Christmas 2022 Countdown: Day 2: Smash Hits Christmas
Christmas 2012, BBC Radio 4 aired Neil Tennant’s Smash Hits Christmas on 20th December.
A fascinating look back at the golden years of the UK’s biggest pop magazine of the Eighties. A publication Toyah featured in a lot between 1980 and 1985, and also graced a trio of covers in 1980, ’81 and ’82.
The programme included contributions from Tennant, various Smash Hits editors and writers, and 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, interviewing many of the pop stars and bands of the era, including a very early interview with Madonna. In fact, it was on a Smash Hits trip to New York that he had his big breakthrough with the record producer Bobby O.
Neil Tennant’s Smash Hits Christmas, a 30-minute radio docu, hasn’t been available at BBC iPlayer/BBC Sounds since Christmas 2012, but you can click below to listen to a recording of the programme at You Tube, or download direct from Dreamscape, here.
