"[Big Fun] explain how Pete Waterman sat them down and told them that Stock Aitken & Waterman were looking for "a harder sound because they knew what they were doing wouldn't carry them into the late '90s". Lonnie Gordon's single was an experiment to try it out and, because that worked, they say "Handful of Promises" is the second."
Chris Heath, "Don't Big Fun Look Hard?", Smash Hits, March 1990
It is fair to say that Stock Aitken Waterman had a huge influence on pop music in the second half of the 1980s, and indeed came to dominate the scene in the last three years of the decade. But as the trio enjoyed their most successful year in 1989, the signs of change were in the air. Dance music was on the ascendant, whilst guitar indie bands like The Stone Roses and Happy Mondays were making in-roads to the charts.
One of the key factors of SAWs success was their ability to tap into the musical trends of the day and fuse them with their own pop sensibilities. This approach had borne great dividends, but the downside was that as SAW came to dominate the music scene, they had no-one but themselves to seek inspiration from. PWL mixmaster and producer Phil Harding comments in his excellent PWL From The Factory Floor book that he felt that SAW's amazing success in pop music resulted in a move away from their trendier dance records, and as a result, they lost a lot of crucial support from the DJ community which had supported them in the early days.
Therefore, the influx of new sounds into the pop charts and concerns about the sustainability of a sound which had already enjoyed at least three years of huge success presumably led to SAW thinking about what changes they could make to keep current without losing their unique selling point of strong pop melodies.
Various accounts have it that SAW came up with three tracks to showcase and test out a new harder sound for the 1990s. The first two -- as referenced in the Chris Heath quotation above -- were Happenin' All Over Again by Lonnie Gordon and Handful of Promises by Big Fun. The third is believed to have been Counting Every Minute by Sonia.
The question is: Did these three records really determine a new sound for SAW?
The opening salvo in this bold experiment was Lonnie Gordon's Happenin' All Over Again, which was truly an ideal blend between the melodic SAW pop of the previous year and the harder dance sounds breaking through into the 1990 music charts. Perhaps taking some inspiration from Black Box's 1989 smash Ride On Time, Happenin' All Over Again eschews the Italo piano of that track for a solid backing of acid synths and string synth pads, punctuated by a punchy percussion track. Gordon's powerful voice dominates proceedings, but special credit must be given to the intricate backing vocal arrangement -- immaculately performed by Mae McKenna and Miriam Stockley (plus Mike Stock). It sounds like a new SAW sound for 1990, and a nod back to the soul/dance material they created between 1985 & 1987. Some commentators suggest this track was written for Donna Summer -- and it's not too difficult to imagine Summer perform it -- but Gordon puts her own stamp on it and makes it her own. This venture into a harder sound was deemed a success -- it got a positive critical reaction and reached #4 on the UK Singles Chart -- and it suggested an exciting new year ahead for both Gordon and SAW. Therefore, it's sad to note that the prolonged decision-making that delayed the follow-up resulted in Gordon being unable to build on the impact she'd made with this single.
Kicking off with a dirty great air-raid siren, Big Fun's Handful of Promises certainly offers a denser sound than their two previous SAW-produced singles. "Harder" isn't exactly the right term here, given the act and some of the lyrics, but there is a move away again from the SAW sound of 1988 and 1989. No synth-brass, Staccato Heaven or dramatic drum fills here -- instead we get a crisp, hard beat, punctuated with the "whoa - yeah" sample, as well as a solid synth lead and a driving ringing riff. Some familiar staples remain, such as the synth string pads and female backing vocals, but there's also some acid house synths in there too. Melodically, it's a typically strong song, building nicely from the pacey verse, to a terrific bridge, through to the catchy chorus. There's definitely a punchier sound to this track, but unfortunately it is the act performing the track who prevent it from being "harder". Big Fun were perhaps an odd proposition as a boy band aimed at teenage girls (though they certainly succeeded in that target audience), but crucially, lead singer Mark had such an unusual voice that, in my opinion at least, detracted from the overall success of the recordings. One wonders how much better this track would have sounded with a lower-pitched vocal, though I do wonder if the opening lines of the chorus -- "Just a handful of promises / You gave me / A pocketful of dreams / That just won't do" -- could be better suited to a female performer. Handful of Promises reached #21 on the UK Singles Chart, but, despite my issues with the vocals, I think it's a good track and one which may have done better under a different act.
