Mike Stock: 'Pop music is turning into porn'

Mike Stock has said that he believes modern music videos and performances are full of "sex-driven imagery".

The songwriter - who wrote and produced international hits for Kylie Minogue and Rick Astley as part of Stock, Aitken and Waterman - also used an open letter to the press to ask broadcasters to eradicate what he labelled as "sexually explicit trash" from television screens.

Stock wrote: "Pop music in this country is almost completely dominated by American acts who have taken sexualised imagery, dance moves and lyrical content way beyond the limits of decency.

"As far as music is concerned, it has been a slow but unmistakable descent into pornography... Put some sexualised dancing and scantily-clad females in the video, and get it on the box. Job done."

'I Should Be So Lucky' co-writer Stock further described communications regulator Ofcom as "little more than a passive observer" and added that he found the watershed to be irrelevant.

He argued: "With the BBC iPlayer and the internet as your platform, you can watch last night's TV at this morning's breakfast. Young people all know how to use these features. Advisory stickers on records is also a non-starter. You can't easily sticker a download."

Stock has previously labelled Lady GaGa as "just a pole dancer" and said that he would not want his children to watch modern music videos, explaining "I would certainly be embarrassed to sit there with my mum".

His latest comments follow in the wake of the Bailey Report, which was commissioned to look into commercialisation and sexualisation of children and young people in the media.

The report contained a number of recommendations which included giving age ratings to music videos and giving more weight to parents' views in the regulation of pre-watershed programming.