YMMV / Stock Aitken Waterman

• Popularity Polynomial: While the trio were hugely successful as producers in the 1980s, their dominance of the UK pop charts would lead to widespread backlash in the early '90s, with detractors viewing them as synthetically manufactured. Names like "Schlock, Ailing and Watered-down" was the least of the invective the trio attracted, and the group ultimately collapsed in the wake of their falling stature. In the 2000s, however, a combination of '80s nostalgia, the emergence of poptimism, and especially the meteoric rise of the Rickroll (which singlehandedly re-popularized the SAW-produced "Never Gonna Give You Up") would lead to positive reappraisals of the trio's work. They would see multiple reunions both on-stage and in the studio in the 2010s and 2020s, and analysts would increasingly cite SAW as major influences on later artists.
• Signature Song: Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up" remains the trio's best-known work as both songwriters and producers in the 21st century, owed to it being the basis of Rickrolling.
• Spiritual Successor: The trio themselves likened their work to that of Motown, an American R&B label who was also known for an assembly line approach to the music industry and an emphasis on high production values geared towards maximizing market appeal. In subsequent decades, when SAW got reappraised for the better, analysts noted additional parallels in how they and Motown similarly influenced later generations of pop musicians.

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