1989 Sonia: You'll Never Stop Me Loving You

Sonia Evans was a Lancashire lass with the chirpy persona of Bonnie Langford's annoying kid sister and a voice like Langford's own take on Violet Elizabeth Bott. The tin doesn't exactly scream 'Star Quality' and it's proof positive that anybody could be famous once they'd signed on for a shift at the 'Hit Factory', even if it did often last less than the alloted fifteen minutes.

Another Stock, Aitken and Waterman offering, 'You'll Never Stop Me Loving You' can be taken as either more of the same or, if you look not all that closely, something quite different. It's in the lyrics. On face value they can be read with a dual meaning, neither of which are particularly wholesome in that they essentially chart a one sided, self deluded relationship that borders on the psychotic.

On one hand, it's an uber stalker anthem of unrequited obsession that sounds very, very wrong frothing all bubble and squeak out of Sonia's mouth: "When I know that you're alone I wander to your home and catch a glimpse or two. It seems that all the time the thought is on my mind of being with you". It's all the more disturbing when you couple it with Sonia's schoolgirl innocent yet slightly demented grin on the sleeve that suggests her right arm is reaching for a knife from her back pocket. It's creepy and it's sinister and it gives a definite aura of the unhealthy underneath the familiar rolling electronic beat.

And yet on the other hand, the lines "But you'll never stop me from loving you. It doesn't really matter what you put me through. You'll never stop me from loving you" are a close enough cousin to The Crystal's infamous "He hit me and it felt like a kiss. He hit me and I knew he loved me, cause if he didn't care for me I could have never made him mad. He hit me and I was glad". And that's not good, is it?

Did she even pause to think what she was singing every time she pursed those lips to form all those hideous, almost yodelling 'Yooooooooo's I wonder? I doubt it. Sonia sang what was put in front of her because there were plenty of other stage school rejects to take her place if she started getting all temperamental and to that end it would be nice to believe that SAW presented this as an act of subversion to see exactly how far they could stretch the patience and gullibility of the population in getting a song to number one. A masterly post-modern spectacle of the ironic akin to the infamous 'Our Wedding' track that Crass managed to get given away free with 'Loving' magazine in 1981. But I doubt it. More likely the words were thrown together from SAW's 'Book Of Rhyme' to fit the tune which is itself cribbed from two previous Kylie songs ('I Should Be So Lucky' and 'Hand On You Heart') and also SAW/Sinitta's own version of "Right Back Where We Started From".

It makes 'You'll Never Stop Me Loving You' a curious hybrid that clumps along with the good grace and humour of concentration camp inmates being forced to run laps of the yard to prove their fitness when really they were only fit to drop. SAW weren't really trying anymore were they? Unless it that was all part of the subversion too. But I doubt that even less.