THE name Stock Aitken Waterman is synonymous with some of the best pop tunes in history, with 13 No1 singles and 40million records sold globally.
But now the powerhouse trio of Mike Stock, Matt Aitken and Pete Waterman have turned on the modern music business — slamming one of the world’s most promising young superstars.
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Sabrina Carpenter — who spent a record 21 weeks at the top of the singles chart last year — has found herself the target of their disdain over her skimpy outfits and flirty lyrics.
The hitmakers have even suggested the Espresso singer is setting back the movement for women’s rights.
But they seem to have forgotten that plenty of their acts flashed the flesh to sell more singles . . .
In an exclusive interview with The Sun, Matt, 68, said: “Pop music, and particularly pop videos, have become a lot more sexualised than back in the Eighties — overtly so, for better or for worse.”
Pete, 78, continued: “And that is incredibly strange given that women’s rights are so protected now.
‘Page Three girl’
“To see Sabrina Carpenter dressed as a little girl is quite offensive. She doesn’t need that.
“She’s got great talent and yet the whole of the industry, these girls come out in as little as possible because they know they’re driving young boys to their websites.
“So you go, hang on, we could never have done that 30 years ago.
“We would have been killed if we’d have done half of what they do now. Madonna was the only person who ever got close to that image.”
Agreeing with them, Mike, 73, said: “They’ve won all of their freedoms and their rights, women.
Sabrina Carpenter set to take the Stage at BST London 2025
“They fought for everything they’ve got and now they’re throwing it away, is the way I would look at it.”
Pete added: “It’s just crazy. If you’re asking to be respected, don’t come on in a G-string.”
The stinging verdict of Sabrina continued as they dismissed her sexual lyrics as “lazy.”
She has faced criticism for songs such as Juno, in which she mentions sex positions, and Bed Chem, about being compatible with someone between the sheets.
Mike explained: “I would never try and write a lyric that said anything specific on a sexual level.
“You’d always be allegorical or allude to it somehow. So I don’t like that. I think it’s a bad show and it’s lazy. You’re going to grab some form of attention by doing that.”
But the comments are at odds with their own style of Eighties acts, which included a raft of female favourites in equally revealing outfits.
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They capitalised on glamour model Sam Fox’s notoriety by turning her into a pop star after she made a name for herself as a Page Three girl.
Their most famous export, Kylie Minogue, has spent decades being celebrated for her music and her racy looks both on and off stage.
The trio also wrote for Sinitta, who had suggestive lyrics in several of her songs and wore hot pants and bandeau tops.
It’s just crazy. If you’re asking to be respected, don’t come on in a G-string
Pete Waterman
And they produced music for Mandy Smith, who, at 13, was at the centre of controversy over her relationship with Rolling Stones star Bill Wyman, 47. She had success in Europe but failed to crack the UK.
The music moguls spoke out yesterday as they unveiled a blue plaque from the Southwark Heritage Association at Vine Yard Studios in London, where they created countless pop anthems, including Band Aid II’s version of Do They Know It’s Christmas? in 1989.
The three industry bigwigs also helped shape the sound of artists such as Rick Astley, Bananarama and Jason Donovan.
Recalling how they used to take huge acts to the nearby pub after sessions in the studio, Pete recalled: “We had Paul McCartney in there on a Sunday night singing Beatles songs and nobody batted an eyelid.
“The only person that ever, ever, ever got a reaction in the pub was Sam Fox.”
It is four decades this year since SAW scored their first No1 single with You Spin Me Round (Like A Record) by Dead Or Alive.
Following this and many more successes, they believe the charts have lost meaning — and claim the public no longer have a choice with music, despite streaming services making millions more songs accessible.
Comparing the significance of the charts to years gone by, Matt said: “I don’t think it matters anymore. There’s no flagship for it.
“There was Top of the Pops and everybody would know what the No1 record was. I get the charts every week sent to me directly, so I kind of know the titles, but I couldn’t wade through listening to it and there’s no platform for it.
“It’s all streamed music now, so it’s not like getting excited to go down to Woolworths and pay £2 for your single. That’s what people used to do.”
Pete chipped in: “The thing is, the industry back then, when a No1 meant so much, this was about the public making it No1.
