Books & Poetry

A selection of finest Smash Hits covers. Spot the '90s one which has slipped in naughtily...

When pioneering pop magazine Smash Hits closed in February, the tributes were heartfelt and voluminous. But they were tempered by an awareness that it was ages since the mag had been any good. Some might say the drought began as far back as 1990 when, post-rave and baggy, its divining rod led it towards the only drinkable water on Planet Pop – thick boybands and stage-school flotsam whose answer to the question ‘Who would you most like to contact at a seance?’ would have been unlikely to be, as it was for Duran Duran’s Nick Rhodes, ‘Jean Cocteau’.

No, the glory days of Smash Hits were the 1980s, when pop stars were gauchely self-fashioned rather than built from a kit, and it was staffed by writers of rare wit and genius: Chris Heath, Neil Tennant, Sylvia Patterson, Mark Ellen, Dave Rimmer, Tom Hibbert… Feature continues

Fans waited eagerly for their bylines, relishing the sense, heightened by endless catchphrases and running gags, that they and the mag’s staff were locked in a conspiratorial bond. For Smash Hits, pop wasn’t just a gaudy theatre of the absurd, it was a colossal in-joke – one which, crucially, the stars themselves didn’t quite get.

A new book, ‘The Best of Smash Hits: The ’80s’, perfectly encapsulates the magazine’s imperial phase. The pages are facsimiles, preserving the original art direction and typography, and there’s a glossary of Smash Hits-isms like ‘Back! Back!! Back!!!’ and ‘Sniiiiip!’ – ‘the fate of snoozesome pop stars who drone on and on about the amazing live kettle drum sound on their new album’ – as well as song lyrics and period ads for hair gels and rubbish stereos.

Editor Mark Frith has selected features wisely and well. We have Neil Tennant ‘on ver road’ with Duran; Chris Heath following Culture Club to Japan; Morrissey going for tea with his former best mate Pete Burns – Mozzer: ‘Before I met Peter I had a very strange impression of him. I thought he was a half-crazed oddball’ – and a long, long interview with Adam Ant. (Who said kids don’t like to read?) Elsewhere, we discover the identity of pop’s Mr Clever Trousers (Green from Scritti Politti with ten O-Levels!); that Madonna likes sardines – ‘but I take their spines out and their tails off’; and that Curt Smith from Tears For Fears doesn’t fancy Alannah Currie from the Thompson Twins because she ‘takes feminism to ludicrous extremes’. Crikey!

We asked Smash Hits’ resident genius Tom Hibbert and Mr Clever Trousers himself, Green Gartside, for their reflections on the world’s (second) greatest magazine…