Can the Sound of PWL Records from between 1987 and 1990 be a Powerful Influence on a Successful Record Released Today?

Abstract

From 1987 to 1990, Pete Waterman’s label PWL crafted some of the most identifiable music in the history of pop. This paper aims to examine the operation, history and legacy of one of Britain’s most successful independent labels. David Hesmondhalgh (1999) and others have discussed the complex institutional and aesthetic aspects of independent labels. PWL was never ‘indie’ and it was atypical on both counts. It had an unusual business model and fostered a highly specific working environment. It was also an ‘independent’ that made highly successful, commercial, mainstream product. After 1990, the label seemed to lose its characteristic identity of the previous four years, and this coincided with a reduction in its commercial success. Music critics such as Simon Reynolds (2011) suggest that popular music is now characterised by a culture of nostalgia. The PWL sound of 1987-1990 was hugely commercially successful, yet it has not been successfully revived in the same way that other successful “sounds” have been, as a result of nostalgia culture. Has a lack of a commercially successful revival of the sound been decided by a reputation for producing bland, commercial fare, or have there been other factors at play? Can the label’s “sound” be revived in such a way as to be commercially and culturally relevant in the mid 2010s? The researcher / practitioner attempts to answer the question through creation of a music product. It will be shown through the production and composition work, and industry responses to it, that a commercially-relevant sound can have compositional and production dance music-orientated elements relevant to the mid-2010s yet still unashamedly take influence from the PWL 1987-1990 sound, whilst still taking care to legitimately merely take influence from the style and not infringe copyright.