Reproduced from Lowdown 1996

Since Stock, Aitken and Waterman joined forces in 1984, the trio have written over 50 Top Forty hits and made pop siblings Kylie Minogue, Bananarama, Rick Astley, Sonia and Jason Donovan into household names. Others like Mandy Smith, Divine, Dead Or Alive, Carol Hitchcock, Princess, Sam Fox, Sinitta and Hazell Dean were also names that came and went but enjoyed chart success under the SAW banner.

For a while they seemed to have the Midas touch. Then Waterman began to break away from the production side, preferring to take control of all the media hype. As a result he became the focus of all the credit, and Stock and Aitken began to feel peeved. They felt they were doing all the work but not gaining any recognition. 'Pete was a larger than life character. He was excellent at going out there and selling the product on TV, radio, wherever, but he just wanted to be a media star'.

Matt Aitken left PWL and a year later, Mike followed. Mike set up Love This Records, and it was their first release, Nicki French's Total Eclipse Of The Heart, that started the ball rolling again. Total Eclipse wasn't the only big dance anthem to have come from the Love This stable, their back catalogue reads like a list of gay floor fillers. Hits include Tatjana's Santa Maria, Newton's Sky High and more recently Suzann Rye's Because You Loved Me are among the releases that are greeted with gay euphoria.

The frustrating thing is that all three failed to match the success of earlier pop hits. I asked why? 'An artist appearing on a TV show hits two million people. If you are 'A' listed on Radio One, every time they play your record it reaches over two million people'. So it's all very well having a big club hit, but unless your radio jocks get the drift, you're just wasting your time and money'.

In Mike's own words, 'the label is fighting a battle to exist', and they need the help of the music business in particular, national radio, to get the material heard. It annoys them that some music people just set out to persue the 'pink pound' as one A&R man suggested them doing this year. They are, however totally aware that they've always been able to produce a dance sound which is popular with a gay audience.

What does baffle them is that radio stations flatly refuse to pick up on their 'gay sound'. Matt explains: 'People don't like us and they don't like the fact that we produce what they regard as gay dance music. That's totally homophobic in our eyes'. His argument is, that Sony Music don't have to push Celine Dion on mainstream radio stations, fact is, those stations can't get enough of her. When Love This produce a fine re-working of one of her songs, in the form of Suzann Rye's Because You Loved Me, those stations just didn't want to know.

Mike and Matt have written lots of tracks they've really belived in, but have had to accept that they are making music to be heard by a very limited market. This year alone radio's cold reception to two completed prjects, Sally Anne Marsh's cover of Windmills Of Your Mind and E-Male's cover of Bowie's Let's Dance resulted in both being withdrawn before release. Even BMG pulled a Stock and Aitken production that really was destined for bigger things. WESTend's Hi-NRG stomper The Weather Girls', It's Raining Men, despite the support of satellite music channel, The Box, and a gay club following never made it to the commercial market. Why? Matt queries 'Did BMG have to buy radio time with Robert Miles One And One?' Not very likely.

Matt's case in point, Unchained Melody by Robson and Jerome, which was the fasting selling song of the decade and in it's entire chart life, only ever received seven plays on Radio One. All of those, not surprisingly were more compulsory as they were played in the chart rundown. Matt explained: 'Radio programmers are just our worst enemy. The public are being short-changed'. A spokesperson for Trevor Dann, Head of Production at Radio One (who chairs their playlist metting), insists that a lot of tunes are considered and from those, only the ones deemed more suitable are then broadcasted. Matt however, is not convinced: 'Radio programmers don't give a stuff for the punters and they have a right to know'.

The one question I was most keen to ask was which artist (or artists), would they most like to work with again? From the long list of possible answers, I was thrilled, when Matt immediately said Donna Summer. Mike explained why. 'She turns yours songs and makes them work,' he said. Readers might be interested to learn that most of the tracks on Donna's album, Another Place And Time, were actually written for Bananarama. Mike continued, 'The girls couldn't give them what they're worth'.

I mentioned one of my personal favourites who'd benefited from the SAW collaboration, Lonnie Gordon. Both pondered for a moment and agreed they would love to work with her again and even suggested that I find her and tell her. Mike giggled, 'As long as she wants to come here and make a hit, we'll do it!'. I tried to coax them into dishing the dirt of Kylie, but the boys were only complimentary. 'She does sing very well actually' said Mike. 'When we first met her she was just the girl from an Australian TV show; we didn't even know who she was'.

In retrospect, they are still a little surprised that they decided to leave them back in '93. 'We were actually de-bubble-gumming her anyway', said Mike, 'but we could never move quickly enough for her'. Ever since her departure Mike explains, 'We've been looking for a star. And it could be the next person through that door'.