‘Smash Hits’, ‘Record Mirror’, ‘Melody Maker’ and ‘Number One’ features of the 1980s and early 1990s.

 

What Colour is Thursday?

 

Earlier today I was reading the paper when I glanced at the entertainment listings and noticed that the great Scottish rock band ‘Big Country’ had reformed for a gig in Manchester. A few years ago I may have been very surprised by this, but coming after tours by ‘INXS’, ‘Crowded House’ and ‘Deacon Blue’ I guess this must be the norm. Now, whereby I always found it easy to remember the members of these bands, especially members who had names such as Garry ‘Gary’ Beers or Bruce Watson, I do not ever think I took much notice of what the drummer out of Big Country was actually called, because my friends and I always use his ‘Smash Hits’ name whenever we would talk about the band. Whilst his real name is something like ‘Mark Brezecki’, to ‘Smash Hits’ readers growing up I the 1980s he will be always remembered under the alternative nom de plume of ‘Mark Unpronounceablename’, to which I should now add the words “he’s back, Back, BACK!”.

 

It is because ‘Smash Hits’ magazine invented a whole different lexicon to refer to the stars of the day and it is these names that you remind yourself of, every time you reach for a CD of that era’s artists.

 

A great proportion of these names lampooned the stars of a previous pop generation who still had continued success in the 1980s from the decade before and so you had references to Dame David Bowie and Paul ‘Wacky Thumbs Aloft’ McCartney. In addition to this, newer stars would have their own ‘Smash Hits’ name, with deputy editor Neil Tennant coming up with a good few names such as the one for an already re-named punk icon formally known as a Mr. Broad (‘Sir William of Idol’, also later referred to as Sir ‘Billiam’ of Idol), whilst also popularising the expression “Pur-lease”.

 

In addition to this lampooning of these stars’ names, running jokes and trivia based on a shared pop knowledge would be inserted, as and when, into the magazine’s features and reviews. An article about the ‘soulful pop’ singer, ‘Stock Aiken Waterman’ protégé and tea-boy Rick Astley (‘Dick Spratsley’) would normally warrant a mention of his infamous song ‘Ruddy Big Pig’ or the fact that he once made a teapot based on a ‘Steve Hillage & Gong’ album cover.

 

Craig Logan from ‘Bros’ was another artist who was singled out and was always referred to as ‘Ken’ throughout his chart career, due to the fact he was not one of the ‘Goss Twins’. In light of this, and considering his subsequent departure plus the fact that references to him were omitted on Matt and Luke’s ‘best of’, it was quite ironic to see that in the years that followed it was ‘Ken’ who became the most successful member of ‘Bros’ in the music industry.

 

As this was all very light-hearted and not taken in a vicious way, I cannot remember any fans becoming overly upset by these portrayals of their favourite pop stars. In fact, I remember most of the readers would carry over these ‘terms’ into their own letters, because I guess to ignore them would mean that they would be seen as being outside this special pop ‘clique’.

 

Also I remember that the letters pages in these magazines were never ‘edited’ by a named production member but always by a ‘special character’ whose job was to only focus on that page. If my memory is correct, I think it was ‘Snabber the Dog’ who edited the letters page in ‘Number One’ magazine whilst ‘Black Type’ was in ‘Smash Hits’, though I’m not sure if it is not the other way around.

 

In addition to the letters page, there would be many competitions for the readers to enter each week (or each fortnight). In ‘Smash Hits’, and especially in the ‘Bitz’ section at the start, it would be the customary to end each competition with the request for the answers to be submitted on a randomly chosen inanimate object rather than the usual sealed down envelope.

 

Over at the weekly ‘inkies’, the tone would be more serious than ‘Smash Hits’ to compensate for the slightly older student readership, though even here there would be time for some flippant remarks too. I think it was ‘Mr. Agreeable’ in ‘Melody Maker’ and ‘Thrills’ in the ‘NME’, which would be the pages to read if you wanted to escape the rock criticism for a more light-hearted view, though I would like to remember which paper had the weekly ‘true facts’ box that had made up comedy ‘truths’ that became more bizarre as the weeks progressed. I do not think the feature was printed in ‘Record Mirror’, not because that magazine was too busy printing the charts and analysing the latest 130bpm dance-floor ‘chugger’ from Italy, but because this magazine had ‘Phil’s World Of Wigs’.

 

‘Phil’s World Of Wigs’ would feature a ‘cut- out’ head shot photo of Phil Collins and each week a new ridiculous hairstyle would be placed upon his head, in order to cause much mirth in the ‘anti-Genesis’ indie-dance loving readership. Along similar lines, another humorous photo feature would show that week’s line up of ‘the Stone Roses’. Starting with a standard picture of the band, a new photo would be added to represent a new member until the ‘act’ had more than 30 random members including ‘Red the Fraggle’, ‘Capt. Mainwaring’ of ‘Dad’s Army’ and the alien from ‘Mac & Me’. The fact that these photos were all made up of ‘people’ gurning would be the point of the joke at the time, whilst thinking about the subsequent late period line up changes of the band now adds a further layer to the memory of this feature.

 

Whilst ‘Record Mirror’ and the ‘inkies’ would sometimes get the cover spectacularly wrong by proclaiming a ‘Nasty Rox Inc.’ or a ‘Romo’ band as the next big thing, ‘Smash Hits’ normally played it safe by featuring chart stars like ‘Kylie’ or ‘NKOTB’ on the cover, whilst ‘Number One’ managed to have an article about ‘NKOTB’ every week until the magazine was closed by the BBC. I think the only time ‘Smash Hits’ ever got it wrong with a new act was when they put Matt Fretton on the cover, however at this point I am not sure whether the late 1980s band called ‘Perfect Day’ were also cover stars too. To reach the cover, pop bands would be already be a hit maker or would have built up a large following on the ‘Poll Winner’s Tour’ whilst Number One’s ‘Chart Breakers’ (or ‘88 for 1988’ lists) would be where to see the likes of ‘Seven’ and ‘Kiss Like This’ for the first time.

 

Around 1993 ‘Smash Hits’ changed track and for a while started to put soap stars such as Dieter Brummer on the cover. Before then I think the only time the cover was given over to TV stars was with ‘the Young Ones’, but even this was to support their record release, whilst a few issues later ‘Sexy Ade Edmondson’ turned up to ‘murder’ Howard Jones on the cover.

 

What other features were there, what other covers can be remembered and ‘What Colour was Thursday?’

 

Sod Smash Hits, Mr Agreeable was where it was at. And he's still going too!

 

Mr Agreeable