However, this was scrapped after, according to Tony James, lead singer Martin Degville "managed to come up with the worst vocal I had ever heard" during recording.

[3] After spending most of 1987 struggling to find a chorus for "Success", James had the idea of working with famed production trio Stock Aitken Waterman, seen as an odd collaboration given the latter's previous success with Hi-NRG pop records such as Dead or Alive's "You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)" and Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up".

After listening to a demo recording of "Success", Pete Waterman said that it would definitely be a hit and agreed to produce the song, promising it would "make the Beastie Boys sound like The Beatles".

Celebrities like Kylie Minogue, Rick Astley, Simon Le Bon and the Pet Shop Boys were all filmed at clubs and parties.

However, the only problem was that due to being filmed at night, "it all looked badly lit and a bit amateurish and dark", leading James to alter his idea for the video.

The resulting music video for "Success" featured footage of this party with "all the 100 famous people demoted to tiny unrecognisable cameos overlaid silently over the blaring jaunty track".

James has since described the video as "terrible" and that it "destroyed the whole image of Sputnik", blaming it for the single's poor chart performance.

[14][4] Reviewing for Record Mirror, Tim Nicholson wrote that "the sleeve carries a warning that this is "non rock and roll product distributed under pressure" which is a not very subtle reference to Sputnik's dissatisfaction with SAW's treatment of their space-age skiffle.