Sonia's Counting Every Minute completed the apparent trio of "harder" records, and indeed aims to make a statement of intent from the start. Opening with a chunky house beat, Italo house piano and acid synths, it again sounds like SAW are moving away from the trebly sound of the previous year, but the prominent use of chimes results in the record sounding more like what came before and less like a pointer towards the new "harder sound", even with the "whoa-yeah" sample. Don't get me wrong, it's a good track, with hints of Abba in the melody, and performed well by Sonia, but it's perhaps not as bold as the previous two records discussed here. There's some nice playing on the track from Mike and Matt, and interestingly the backing vocals are less prominent here than on other SAW tracks. The middle eight is great fun, with its stuttering sample and sweeping string swirl, and it has a great descending bass line at the end of the bridge, which sounds a bit like a schoolkid twanging a plastic ruler on their desk! Peaking at #16, this is Sonia at her pomp, as her subsequent two SAW singles would see a downshift in tempo.
Overall, it's fair to say that these three tracks did demonstrate an effort to develop the SAW sound for a new decade, and certainly all three were hits. That said, it's notable that all three acts would part ways with SAW as 1990 went on.
However, I'm still not sure that these three tracks fully realised the "harder" sound which Pete Waterman was aiming for, though I do think that Happenin' All Over Again came the closest. If anything, I would wager that there were other tracks in 1990 which were perhaps more successful attempts at a harder sound, such as Romi & Jazz's One Love One World (which I'll cover in more detail another time) and, most notably, Kylie Minogue's Better The Devil You Know.
Honourable mentions should also go to the two 1990 records which SAW produced under two different pseudonyms -- Grand Plaz's Wow Wow Na Na (with production credited to DJ Crazyhouse) and L.A. Mood's Ole Ole Ole (written and produced by Kean Canter Mattowski -- clearly an anagram of Stock Aitken Waterman) -- which also carried a tougher dance sound, though perhaps the Grand Plaz track was more successful in not sounding like a SAW production.
I'd wager, though, that rather than adopting a harder sound, SAW looked towards the dance and soul genres for the rest of 1990 (and into 1991). Whilst SAW still came out with pop-friendly tracks (such as Yell!'s One Thing Leads To Another and Jason Donovan's Another Night), Phil Harding has stated that following the critical and commercial success of Better The Devil You Know, Pete Waterman pursued a more club-orientated sound. Certainly, the singles from Delage, Grand Plaz, LA Mood and the third Lonnie Gordon single followed this model, though a soul & RnB sound was also catered for by the second Lonnie Gordon single and Sybil's Make It Easy On Me, as well as by the Cool Notes and Paul Varney tracks in 1991.
Unfortunately, the second half of 1990 resulted in SAW enjoying less chart success than the first half. A good number of strong tracks failed to make the Top 40, and in one or two cases, the Top 75. In some cases, such as Yell! and Lonnie Gordon, record company issues had an impact, but perhaps there was a general shift away from the SAW sound in favour of the new and exciting sounds coming through. Given that young people drive singles sales and that their tastes are remarkably fickle, it was inevitable that the market would move on -- and in many ways, it is remarkable that SAW maintained their stratospheric success for as long as they did.
One experiment I would have liked to have seen was SAW marrying their unique pop melodies with the indie-dance sound pioneered by The Stone Roses and Happy Mondays, bringing in a bit more guitar and breakbeats. That would have surely been a "harder sound" and an interesting diversification. All that said, I'm happy with what we got from SAW in 1990, but equally I am curious as to what the results of further experimentation in a harder sound would have been...
