The Best of Smash Hits books review

The Best of Smash Hits (above)
The Best of Smash Hits: The 80's 

This is one of the few items I own that’s beyond Pet Shop Boys’ work. Ironically, the very first time I heard of Smash Hits was when I was doing some Soft Cell collage art back in the summer of 2006 and they were on a cover of the issue July 8-21, 1982(which is the same one I own thanks to another artist that sent it to me! And is the same one I found out years later that it has the interview Neil Tennant did of Marc Almond!). I was actually looking for cheaper ways of getting the Smash hits year books that Neil Tennant did between 1982-1984, reason is because they look pretty artsy to me, so that’s probably the closest thing I would have from another type of art. They are costly on eBay I manage to find two available but only for the UK, unfair I think. But I won’t give up on those. I like to find other art mediums or learn more beyond an artist if possible and collect it as well. I would say Life in Pop (I’ll do a post on it soon) is probably one of the best things you can get for both of Neil and Chris learning about their lives beyond music or behind the scenes type thing. Anyway, these two books are related to Pet Shop Boys, as you know Neil Tennant was the assistant editor for the magazine before he joined Chris as Pet Shop Boys but these were books well the smaller one The Best of Smash Hits was compiled by him, it’s basically a gathering of six years worth of interviews of several famous artists and bands, more likely you heard of them if you’re a fan of the 80’s or you was around that time. The Best of Smash Hits: the 80’s was done in 2006, which was the same year of its final issue. I’m not sure if there’s a 90’s one, but this is still a good item for a collection. I guess the reason they made an 80’s one for sure was because it was its peak then, I can see why, I mean it’s vibrant, excellent; it’s definitely a magazine I never seen before, compare to magazines I have seen lately, this actually beats it because of its creativity. I also even seen the Smash Hits story on YouTube; it was pretty fascinating of how people reflected about the excitement and looking at photos of how they were younger and their reactions to it. I kept seeing this book and I ordered it, the first time I was a bit disappointed because I was expecting a big, colorful book, but someone on Amazon gave out the wrong book photo. I kept it because it was intriguing and was put together by Neil so in a way, it’s art and there was a introduction by John Taylor of Duran Duran. There are photos in it, but they are black and white and he has some interviews and reviews he did as well. The next time I ordered it, it was from the US Amazon and it was $5 plus additional tax! It was a good deal because it had two free posters of John Taylor of Duran Duran and Wham! And additional posters from other artists/bands including The Human League, A-ha, Rick Astley, Depeche Mode, Frankie Goes to Hollywood to name a few. It also includes a Foreword by Neil himself and there’s three Pet Shop Boys related stories in the classic feature section: One is from 1985-1986 where the Boys were on Sunset Boulevard, it’s called Weird Tales from America, this was when they were at the MTV Video awards where they were nominated "Best New Band" but lost to A-ha, They were in KROQ where Chris Lowe was disappointed that they didn’t have any Bee Gees to play the track, and they also took calls from the listeners. Chris; however chose Soft Cell’s “Say Hello, Wave Goodbye” as one of his classic rock tracks as well as “Eyes Without a Face” by Sir William Idol, “The Look of Love” by ABC and “Invisible Sun” by The Police. What amazed me before that paragraph I found out Neil said “I see the Pet Shop Boys as one of the surviving synth duos like Soft Cell.” That was really awesome to hear, even though they were already disbanded in 1984, but even still, I thought that was so awesome to read that! The rest were about their moment at being over here, well bits from Sunset and West Hollywood. It really confirmed just about everything I wanted to know. The next one was pretty small it’s called Crikey! He’s a Pop Star! This was basically when 1985 when Neil ran off to be a Pet Shop Boy and the writer said it was odd that they were writing about him just a few months later. They  have mini reviews/facts about “West End Girls”, “Opportunities”, “Love Comes Quickly” and the album Please. There are also little remarks when he left titled Auf Weidersehen, Pet! And finally on February 1987 of classic feature was of Neil on his last day of being a Smash Hits editor, titled Neil Tennant Smash hits editor for a day?! It have time frames and photos of Neil working as an editor and each had captions on what he was doing, it was interesting seeing him struggling and being damn near an hour late for his job. I have to agree that was a classic feature. Everything else about it was of different artist/bands some drawing ducks, quizzes, games, little franchises, adverts, stories of other artist, little facts about what they eat, “do you remember” so much more! And also a list chronologically done of the magazine issues from 1980-1989 and a little statistics of  the appearances on the Smash Hits cover. For $5 it’s totally worth it, and if you like art, magazines, 80’s,the music of the 80’s, Pet Shop Boys or so, then this is something I highly suggest as well as the Best of Smash Hits, getting to see how artists/bands being interview and reviewed and perspectives.

Wham! Poster 

John Taylor (Duran Duran) poster