February 26 - March 11, 1986

(click on the image to see the full issue)

February 12 - 25, 1986

(click on the image to see the full issue)

January 29 - February 11, 1986

(click on the image to see the full issue)

January 15 - 28, 1986

(click on the image to see the full issue)

January 1 - 14, 1986

(click on the image to see the full issue)

December 18 - 31, 1985

(click on the image to see the full issue)

siliconchipsuperstar

siliconchipsuperstar, the debut album by Peter Fitzpatrick​'s Circuit 3, featuring a collaboration with me on the track Ghost Machine, is now available to buy!

Order the limited edition vinyl LP/2xCD set and / or digital download here.

You can watch a video for Ghost Machine here.

December 4 - 17, 1985

(click on the image to see the full issue)

November 20 - December 3, 1985

(click on the image to see the full issue)

November 6 - 19, 1985

(click on the image to see the full issue)

Dear Mr. Kershaw: A Pensioner Writes

Derek Philpott's book of hilarious letters to pop stars and their genuine replies is now available from Plane Groovy and Amazon!

Happy Halloween - Ghost Machine!

I wrote the lyric for Ghost Machine, a song on the upcoming album Siliconchipsuperstar by Circuit3; it has an early-eighties snythpop vibe, so I hope readers of Smash Hits will enjoy it.

You can listen to Ghost Machine and download it for free here.

And you can watch a video for the song here.

I should be *extremely* grateful if you can spare a few minutes to listen to this track - and share it with your friends.

Ghost Machine: a song I co-wrote

I wrote the lyric for Ghost Machine, a song on the upcoming album Siliconchipsuperstar by Circuit3; it has an early-eighties snythpop vibe, so I hope readers of Smash Hits will enjoy it.

You can listen to Ghost Machine and download it for free here.

And you can watch a video for the song here.

I should be *extremely* grateful if you can spare a few minutes to listen to this track - and share it with your friends.

October 23 - November 5, 1985

(click on the image to see the full issue)

October 9 - 22, 1985

(click on the image to see the full issue)

September 25 - October 8, 1985

(click on the image to see the full issue)

September 11 - 24, 1985

(click on the image to see the full issue)

No More Heroes contest - prize draw!

Click the photo to see me drawing the winners of the No More Heroes contest!

No More Heroes - CDs to be won!

I have to confess that I didn’t have a particularly big record collection growing up. My parents couldn’t afford a lot of pocket money, so I didn’t have a lot of disposable income for singles – and certainly not for albums; it was easier to spare 25p or 30p for Smash Hits every fortnight than to buy records on a regular basis, which is why I have been able to spend the last six years sharing my collection on this archive.

Ever since I first dived into my Smash Hits collection and began reliving those times, the question I have asked repeatedly has been: "Did we realise how lucky we were?" We were spoiled. During my formative years, the charts were bursting with great music; there was so much variety and invention in the British top 40 of the late seventies and early eighties – an explosion of talent that has never been repeated to such a degree.

No More Heroes tackles the well-nigh impossible task of distilling the spirit of those heady days into three discs. Listening to its sixty tracks is a whirlwind spin through the golden age of punk, post-punk and new wave. Chart-toppers from The Jam, The Specials and Ian Dury rub shoulders with classics from Madness, Buzzcocks and Adam and the Ants; American acts like the Ramones, Modern Lovers and Talking Heads pogo with Generation X, XTC and X Ray Spex. Alongside the more familiar titles are things you might have forgotten: I am particularly excited by the inclusion of Back Of My Hand by the Jags – why wasn’t that a bigger hit?!!?

From calls to action by the likes of Sham 69 and Secret Affair to the endearing goofiness of the Toy Dolls and Tenpole Tudor, this is a reminder of that incredible outpouring of energy. Some of these acts cast long shadows; others crashed and burned spectacularly, but from the unmistakable opening of Teenage Kicks to Jona Lewie’s anthem for wallflowers, there’s hardly a dull moment here.

No More Heroes is an ideal way to fill some of the gaps in your collection – or a great introduction to the great sounds of a great moment in musical history. It doesn’t claim to be all-inclusive, but what it does include is good enough for me: Blondie, The Fall, Echo and the Bunnymen, Bow Wow Wow, Dr. Feelgood....Realising that some of these songs were recorded forty years ago should make me feel old, but listening to them puts a spring in my step. So go ahead, open up a copy of Smash Hits, crank up the stereo and enjoy!

No More Heroes is available from Amazon UK and iTunes....but keep reading to find out how you could win a copy for yourself in our very first competition!



The makers of No More Heroes have given us three copies of the boxset to give away to fans of this Smash Hits archive. To have a chance of winning, go to our Facebook page and leave a comment listing your three favourite tracks from the compilation and three songs which you think should have been included. Everybody who posts a comment listing six titles will be entered into a draw - three names will be selected and those winners will get the CDs.

