Gone back to being a truck driver, I would imagine.

He did a comeback without SAW in 91, then disappeared again.

I never liked him. No tunes, just bland indistiguishable pap.

Probably a great bloke in real life, mind. Shame about the records.

Was RHC born when Astley was in the Top 10?

My family have the same hairdresser that Rick Astley used to have back when he lived in Newton-Le-Willows. His quiff was natural, BTW, not some crazy pop star gimmick.

Have no idea.
You tell me.

Some questions:

What was under the blur on Melody Maker-writer Paul Lester's t-shirt? It seemed to be censored by Channel 4. Was it advertising? A swearword? It looked a bit like the Nike symbol.

And who was the comedian who did the (very funny) Pet Shop Boys parody?

Nice to see some of Spitting Image again.
#Together Forever...#

>And who was the comedian who did the (very funny) Pet Shop Boys parody?

"Raw Sex" on French and Saunders.

So the singer was Simon Brint. Was that Rowland Rivron on the keyboard?

>So the singer was Simon Brint. Was that Rowland Rivron on the keyboard?

Yeah. Seem to recall Rob Newman doing quite a nice PSB gag (don't remember whether it was on N&B or MWE) in which he was edited into a genuine guest perf. by the PSB; the camera kept cutting back to him dressed as Chris Lowe, hurling insults at Neil Tennant ("Neil! Neil! Next time I want to wear the sharp suit and you can wear the stupid rubber overalls... Neil! Turn round and talk to me or I'll do my grumpy face!")

1) Mark King is starting to bear an uncanny resemblance to Paul Hogan.

2) Rick Astley - struck me he was someone who became famous and really didn't want to be. So he disappeared. Fair enough.

3) I got a copy of Terence Trent D'arby's second LP in a bargain bin for about four quid in 1990. It was by no means as bad as people lazily claim - that one they chuckled at ("To Know Someone Deeply") had a great chorus, but it wouldn't have been as funny if they hadn't just played the messy intro. Ah well.

4) "Rent" by Pet Shop Boys is one of the greatest singles of the 80s.

I've got a theory that the albums 'Please' and 'Actually' were so named because both those words used to be spelled oddly in Smash Hits, at least during the Golden Age (mid to late eighties.)

The exact spellings varied, but were usually something like Pur-lease and Atchelloi.

Tennent himself used to indulge in this, and may even have been the ringleader, but he was backed up by a Scottish lady with blond hair (Sylvia Something) who since moved on to the NME and also Tom Hibbert, later of Q Magazine's excellent "Who Does ... Think He/She Is?" interviews.

I remember an interview with Neil Tennant in which he said the idea behind calling the album "Please" was to encourage politeness in record shops, as in "can I have the new Pet Shop Boys album, please..."
In similar vein, I remember Dave Vanian saying that the Damned album "Anything" was so named in order to cause confusion in record shops, as in "can I have anything by the Damned, please..."

>I've got a theory that the albums 'Please' and 'Actually' were so named because both those words used to be spelled oddly in Smash Hits, at least during the Golden Age (mid to late eighties.)

I suspect you're a few years younger than me, Peter O. I would date SH's zenith as about 1981-84. Still have loads of back issues at my mum's house, and last time I looked, still mostly hilarious in a way that the music press so rarely is. Sadly, the SH readers of the last ten years will never know how intelligent and funny a pop magazine
could have been.

>The exact spellings varied, but were usually something like Pur-lease and Atchelloi.

Those were very funny - did you see the issue when Tennant came back to edit one issue (87ish) and ended up reviewing "Back Again In The DHSS" by Half Man Half Biscuit?

>Tennent himself used to indulge in this, and may even have been the ringleader, but he was backed up by a Scottish lady with blond hair (Sylvia Something) who since moved on to the NME...

Sylvia Patterson?

...and also Tom Hibbert, later of Q Magazine's excellent "Who Does ... Think He/She Is?" interviews.

I found an old issue where Miranda Sawyer was reviewing the singles (this would have been about 88).

Yes, Slyvia Patterson. Genius.

Perhaps it is all to do with age, and that Smash Hits can only seem good when you are growing the first buds on your irony-plant but still simultaneously a wide-eyed pop innocent.

But I can't really believe that, because that would mean that today's version is roughly the same. It just CANNOT be. Have you seen it recently? A pointless regurgitation of Ricky Martin's press releases. It used to be laugh-out-loud funny and with a very subversive attitude towards the so-called "pop" stars, always mocking them whilst pretending to suck up in a way that seemed to wink at the reader and say "Ahhh, these idiots think they're great and we secretly agree that they are crap."

