1986: Black Type Murdered By A Picnic Table Wielding Maniac? What A Nightmare!

This book, which I found last year in a local charity shop, is truly brillo pads. It's completely and utterly swingorilliant. It transports me back effortlessly to the heyday of Smash Hits magazine - that heyday, of course, being the 1980s. Those were the days of Madonna, Morton "Snorten Forten" Harket, miserable Morrisey, Bros, Jason and Kylie, Wham!, Adam and the Ants and other "pop" "stars". The days of "akchewerlery" and frightwigs. The days of Rick Astley's Ruddy Big Pig. The days of Black Type. Black Type? Yus, mateyboots, Sir Blackford of Type, the legendary letters page editor of Smash Hits.

In 1986 a nation mourned as horrendously horrible news broke: Black Type had been brutally murdered by a picnic table-wielding maniac. Stunned horrendous horror gave way to cries of "worra swizz!" as it all turned out to be a dream and Black Type lived on to blacken many more pages of Smash Hits.

 

Some utterly fabby Smash Hits covers from 1986 and 1987. Yes, folks, we have Howard Jones! We have Duran Duran! We have the Beastie Boys! And yes, yes, YES!!! we have Nick Kamen and the Housemartins.

The book even features some advertisements from the 1980s. Remember chat lines? After British Telecom arrived in 1980 and became a public corporation in late 1981, all sorts of new and highly exciting thingies happened - things like chatlines, which rose into the stratosphere in the mid-1980s. Great fun, coz the World Wide Web wouldn't be invented until 1989, so you could natter to all sorts of Tom, Dick and Harrys in the comfort and safety of your own black ash infested pad even back then. But chatlines had such potential aggro value they were actually featured as a storyline on Brookside. Yep, some kiddies dialled the digits and drove their parents' phone bills sky high, causing many tears and smacked botties before bedtime.

Let's Go Back To The '80s - To Iron Maiden And 7-Up, Bananarama And Breakfast Club...

"Hooray for Cosby and Rubik's Cube..." - fun song - a tribute to the 1980s by Aqua, with a great video by a YouTube user. Enjoy!

House Music And Garage Music... Separate, Not The Same...

Joanne has written:

Were the dance music genres of the 1980s, House and Garage the same thing? I remember as a kid them being referred to separately, but I recently read of something called "Garage House" on a not very accurate site, and thought I'd turn to you for the answer!

Yes, they were separate, Joanne. House music as a distinct genre of electronic dance music began in Chicago - 1983 was described as "Year Zero" for house in the Channel 4 documentary, Pump Up The Volume. House, of course, hit the mainstream in the mid-1980s. Garage I knew little of until the 1990s, when I heard talk of "house and garage". There was also talk of something called "shed" at that time. It all seemed quite witty, but I was married by then and no longer part of the nightclub scene so know little about Garage. It apparently began in the early 1980s in New York and New Jersey, USA, and was influenced by the same sudden explosion of electronic instruments - synthesizers, drum machines, etc - as house.

The origins of the two genres are separate though.

Smash Hits: Always Read The Black Type First...

Howard Jones and a lovely brolly (£2-99 - a snip!) star on a 1985 "Smash Hits" cover...

Lovely freebies...

Mid-1980s "Smash Hits" hilarity...

Black Type was essential reading for me in the 1980s. The Smash Hits letters pages were loaded with the drollest of droll wit and irony and I'd beg a look at my younger sister's copy of that worthy mag every time I visited my parents' house. Once I even wrote in and had a letter published myself.

To me, the 1980s were a fabulous time for music. I loved the polished pop, the synth era, the evolvement of rap into the Hip Hop scene, the beginnings of House music, Acid House, and the Dance and Rave scenes.

But I certainly had no desire to drool over pop stars and booster their (often) already massive egos. In the 1970s, we kids got into pop young and I had a cousin who subjected the whole family to her dreadful fixations with the likes of Donny Osmond, the Bay City Rollers and John Travolta.

"Oh, Andy, Woody writes to his Mum every week - isn't he sweet!" (or some such tosh) she'd squawk as she clutched the latest "must-have" fan mag. And it really got on my nerves.

So, I developed a healthy cynicism about pop stars and pop music at an early age. My cousin didn't. As a young married mum in the mid-1980s, she was squawking: "Ooh, Jon Bon Jovi! Did you know that's all his own hair?! He's sooo lovely..." etc, etc, etc.

But my tongue was firmly in my cheek when it came to the pop scene (although I adored a lot of the music) and the Smash Hits letters pages were heaven for me as they often left the subject of pop far behind (how do you spell achtuwarly?).

Black Type, the mysterious letters page editor, who seemed like a bit of a wally, would often wax lyrical about his latest obsession (who would it be this week? Una Stubbs? Bonnie Langford?) and there were enthralling exchanges about Harpic Bleachmatic Duo ads. Amongst other things.

In fact, the whole tone of Smash Hits back then was just sooo droll (remember ' "pop" "star" Simon Le Bon'?), nothing could ever compete. Ever. And on top of all that the mag had Neil Tennant (pre-Pet Shop Boys fame) on its journalistic staff.

Wonderful.-------------