a Rumour, Love Truth and Honesty and Love In The First Degree (was never too keen on Venus).

 

And talking of Bananarama - they've covered 'Voyage Voyage'...and it's rather lovely in a dreamy French europop kinda way.... have a gander....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YcGRqtge3RI

 

i never really took much notice of singles during the SAW period, but tbh im surprised that watertwat DID actually produce some good songs, i too like 'voyage voyage and 'im not scared', but imho dead or alive is now rather overplayed.

i never really took much notice of singles during the SAW period, but tbh im surprised that watertwat DID actually produce some good songs, i too like 'voyage voyage and 'im not scared', but imho dead or alive is now rather overplayed.

 

Agreed... Especially that absolutely abysmal, repetitive, boring remix that came out a little while back..... -_-

 

 

im currently involved in a long running argument (:lol:) on digital spy regarding SAW, this guy reckons that SAW invented Hi NRg and created dance...:lol: mind you he also thinks that indie started in the mid 90's :lol:

He was responsible for 2 of the best tracks of the 80s - Dead or Alive's 'You Spin Me Round' (and several of their others) as well as Divine's 'You Think You're A Man'.

 

Plus superb remixing duties on Eighth Wonder's delicious 'I'm Not Scared' (surely one of the greatest singles of the 80s). And not forgetting Desireless's 'Voyage Voyage', a gay classic from the latter end of the 80s.

 

Not forgetting some fantastic Bananarama moments - I Heard a Rumour, Love Truth and Honesty and Love In The First Degree (was never too keen on Venus).

 

And talking of Bananarama - they've covered 'Voyage Voyage'...and it's rather lovely in a dreamy French europop kinda way.... have a gander....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YcGRqtge3RI

 

I think Russ sums up his best production work here. I don't think you can count things he was simply promoting so a large amount of that list is irrelevant.