Still think that 1986 was the peak of this trend, because by that point the whole magazine was soaked in relentless cynicism, as if all the writers were Smiths fans trying to lead their readers astray.

Thinking back now, I had a kind of "Simpsons" feeling about the first issue I read: "Can it possibly be this good, every issue? How do they keep the quality up?" And it was.

My favourite Smashhitsism was the use of "so-called", and also the quotation marks around suspect words, as if nothing these pop stars said could be taken as truth, even their clothes, e.g. Vince Clark leaves Depeche Mode because people are obsessed with his so-called "trousers," or Bono's so-called "hairstyle."

I can still remember their expose of Rick Astley's first lyrics, "A Ruddy Big Pig."

Blast these cybersquatters.

http://www.smashits.co.uk/

I always enjoyed their bizarre appropriation of "Belouis Some" as a descriptive phrase, eg whenthey were reviewing walkmans, and two stars represented "Belouis Some" (one star was "not much "cop"", in case you were wondering).

In fact, I loved the way that they inserted quotation marks around the most unlikely words. "Belouis" "Some", for example. Or the countless sighting of Marc Almond in "pervy "so"ho".

Their finest moment:

"Ben VoluntaryEuthenasiaForAllPopStarsWhoStartedTheNewSensationThat'sSweepin'TheNationByWearingHisSilly"Hat"BackToFrontAndWhoWritesLinesLike"ShootingStarsInMidnightPasturesAndHangingOutOnCloudsBeneathTheMoon"-Pierrot"

Yes... "consecutive" "quoted" words... sheer bliss...

I remember the first ever "crap joke":-

Q. What pop star steals hats?

A. Nick Beret.

Imagine if you could hold an issue in your hands right now, and read an illustrated deconstruction of the dancing in Big Fun's latest video, which would naturally draw the conclusion that it was "not much cop."

Some Smash Hits favourites:
"Win 30 Million Hats! (Well 30 actually)"
"Mark Unpronounceablenameofbigcountry"
"Adam "Clear Off" Clayton"
"Down the pop dumper"

Which biscuit is a singer with The Christians?

Gary Baldy!

Still makes me laugh, that one.

I read that Pet Shop Boys considered calling Actually "Thank you". Introspective was never much of a Smash Hits word (before 1988), was it?

Yes, "Introspective" really cocked up the plan. I was sure the next one would be called "Sniiiiiiip!"

Gasp!

Reg "Reg" Snipton!

I've got all your records! Reg "Reg" Snipton and his Banjo Guys, Reg "Reg" Snipton and his Banjo Gals, Reg "Reg" Snipton and his Useless Toadstool...

I also loved their Bruno Brookes pop column spoof: "Hi kids, catch you again in a fortnight!"

Anyone else remember the issue where there were no tour dates to announce in Gigs, so instead they devoted the whole column to "Upper Bubblington Village Fete"?

Or when Black Type was murdered?

Black Type was murdered????

Oh man, this thread is making half-formed memories of late 80s Smash Hits flood back, and it WAS great, and there is no way that the cheap pop rag produced today can come close to what it was then.

Similarly, the Your Sinclair mags of this era were also swell, and ther eis nothing that is halfway as good out there now.

Oh God, I'm turning into TV Cream...

Black Type was murdered by a picnic table in 1986. A book was opened on the suspects (Evens: Mike Smith), until he came back in the shower, Dallas-style.

And what about their "columnist", Barry? (No idea who this might have been.)

>I also loved their Bruno Brookes pop column spoof: "Hi kids, catch you again in a fortnight!"

Which was, of course, a piss take of Big Trev's genuine column in IPC-owned rival No 1. It was later taken over by the Beeb, who ran it into the ground before closing it down.

As someone said earlier, Smash Hits was once a humorous, intelligent and genuinely subversive magazine, although no-one seems to have named and praised the main architect of the style - it was Tony Blair's former bandmate Mark Ellen, in case you were wondering. What happened? Er, the ringleaders were enticed away to start Q - where some of the old spirit (certainly the penchant for near-impenetrable in-jokes) still survives, albeit heavily diluted.

>And what about their "columnist", Barry? (No idea who this might have been.)
>

Probably something to do with Barry McIlheney who took over from Mark Ellen as editor in about 1984.

Their best inverted-commas-between-a-name gag, for my money, was Morton 'Morton Harket' Harket.

Genius.

I remember they printed a photo of The Clash standing next to a urinal. The caption read: 'The Clash always had their photos taken in toilets because they cared so much about the kids'.

