In the ’80s, the U.K. charts were ruled by hits by artists like Rick Astley, Bananarama and Kylie Minogue, created by the songwriting and production team known as Stock Aitken Waterman, consisting of Mike Stock, Matt Aitken and Pete Waterman. But now the producers are criticizing current music and, in particular, Sabrina Carpenter.
Speaking to the British tabloid The Sun, Aitken said, “Pop music, and particularly pop videos, have become a lot more sexualized than back in the Eighties — overtly so, for better or for worse.”
Waterman, 78, added, “And that is incredibly strange given that women’s rights are so protected now. 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.”
Stock, 73, agreed, noting, “They’ve won all of their freedoms and their rights, women. They fought for everything they’ve got and now they’re throwing it away, is the way I would look at it.”
Waterman added, “It’s just crazy. If you’re asking to be respected, don’t come on in a G-string.”
Stock then said lyrics that talk openly about sex, like in Sabrina’s song “Bed Chem,” are “lazy,” adding, “I would never try to write a lyric that said anything specific on a sexual level.”
The three men seem to have forgotten that they wrote plenty of sexy lyrics for the female artists they worked with — and who put their sexuality on display. In addition to Bananarama and Kylie, the trio worked with topless model Samantha Fox and with Mandy Smith, who made headlines when at age 13 she became romantically involved with 47-year-old Rolling Stones bassist Bill Wyman.
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