Fact #159586
When:
Short story:
Kylie Minogue tops the UK singles chart for the first time with I Should Be So Lucky, released by the independent PWL Records, because every major UK label turned it down.
Full article:
“Kylie could have come in and burped into the mike,” said producer Pete Waterman, “and it would have been a hit.”
Waterman had spotted Kylie’s pop superstar potential when her 1987 cover version of Little Eva’s 1962 smash, The Loco-motion, became a huge hit in Australia, Oceania.
Waterman knew that, unlike most aspiring pop stars, Kylie didn’t have to find an audience. As Charleen in the Aussie soap Neighbours, she was seen twice daily on tv by 15 million devoted fans. If even a small percentage of those bought her records, she’d have a huge hit on her hands.
As the leading light in the Stock, Aitken And Waterman record production triumvirate, Waterman had already helped manufacture successful careers for Musical Youth, Mel And Kim, and Rick Astley. Now, he was certain, he could do the same for Kylie.
To judge by their chequered pasts, Stock, Aitken and Waterman were the trio least likely to succeed in the cut-throat record industry of the 80s. Waterman was a middle-aged ex-Mecca ballroom DJ, Matt Aitken had been a cruise ship guitarist, and Mike Stock’s former band Dodge had come last on Opportunity Knocks.
Nevertheless, they had built up the most successful record production team ever seen in the UK, very much in the assembly line tradition of The Brill Building, Motown or Philadelphia International. “We work best when we’re chucking them out,” explained Mike Stock, “Four songs a day if we can.”
This was hardly any exaggeration. SAW’s hit songs, which they described with uncommon honesty as “music for people who like a good time and eat fish and chips on the way home” often took no more than a day and a half from idea to writing to recording, in a state of the art studio complex located in a grubby cul-de-sac behind Borough tube station in London. In 1987 alone, they’d notched up 31 number ones world-wide, selling 35 million records in all.
“The first thing we do is get to know the artist,” explained Waterman. “People imagine we’ve got a stack of songs just waiting to be recorded, but the major thing is getting to grips with the singer’s temperament and personality.” Bananarama, as visualised by SAW, were ‘the checkout girls at Tescos’. Rick Astley had been ‘the boy next door’, and once they’d got to grips with Kylie, they decided she was ‘the girl next door’. Having already been a Neighbour for several years, it didn’t require a rocket scientist to figure that one out.
In October 1987, during a break in her Neighbours’ filming schedule, they brought Kylie to England. “We recorded I Should Be So Lucky during my first visit to London,” she said later. “It was a really spontaneous performance, as Mike Stock wrote the song on my final day. We recorded ‘Lucky’ with only an hour to spare - just enough time for me to get to the airport.”
“We like a story, like ‘I met you and you went off with someone else’,” said Matt Aitken, explaining the team’s modus operandi. “It’s got to be a simple emotion which anybody can identify with. Like I Should Be So Lucky. Then we take the title and pin it on the wall. That’s the bulls-eye. Then you get the tune and the lyrics.”
Fortunately, having got the song together, Kylie proved adept at performing it. “Run through a song three times with her and she’s got it,” said Waterman. “Then she’ll record it in 30 minutes - 45 at the outside.”
Finally, Waterman set about what should have been a much easier task - finding a record label to release it. Bizarrely, despite everything it had going for it, nobody wanted to know, so Waterman decided to form his own label, PWL, to issue the song, which went on to become the biggest-selling UK single of 1988. (By 1993, Waterman’s personal fortune was estimated around £60m.)
“It’s all down to Stock Aitken and Waterman,” burbled Kylie obligingly. “I love the songs they write for me.”
Success, however, proved a two-edged sword for Kylie. She was adored by the public, but serious rock critics objected to the calculated method by which she, and her svengali-like backroom team of SAW, had achieved it. She was swiftly dubbed ‘the Singing Budgie’ by one publication, and Q magazine’s Mark Ellen spoke for many when he dismissed her as “essentially a latter-day Julie Andrews.”
“I was very much a puppet in the beginning,” admitted the small but perfectly formed Kylie, somewhat later. “I was blinkered by my record company.”
Even so, despite a physical and nervous breakdown brought on by trying to be a Neighbour in Australia and a pop star in Britain, Kylie didn’t do too badly. She went on to score 13 consecutive Top Ten entries before her first lucky streak deserted her. She reportedly earned over £10m at the peak of that first bout of fame and declared, “I didn’t really think about it until my accountant told me I was no longer just a person called Kylie, I was a commodity.”