I'm still laughing.

I never bought Smash Hits in the 80s.

However, The Fall Lyrics Parade site does include this review of their 1979 single Rowche Rumble:

[(undated) review from Smash Hits:

THE FALL: Rowche Rumble (Step Forward)
What a starter -- I wonder what made my hand land on this one? Sounds like the cover, cheap biro lines, bad relationships. Is this the theme of medication? Great chemist's organ sound. Not one for young girls to make zips or brassieres mindlessly to on the factory floor. Good sound, bad song (down with pills). B side "In My Area" suffocating ill music, felt like I had flu, blanket over the head tunes.]

In 1991, I believe they also featured Dannii Minogue claiming that Planet Of Sound by The Pixies was a "crock of shit".

It wasn't always insightful music criticism, you see.

Spoilsport

I still love you, Ewar.

>In 1991, I believe they also featured Dannii Minogue claiming that Planet Of Sound by The Pixies was a "crock of shit".
>

Absolutely true.

There was once something about puppets in rock, accompanied by a photo of Joe 90 turning the dial on a safe, which bore the caption "Joe 90 'Mixing' His Album". I still laugh at that now.

>In 1991, I believe they also featured Dannii Minogue claiming that Planet Of Sound by The Pixies was a "crock of shit".
>
>It wasn't always insightful music criticism, you see.

No, but that was the 90s. In the 80s it was great.

>>And what about their "columnist", Barry? (No idea who this might have been.)
>>
>
>Probably something to do with Barry McIlheney who took over from Mark Ellen as editor in about 1984.
>

McIlheney actually didn't come in until 1987, because he'd previously been features editor at Melody Maker. So it's unlikely to have been him. (My guess is Hibbert.) Ellen did indeed leave SH in about 85, but that was mainly down to his burgeoning TV career on Whistle Test and the like. Q didn't appear till autumn 86.

>In 1991, I believe they also featured Dannii Minogue claiming that Planet Of Sound by The Pixies was a "crock of shit".
>
>It wasn't always insightful music criticism, you see.

And some of it was never intended to be, frankly. The point about SH was that pop was funny - not in that sneery NME-type way, but in an absurd, almost affectionate fashion. Compare its 80s incarnation (certainly up to about 88, it was streets ahead of the competition) to the sorry state of it now. Back in the 80s, you had the likes of David Hepworth, Ellen, Ian Cranna (who used to award XTC albums 9 out of 10 on an almost obligatory basis), Tennant, Hibbert and the like. By 1996, they were giving the editor's job to Kate Thornton of the Mirror, who had spent much of 1995 trying to get the media to ban Pulp's Sorted For E's And Wizz.

It's not cute nostalgia. If you could get past Duran Duran winning everything in the readers poll for about five years running, it was entertaining and unpretentious. (Incidentally, my favourite DD story concerns a fan who won a competition to meet them at the height of their popularity, and then found that she found their personalities absolutely repellent. Quality.)

A serious question - why couldn't a mag like the 80s Smash Hits survive nowadays? Why does nobody do one? Has the market changed irreperably? Or would nobody be arsed to keep up the standard?

How did journalism simply turn into people copying stuff off press releases?

>Their best inverted-commas-between-a-name gag, for my money, was Morton 'Morton Harket' Harket.

aka Morten 'Horten Forten' Harket.

>Genius.

Yup

>>Probably something to do with Barry McIlheney who took over from Mark Ellen as editor in about 1984.
>>
>
>McIlheney actually didn't come in until 1987

You sure it was that late?

> because he'd previously been features editor at Melody Maker.

Where he was assaulted by Kevin Rowland on his way back from buying a sandwich...

> So it's unlikely to have been him. (My guess is Hibbert.) Ellen did indeed leave SH in about 85,

Replaced by Steve Bush, ISTR.

> but that was mainly down to his burgeoning TV career on Whistle Test and the like.

Kershaw introducing him on the Live Aid coverage as "TV's Mark Ellen".

> Q didn't appear till autumn 86.

Indeed not. And it used to be much better than it is now.

Favourite Q caption: "Van Morrison - Mmmmm, hasn't he got an inviting mouth?"

L

Anyway...

About a month ago I asked:
>What was under the blur on Melody Maker-writer Paul Lester's t-shirt? It seemed to be censored by Channel 4. Was it advertising? A swearword? It looked a bit like the Nike symbol.

Well, I've just been going back over some old videos and it seems to have been uncensored on some of the trailers. As it turns out, it was the Kangol logo.

No more sleepless nights, eh.