R.I.P. Donna Summer: 1948 - 2012

Donna Summer was on the cover of the very first issue of Smash Hits I ever bought, in June 1979:


(click on the image to see the full issue)

R.I.P. Eric Watson: 1955 - 2012

In 1981 he was invited to work for Smash Hits, after the editor, David Hepworth, saw photographs Watson had shot for Madness.

I'm sure Oscar Wilde enjoyed a nice leg of mutton

Tom Hibbert interviews Morrissey, January 1985.

RIP Tom Hibbert

At Smash Hits in the mid-80s, he helped invent a cartoon fantasy world in which everyone interviewed seemed to exhibit the same slapstick characteristics. All his subjects – Paul McCartney, David Bowie, Bucks Fizz, John Lydon – were delightfully over-exaggerated, as mischievous and eccentric as their interrogator.

Like Punk Never Happened!

Dave Rimmer's classic account of New Pop, Like Punk Never Happened, has been republished by Faber.

It is available from Amazon and Amazon UK.

There's a Facebook page, where you can tell Dave how fantastic he is. And you can watch Dave explain the origin of the book's title (and name of your favourite Smash Hits archive blog) here.

“I hoped that people might stumble across the scans and get a kick out of reading them.”

In June 1979, a 10-year-old from Derry, Ireland, Brian McCloskey, visited some family in Northern Ireland. There, he and his mother went to a newsstand, where she bought him his first issue of Smash Hits, a cheeky London pop magazine that, among the features and reviews, printed lyrics to hit songs.

There's something charming about the idea of communally-minded individuals painstakingly scanning entire copies of Smash Hits

Brian McCloskey's Smash Hits archive seems to be keeping its promise to add a new edition of the magazine every fortnight, "on the 30th anniversary of the original publication date".

It was the little touches that got me into Smash Hits

"People keep writing to me via the blog to tell me they've wasted days on a 1981 copy of Smash Hits," McCloskey says. "That's fine by me. I mean, what a great way to waste a day!"