Stock Aitken Waterman are an English songwriting and record production trio consisting of Mike Stock, Matt Aitken, and Pete Waterman. The trio had great success from the mid-1980s through to the early 1990s. SAW is considered one of the most successful songwriting and producing partnerships of all time, scoring more than 100 UK top-40 hits, selling over 150 million records and earning an estimated £60 million.
Dead or Alive were an English pop band that released six studio albums from 1984 to 1995. The band formed in 1980 in Liverpool and found success in the mid-1980s, releasing seven singles that made the UK top 40 and three albums on the UK top 30. At the peak of their success, the lineup consisted of Pete Burns (vocals), Steve Coy (drums), Mike Percy (bass) and Tim Lever (keyboards), with the core pair of Burns and Coy writing and producing for the remainder of the band's career due to Percy and Lever exiting the group in 1989.
Peter Jozzeppi Burns was an English singer, songwriter and television personality who formed the band Dead or Alive in 1980 during the new wave era and acted as the band's lead vocalist and principal songwriter. He sold over 17 million albums and 36 million singles worldwide and also gave successful English songwriting and record production trio Stock Aitken Waterman (SAW) their first UK No. 1 hit single. His first three albums all reached the UK Top 30, with Youthquake reaching the Top 10. Additionally, the band had seven singles which made the UK Top 40 and two of the band's singles reached the US Top 20. In December 2016, Billboard ranked Dead or Alive as the 96th most successful "dance artist" of all time.
Youthquake is the second studio album by the English pop band Dead or Alive, released on 3 May 1985 by Epic Records. The album was their commercial breakthrough in Europe and the United States, due to the lead single "You Spin Me Round ", which was a UK No. 1 hit and a Top 20 hit in the United States. Additional single releases from the album included "Lover Come Back to Me", "In Too Deep" and "My Heart Goes Bang ".
"You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)" is a song by the English pop band Dead or Alive, featured on their second studio album, Youthquake (1985). Released as a single in November 1984, it reached No. 1 in the UK in March 1985, taking 17 weeks to get there. It was the first UK number one hit by the Stock Aitken Waterman production trio. On the US Billboard Hot 100, it peaked at No. 11 on 17 August of that year, becoming their highest-charting single there. The song also reached No. 1 in Ireland and in Canada, while in Australia it peaked at No. 3 and it charted highly in numerous European countries.
"Turn It into Love" is a single released by Australian singer Kylie Minogue. It was taken from her debut studio album Kylie (1988). The single was released in December 1988 in Japan only. The B-side was a new song "Made in Heaven", which also served as the B-side to both "Je ne sais pas pourquoi" and "It's No Secret" in other international territories.
Fan the Flame is the fifth studio album from English band Dead or Alive, released in 1990. Epic Records released Fan the Flame in Japan only. The album remained an exclusive in this territory until the worldwide release of the Sophisticated Boom Box MMXVI compilation box set in 2016. The album marked a change in the band's musical style towards more melancholic lyrics and refined vocals from Burns. The background vocals on "Total Stranger" were performed by British pop group Londonbeat and the London Community Gospel Choir provided backing vocals for "Unhappy Birthday".
Evolution: The Hits is a compilation album from the British dance/pop band Dead or Alive, in 2003.
Fragile is a Remix album released by British band Dead or Alive in 2000. The album was originally only released in Japan by independent record company Avex Trax. With thirteen tracks, the album contains some new material as well as re-recordings and remixes of past songs. Also included is a remake of U2's song "Even Better Than the Real Thing", which had previously appeared on a U2 tribute album. The album remained an exclusive in Japan until the worldwide release of the Sophisticated Boom Box MMXVI compilation in 2016.
"I Guess I Like It Like That" is a 1991 promotional single written by Australian singer-songwriter Kylie Minogue and British producers Mike Stock and Pete Waterman for Minogue's fourth album Let's Get to It. The song samples 2 Unlimited's "Get Ready for This" written by Phil Wilde, Jean-Paul de Coster and Ray Slijngaard. On the 2015 UK re-release of the Let's Get to It album, Wilde and de Coster were credited as co-authors of the song (Stock/Waterman/Minogue/DeCoster/Wilde). The song also samples Freestyle Orchestra's "Keep On Pumping It Up" and the Salt-N-Pepa song "I Like It Like That".
The discography of Dead or Alive, a British dance-pop group, consists of six studio albums, seven compilation albums, twenty eight singles, and two video albums.
The Hit Factory Volume 2 is a compilation album released in November 1988 by Fanfare Records and PWL Records. It was an album featuring hits produced by British production trio Stock Aitken Waterman who were at their peak at the time of the album's release. The first compilation The Hit Factory: The Best of Stock Aitken Waterman was issued by Stylus in 1987. The range of tracks included four special 12" remixes, exclusive to the set, and also a previously unavailable track by an American group called Sequal. The album gained a platinum BPI Award and reached #16 in the UK Top 100 Album Chart. When compilation albums were excluded from the main chart on January 14, 1989, the album crossed to the new chart for the remainder of its run.
The Hit Factory: The Best of Stock Aitken Waterman is a compilation album released in 1987 by Stylus Records in association with PWL Records. The collection brought together some the biggest hits by British production team Stock Aitken Waterman. It reached #18 in the UK Top 100 Album Chart and achieved a Gold BPI award.
The Hit Factory: Pete Waterman's Greatest Hits is a compilation album featuring music produced by Pete Waterman. It was released by Universal Music in 2000 and reached #3 in the UK compilation Top 20 chart, achieving a Gold BPI award.
Stock Aitken Waterman Gold is a compilation album released in 2005 by Sony BMG, PWL Records and EBUL.
Greatest Hits of All Times – Remix '88 is a remix album by Boney M. released in 1988. Boney M.'s new manager at the time, Simon Napier-Bell, succeeded in persuading the four original members to briefly reunite and promote this remix album. The man employed to re-arrange the original hits and create new interest in the band was PWL's Pete Hammond, who previously had remixed many of the Stock Aitken Waterman stable's chart-topping hits with Kylie Minogue, Jason Donovan, Rick Astley and Bananarama. Five of the tracks also feature new lead vocals by Liz Mitchell. In early 2021, Hammond recalled the following about the '88 remix project, explaining the new vocals: "The 2inch 24 track multi-track tapes were sent to PWL by Frank Farian of Far Music. Apparently, they had lost some of the original recordings—four songs if I remember correctly—and had to record four new versions; they were musically incomplete but good enough for me to overdub and remix". The remix project spun off three fairly successful single releases, "Rivers of Babylon ", "Rasputin " and the 1988 "Megamix", which would appear on the follow-up album issued a year later, and created the first wave of Boney M. nostalgia in Europe.
Pete Waterman Presents The Hit Factory is a compilation album released in July 2012 collecting 39 hits produced by Pete Waterman. Included are a vast number of tracks that were written and produced by Waterman along with Mike Stock and Matt Aitken during their most successful period working as Stock Aitken Waterman, becoming among the most successful music producers of all-time.
"Sex Drive" is a song by British band Dead or Alive from their 1995 album Nukleopatra. The single was a minor hit in Australia, where it peaked at number 52 in March 1997.
That's the Way I Like It: The Best of Dead or Alive is the third greatest hits album by English pop band Dead or Alive, released in 2010. It is the last release by Dead or Alive before lead singer Pete Burns died in 2016; the box set Sophisticated Boom Box MMXVI was released just five days after his death.
Sophisticated Boom Box MMXVI is a comprehensive box set by English band Dead or Alive, released on both 17CD/2DVD and 10LP versions, on October 28, 2016.