‘Trump will shake it up’
“The record industry didn’t like that and the fact that the public had a choice. Let’s not kid ourselves — the public do not get a choice now.
“We’ve taken the public completely out of the equation because streaming is not people buying it. It’s people who might listen to ten or 15 seconds because it’s a service, it’s like radio. And it’s always been radio.
“People listen to radio in a completely different way than when they bought their single, went home and played it to death 25 times before they went back a week later and bought another single.
“It was theirs, they owned it and they were passionate about it.
To see Sabrina Carpenter dressed as a little girl is quite offensive. She doesn’t need that
“They read the sleeves, they knew the producers, they knew the song and, within 20 minutes, they could sing the song along with the track.
“Now they don’t care because there’s no ownership.”
And the trio reckon the hit songs they worked on — including Rick Astley’s Never Gonna Give You Up, Kylie’s I Should Be So Lucky and Bananarama’s Venus — should be considered even more successful in today’s climate.
Pete said: “What I don’t understand is that, when you look back to Rick Astley, for instance — Never Gonna Give You Up — if you work out when he was No1 all around the world, how many people must have listened to him, and add that to what it would be today, it’s unbelievable. You’re talking over a billion streams a week.
“We didn’t get paid for that. You only got paid for what people physically went out and bought.”
Things could be about to change, though, and the trio believe Canadian rapper Drake, and US president Donald Trump, will be the ones to make it happen.
Drake is suing his own record label Universal, claiming that they boosted his rap rival Kendrick Lamar’s diss track, Not Like Us, which Universal has denied.
And Pete believes the court case could be significant when it comes to finally revealing the power and influence record labels could exert behind the scenes — a practice known as payola.
He said: “There’s this big court case that’s about to go on in America with Drake and this could change the record industry forever.
“Drake is accusing Universal of cheating and buying streams and influencers to make Kendrick Lamar bigger than him — it’s a massive court case.
“What it is doing is opening the pages on what’s been going on in the record industry for over 50 years. But now it’s so blatant, because you can use TikTok and influencers and it’s all payola.
“And here’s Drake, who’s actually come out and said, ‘This is payola’.”
Mike continued: “I know Donald Trump is going to shake it up, I know he is. That will be good, I think.”
In 2023, Stock Aitken Waterman channelled their back catalogue of more than 100 Top 40 hits into a jukebox musical called I Should Be So Lucky, which went on a nationwide tour, and which they have further big plans for.
Mike explained: “The musical is going to go around the world. It’s going to end up in everyone’s town or city at some point or other.
“We’re in the West End later this year but we’re, at the present time, tightening all the bolts up and getting other things sorted out.”
However, the state of the music industry means the trio are unlikely to ever work together on any new music. Mike said: “With Matt and Pete, we’ve not thought about doing anything together, really.
“Nothing’s ever come up and, like Pete’s been saying, it’s a different world. Financially I suppose we don’t want to put ourselves on the line anymore.”
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SLATING SINGERS A NO-NO
PETE WATERMAN reckons TV is too woke for music reality shows.
The industry mogul was a judge on ITV singing contest Pop Idol from 2001 to 2003.
And he said expert panels are no longer allowed to give real opinions – which is what viewers want – in case they hurt the feelings of wannabes.
Pete added: “If you can’t be honest, you can’t have a reality show, can you?
“Television is no longer honest. You’re told what you can say and you’re told what you can’t say.
“And while you’ve got that, you’re never going to be able to say to somebody, ‘Sorry, find a different career’, because that is not permissible anymore.
“So you’ve taken away completely the tool that made it work.
“All the way back to shows back in the Sixties, talent shows, if you can’t criticise, then you have no show.”
Pete will make a guest appearance on Simon Cowell’s upcoming Netflix reality show The Midas Touch, which is hunting for the UK’s next big boyband.
But he revealed he felt constricted during filming.
He said: “The Netflix thing is incredible. They’re so rigid about what you can say and what you can’t say. It’s pointless!
“People used to sit at home and say, ‘He can’t sing’, or, ‘She can’t sing’, but now you can’t say it, so what’s the point?
“We’ve got millions of experts now who make fortunes telling us all the details about your attention span. And my argument is they probably don’t make anything that anybody wants to bloody watch.
“If you’re not making good things, don’t be surprised if people aren’t watching television.”
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