Smash Hits – the fortnightly girl (admit it) rag is no more. For those of you who leap on the paper boy in your attempts to get to your Simon Webb poster quicker, your life is essentially over.

Smash Hits will discontinue in its paper format, and will continue as a webzine only. So no more free gifts from Girls Aloud. Nor will you be getting any locks of hair from Westlife.

Smash Hits has been the main source of girls’ bedroom wall adornments
for nearly 30 years, and on Feb 13 will see its last pulp on the newsstand. Smash Hits has been a pivotal player in the pop scene, and
helped many young acts to break through. Former editor Mark Frith
stated that the magazine had been ‘caught out’ by the rise of digital
media:

“Today’s teens want faster, deeper information about music and can now
satisfy their hunger by accessing information on a whole range of new
platforms including TV, the Internet, mobile and so on."

Rick Astley proclaimed:

“The speed with which pop
music changes these days, a fortnightly magazine like Smash Hits can’t
keep up to date. If someone wants the lyrics to their favourite song,
they go to the Internet, rather than wait for 2 weeks."

Smash Hits will now look toward the digital format to keep its name
alive by the continued interest of its Internet radio station and TV
channel. The parent company, Emap, would not be willing to pump cash
into an ailing print title.

It is quite easy to scoff at the demise of a scruffy little snot-rag
like this, but Smash Hits has been a springboard for many who have gone
on to greater things. Famously, Neil Tennant of Pet Shop Boys fame was
once the assistant editor, and was famous for his bitchy rants against Boy
George. The founding editor Nick Logan edited the first edition under
a pseudonym in case it was a flop – considered calling it Disco Fever -
and launched The Face two years later. Other editors have included kitten fart Kate Thornton and a whole host of other journalist for
daily nationals.

Fans have begun inundating message boards with support for Smash Hits, with one former reader stating:

“From the early to mid-nineties it was my bible. I owned 3 years worth
at one point (and sadly have thrown them away since) and I swear it was
the only teen music magazine that didn’t treat the readers like
complete idiots. Bloody magnificent. It will be sorely missed.”

In the face of downloading tunes on to your mobile phone, Internet band
sites catering for their fans in the same vein as Smash Hits once did,
it was inevitable that sales would slump from a peak of over 1 million
readers, to just over 120,000.

Read more:

Smash Hits turns into a miss with today’s teenagers – The Times

[story by Mof Gimmers]