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TOP 50 (FRANCE)
Stock Aitken & Waterman
English translation by Jaspion
While Pete Waterman was compering his Hitman Roadshow on british roads,
our friend Bigot was replacing him pretty well between Mike Stock and
Matt Aitken... A new hot trio ?!
With five years on the charts we had to meet the producers of the most
popular artists in Great Britain, the famous Stock Aitken and Waterman.
The interview was so rich (!) that you will only discover it on TV
within a few weeks, we put Phil Collins' instead. Old Waterman wasn't in
the offices (less sumptuous than expected for the biggest hit-making
company in Great Britain), to welcome the "Top" team in search for the
hot trio's key to success. Stock writes and play keyboards, Aitken
operates the console and plays guitars, basses etc and Waterman takes care
of the cash register, strategy and artistic direction. It's the key to
their infaillibilty. 98% of the singles they release are successful,
says Stock (the blond one) to our cameras. By success he means "in the
top 40". Yves Bigot can always try to worm the information out of them
but they will never admit that they have a duplicatable at will formula.
They write in accordance with each artist, and if they find a style that
fits the artist before recording, the events could prove them wrong more
often than believed. The main quality they think they have is that they
can cancel a track which they believed in all along its production or
changing any arrangement in it. But never tell them about money: "Ask my
lawyer... or my accountant" says Matt Aitken.
Stock, Aitken and Waterman started their collection of hits and brilliant
career with Dead or Alive in 1984. Bananarama came and convinced them to
cover "Venus" then (it's said they were not much into covers) and then
they made Rick Astley successful. Their greatest satisfaction is their
collaboration with Kylie Minogue, the first artist they made two albums
for so far. Jason Donovan seems to be on that way too. Though they
produce young artists such as Sonia, Sinitta, Hazell Dean or the Reynolds
Girls, they like experimented voices. One of the two artists they were
dreaming of working with, Cliff Richard (the other being Paul McCartney)
has just recorded with them, and of course they are proud of having
added Donna Summer, the disco diva, to their prize list. The only
unusual thing she asked from them: putting "babies" in most of the
songs...
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