Christmas 2019: Day 23: Neil Tennant’s Smash Hits Christmas
Christmas 2012, BBC Radio 4 aired Neil Tennant’s Smash Hits Christmas on 20th December – a real festive pop treat for everyone who grew up in the 1980s. The programme was an interesting look back at the golden years of the UK’s biggest music magazine of the Eighties. Neil recalls the golden days of, the iconic, Smash Hits magazine, when he worked as a writer in their Carnaby Street office.
There were also contributions and memories from founder and legendary magazine maker Nick Logan, editors David Hepworth and Mark Ellen, writers Miranda Sawyer and Sylvia Patterson, and from regular Smash Hits cover girl, Toyah., talking about Smash Hits in general and her Brave New World cover from the Summer of 1982.
Neil Tennant had a life as a journalist before he became famous as a Pet Shop Boy. In fact, it was on a Smash Hits trip to New York that he had his big breakthrough with the record producer Bobby O. Also included is a rare recording from the 1982 Christmas Flexidisc (a message from the stars) and probably Neil Tennant’s first recording – the music for a trailer advertising Smash Hits stickers. (Producer: Susan Marling. A Just Radio Ltd. production for BBC Radio 4). The half-hour programme is no longer available at BBC iPlayer and has also been removed from You Tube. Maybe the BBC will, in their wisdom, one day repeat it.