Disc: 1
1. Teenage Kicks - The Undertones
2. Going Underground - The Jam
3. Sheena Is A Punk Rocker – Ramones
4. If The Kids Are United - Sham 69
5. No More Heroes – Stranglers
6. Public Image – PIL
7. Do Anything You Wanna Do - Eddie And The Hot Rods
8. Ever Fallen In Love - The Buzzcocks
9. Turning Japanese - The Vapors
10. Neat Neat Neat - The Damned
11. Germ Free Adolescents - X Ray Spex
12. Automatic Lover - The Vibrators
13. Swords of A 1,000 Men - Tenpole Tudor
14. Go Wild In The Country - Bow Wow Wow
15. Into The Valley - The Skids
16. Top Of The Pops – Rezillos
17. 2 4 6 8 Motorway - Tom Robinson
18. Blank Generation - Richard Hell and The Voidoids
19. Ca Plane Pour Moi - Plastic Bertrand
20. Is Vic There? - Department S

Disc: 2
1. Hanging On The Telephone – Blondie
2. Lust For Life - Iggy Pop
3. Pretty In Pink - Psychedelic Furs
4. The Killing Moon - Echo and the Bunnymen
5. Time For Action - Secret Affair
6. Shake Some Action - Flamin' Groovies
7. I Got You - Split Enz
8. Brass In Pocket - The Pretenders
9. Back Of My Hand - The Jags
10. Making Plans For Nigel – XTC
11. Sound of The Suburbs - The Members
12. Kings Of The Wild Frontier - Adam And The Ants
13. I Think We're Alone Now - The Rubinoos
14. Lucky Number - Lene Lovich
15. Another Girl, Another Planet - The Only Ones
16. A New England - Kirsty MacColl
17. Ghost Town - The Specials
18. 7teen - The Regents
19. Drowning In Berlin - The Mobiles
20. One Step Beyond – Madness

Disc: 3
1. Road To Nowhere - Talking Heads
2. Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick - Ian Dury And The Blockheads
3. Roadrunner (Twice) - Jonathan Richman And The Modern Lovers
4. Rich Kids - Rich Kids
5. Babylons Burning - The Ruts
6. Jimmy Jimmy - The Undertones
7. Hersham Boys - Sham 69
8. Miss The Girl – Creatures
9. New Rose - The Damned
10. The Day The World Turned Day Glo - X Ray Spex
11. Drummer Man – Tonight
12. King Rocker - Generation X
13. Butcher Baby - The Plasmatics
14. Homicide – 999
15. Cherry Bomb - The Runnaways
16. Nellie The Elephant - The Toy Dolls
17. Get Rhythm - Dr Feelgood
18. Whole Wide World - Wreckless Eric
19. It's The New Thing - The Fall
20. You'll Always Find Me In The Kitchen At Parties - Jona Lewie

The Return of Zitty Ben!

Strange Tales From A Music Paper was the comic strip that ran in Smash Hits 1980 - 1981. The strip's creator, Mark Casto, believed that all his work was lost until he discovered this archive and was able to read his strips for the first time in thirty years.

Mark's new blog collects The Adventures Of Zitty Ben in one place - and he has taken up his pens and pencils to draw the first new Zitty Ben strips since the early eighties.

As if that weren't exciting enough, I am delighted to find that yours truly makes an appearance in this cartoon - as the angelic being who reawakens Zitty from his slumbers!

Soul Boys Of The Western World

Last night we attended a screening of Soul Boys Of The Western World in Hollywood; it's a great documentary about Spandau Ballet in particular - and the eighties music scene in general. Fans of Smash Hits will enjoy the movie - and will recognise a lot of familiar faces.

At the post-screening Q&A, we learned that the Spandau Ballet boys are still *really* upset about their Pop Quiz loss to Duran Duran. Certain allegations of impropriety - which I shall not repeat here - were made....

When the screening was over, Gary Kemp invited us to the after party at the Chateau Marmont, where he took time to chat about Smash Hits; he’s a big fan of the archive – and he was surprised to learn that he's the first pop star that I've ever met!

All in all....not a bad night!

The Ricki Lake Show - June 7, 2013

Click the photo to see Debbie 'n' me on the Ricki Lake show!

RIP Steve Strange (1959 - 2015)

(click on the images to see the full issues)

Groove Is In The Heart

If you ever made or received a mixtape, you will love this wonderful short play.

Back in October 1984, Morrissey did a feature with British music magazine Smash Hits where he reviewed some popular singles at the time. It was unearthed today (30 years to the day after the issue’s publication date) by Brian McCloskey, a collector of the magazines who has been uploading his archives digitally on his blog Like Punk Never Happened. It’s all pretty great.

"The kind of stealthy eroticism which makes a life of religion madly attractive"

The one we've all been waiting for: Morrissey reviews the new singles!

In 2009, Smash Hits superfan Brian McCloskey, an 80’s kid who had hung on to his copies of Smash Hits since youth, decided to rescue his collection from his parents’ attic at his childhood home in Derry, Ireland.

I never thought it would happen....

One Thursday afternoon in June of 1979, shortly after my tenth birthday, my Mum and I went to Coleraine with some aunts and cousins. In Gardiner's bookshop - I think it was next to Crazy Prices - I found a magazine which had lyrics to a bunch of songs, including Up The Junction, by Squeeze. Music was on its way to replacing football as my passion in life and from the start I had been intrigued by the words of songs, so this was an invaluable resource....and would prove to be so for the next six years....

In June 2009, on a visit to Derry from California, I boxed up my collection of Smash Hits and mailed it to myself in Santa Monica.

In June 2014, thirty-five years after first reading Smash Hits, I finished the (rather time-consuming) task of scanning every issue in my collection, uploading those scans to Flickr and preparing the blog posts that have allowed me to share my collection in this online archive.

"a modest sort of transvestite"

It has nothing to do with Smash Hits or music from the 1980s, but if you want to know a bit more about the person responsible for this archive, you can read this interview in the latest LA Weekly.

Carnaby Echoes

Smash Hits magazine was run from 52-55 Carnaby Street in the 1980s....

[Video interview with Mark Ellen, chatting about the Smash Hits offices on Carnaby Street]

R.I.P. Linda Duff

As you may know, Linda Duff, who wrote the Get Smart column, died last week. If Smash Hits was the internet before there was an internet, Linda was its most powerful search engine.

Our thoughts and prayers go out to her family.

(This page is from next week's magazine)

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!"