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Waterman had spotted Kylie’s pop superstar potential when her 1987 cover version of Little Eva’s 1962 smash, The Loco-motion, became a huge hit in Australia, Oceania.
Waterman knew that, unlike most aspiring pop stars, Kylie didn’t have to find an audience. As Charleen in the Aussie soap Neighbours, she was seen twice daily on tv by 15 million devoted fans. If even a small percentage of those bought her records, she’d have a huge hit on her hands.
As the leading light in the Stock, Aitken And Waterman record production triumvirate, Waterman had already helped manufacture successful careers for Musical Youth, Mel And Kim, and Rick Astley. Now, he was certain, he could do the same for Kylie.
To judge by their chequered pasts, Stock, Aitken and Waterman were the trio least likely to succeed in the cut-throat record industry of the 80s. Waterman was a middle-aged ex-Mecca ballroom DJ, Matt Aitken had been a cruise ship guitarist, and Mike Stock’s former band Dodge had come last on Opportunity Knocks.
Nevertheless, they had built up the most successful record production team ever seen in the UK, very much in the assembly line tradition of The Brill Building, Motown or Philadelphia International. “We work best when we’re chucking them out,” explained Mike Stock, “Four songs a day if we can.”
This was hardly any exaggeration. SAW’s hit songs, which they described with uncommon honesty as “music for people who like a good time and eat fish and chips on the way home” often took no more than a day and a half from idea to writing to recording, in a state of the art studio complex located in a grubby cul-de-sac behind Borough tube station in London. In 1987 alone, they’d notched up 31 number ones world-wide, selling 35 million records in all.
“The first thing we do is get to know the artist,” explained Waterman. “People imagine we’ve got a stack of songs just waiting to be recorded, but the major thing is getting to grips with the singer’s temperament and personality.” Bananarama, as visualised by SAW, were ‘the checkout girls at Tescos’. Rick Astley had been ‘the boy next door’, and once they’d got to grips with Kylie, they decided she was ‘the girl next door’. Having already been a Neighbour for several years, it didn’t require a rocket scientist to figure that one out.
In October 1987, during a break in her Neighbours’ filming schedule, they brought Kylie to England. “We recorded I Should Be So Lucky during my first visit to London,” she said later. “It was a really spontaneous performance, as Mike Stock wrote the song on my final day. We recorded ‘Lucky’ with only an hour to spare - just enough time for me to get to the airport.”
“We like a story, like ‘I met you and you went off with someone else’,” said Matt Aitken, explaining the team’s modus operandi. “It’s got to be a simple emotion which anybody can identify with. Like I Should Be So Lucky. Then we take the title and pin it on the wall. That’s the bulls-eye. Then you get the tune and the lyrics.”
Fortunately, having got the song together, Kylie proved adept at performing it. “Run through a song three times with her and she’s got it,” said Waterman. “Then she’ll record it in 30 minutes - 45 at the outside.”
Finally, Waterman set about what should have been a much easier task - finding a record label to release it. Bizarrely, despite everything it had going for it, nobody wanted to know, so Waterman decided to form his own label, PWL, to issue the song, which went on to become the biggest-selling UK single of 1988. (By 1993, Waterman’s personal fortune was estimated around £60m.)
“It’s all down to Stock Aitken and Waterman,” burbled Kylie obligingly. “I love the songs they write for me.”
Success, however, proved a two-edged sword for Kylie. She was adored by the public, but serious rock critics objected to the calculated method by which she, and her svengali-like backroom team of SAW, had achieved it. She was swiftly dubbed ‘the Singing Budgie’ by one publication, and Q magazine’s Mark Ellen spoke for many when he dismissed her as “essentially a latter-day Julie Andrews.”
“I was very much a puppet in the beginning,” admitted the small but perfectly formed Kylie, somewhat later. “I was blinkered by my record company.”
Even so, despite a physical and nervous breakdown brought on by trying to be a Neighbour in Australia and a pop star in Britain, Kylie didn’t do too badly. She went on to score 13 consecutive Top Ten entries before her first lucky streak deserted her. She reportedly earned over £10m at the peak of that first bout of fame and declared, “I didn’t really think about it until my accountant told me I was no longer just a person called Kylie, I was a commodity.”