Thursday 12 August 2010

Mike Stock: More Songs About Fucking


Several pundits today have picked up on Mike Stock - of Aitken & Waterman fame - BLASTING "Pop charts porn" in a mini-interview with The Daily Mail yesterday.
Let's - hey - take stock of Mike's blast:
"The music industry has gone too far. It's not about me being old fashioned. It's about keeping values that are important in the modern world.
"These days you can't watch modern stars - like Britney Spears or Lady Gaga - with a two-year-old.
"Ninety-nine per cent of the charts is R 'n' B and 99 per cent of that is soft pornography.'
"Kids are being forced to grow up too young. Look at the videos. I wouldn't necessarily want my young kids to watch them.
"I would certainly be embarrassed to sit there with my mum."
So far, so grumpy old git - and all very "Call that music? You can't hear the words. Is that a boy or a girl..."
The Mail contrasted the "innocent" Kylie Minogue - the biggest star from the SAW stable - with "24-year-old Lady Gaga, who burst on to the scene two years ago, has regularly used crude metaphors in her lyrics as well as posing in revealing outfits."
The gaping chasm between the "Innocent 80s" and "Sleazy 2010" is illustrated with the Kylie and Gaga lyrics quoted in the sidebar reproduced above.
Erm, it may be Fagburn's ears playing up, but I'm pretty sure Ms Minogue sings "I was fucked to my very foundations..." in her hit song Shocked, written and produced by Mike Stock with Aitken & Waterman.
One of SAW's tricks/schticks was taking people who were already famous in one field and making a record with them, most successfully with soap stars Kylie and Jason Donovan.
In 1986 they signed 19 year-old Samantha Fox - best known as a soft porn mag and Sun Page 3 topless model - and recorded 'Touch Me (I Want Your Body)' - thankfully there was nothing sexualised about that, nor was there any hint of a pop/porn continuum.
But I digress, let's go back to Mr Stock...
"[Mothers] were quite happy to put their kids in front of the telly to watch Hannah Montana but recently Miley Cyrus [who played Montana] has shown off her maturing body.'
Sayeth The Mail; "He also attacked the launch last week of the Material Girl clothes range by Madonna's 13-year-old daughter Lourdes, which features short skirts and slashed tops."
It's good to have standards.
Though just for the record Fagburn would like to remind you that in 1986 SAW signed one Mandy Smith - a 16 year-old girl who was already famous - and only famous - for "going out" with aging Rolling Stone Bill Wyman when she was just 13.
Her first single for the SAW boys? 'I Just Can't Wait'.
Geddit?

2 comments:

  1. The best reply to Mike Stock came from Peter Paphides in The Times today...

    http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/arts/music/article2683196.ece

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  2. Check your data: SAW didnt record 'Touch Me (I Want Your Body)'. They recorded 'Nothings Gonna Stop Me Now' in 1987 which was there only offering on her '87 album.

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