RIP Smash Hits

I've just heard that Smash Hits is to close, cease publication, die etc.

I'm gutted.

I used to love reading this magazine when I was a teenager. I'd spend nearly all of my pocket money on it and read it from cover to cover.

I used to think that this was the only magazine I'd ever need and would read it until the day I died. Sadly, that never happened and I bought my last copy sometime in the early 90s.

I'd be enthralled to read news about Pet Shop Boys, Sinitta, Dead Or Alive, Kylie Minogue, Bananarama, Madonna, Tiffany, Debbie Gibson... All the pop greats!

I used to love to read the record reviews - though I hated the week Heart by Pet Shop Boys was reviewed. Erasure said it was the best of a bad bunch, the jealous cunts. I also adored the contributions of Mark Frith, now editor of Heat magazine. Is this why the mag is closing? Have all us teeny-boppers moved on? Are we now obsessed more with celebrity than with music?

Remember Black Type!?

I must have written in to the letters page at least one hundred times, but never got published. :(

Of course, one of my idols, Neil Tennant, worked there in the early 80s.

I remember the day they printed a small farewell to a Smash Hits journalist called Neil Tennant, which derided him for calling his band something stupid like Pet Shop Boys and claiming he'd be back within six months.

Will Smash Hits ever be back, back, back, etc?