So this is a section of text that will be published next fortnight in my Inside Splinters column for Forte Magazine. It's about the death of Smash Hits Magazine in Australia. I wanted to post it here because I felt an online presence detailing the Oz edition's death was necessary, as there is nothing (other than Wikipedia) which documents this news.

In news that will only sadden those of us who treated the magazine as their bible through the 80's and early 90's, the Australian edition of Smash Hits Magazine seems to have closed its doors, for good. In fact, the final issue, which was due for release on the 9th of May this year, was cancelled and never saw the light of day.

The Australian leg of the magazine, whose first issue hit Aussie newsstands in November 1984, was given the chop by publisher Emap due to low readership. Just over a year ago, the United Kingdom publication of Smash Hits was also given the axe for the same reason. Smash Hits was, once upon a time, an iconic publishing figure both here in Oz and in the United Kingdom. When its UK office packed it all in, a country mourned. Journalists across the nation were throwing in their 2 cents on where it all went wrong, and music website Popjustice launched an online condolence book. To say it received media coverage would be an understatement. This was news in the United Kingdom.

Not surprisingly, the closure of the Australian edition barely gets a mention on the magazines Wikipedia page. Good luck finding a piece in any Australian publication that discusses the demise of the mag prior to this one. This news, something which should have been mentioned somewhere at the very least on an Internet news site, is nowhere to be found. Which explains why it took Inside Splinters five months, from an industry insider, to find out it had even happened.

Looking through an issue as recent as February this year is a telling way of noticing the magazine was nowhere near what it once was in brilliance. But that doesn't make the news any less upsetting. Many will argue that in a world of digital downloads, YouTube and music blogs, there is just no room for a publication like Smash Hits, especially in Australia. Teenagers do not read magazines. They look at pictures in the New Weekly, and they read gossip sites like Perez Hilton. Gone is the time when you were given an option to hear a new pop song by calling a 0055 number published in Smash Hits Magazine; these days you can download music illegally from private internet forums, Limewire, and torrent websites sometimes up to several months before their release date, in full quality and at absolutely no cost to your bank balance.

Smash Hits - both in the UK and Australia - began tumbling down a spiral of horror when it began changing its format. In the mid to late 90's, the magazine went from being a pop music publication, to one that celebrated general celebrity. In place of the razor-sharp journalism and hilarious interview techniques, came free pencil cases, posters of the cast of Beverly Hills 90210, and, in more recent years, sloppy writing.

Obviously, times had changed. Pop music had to share the spotlight with television, understandably, but was dumbing down the content all that necessary? An awe-inspiring question like "What colour is Thursday?" from a 1980's issue would soon be replaced with "What's your favourite colour?" in the late 90's and 2000's. How did they expect to live on? If that had been me as a young teen reading the most recent issues of the magazine, I would have felt like it was an offensively patronising read.

Not all is lost though. Music websites such as Popjustice, xolondon's Middle Eight, The Zapping, Don't Stop The Pop, Chart Rigger, Poster Girl and the like all carry the flame of clever, well written pop commentary into the digital age, albeit minus the 0055 numbers and the classy rip-out pin-up's.

I always dreamt of writing for Smash Hits one day. And whilst it died as a completely different type of Smash Hits to the one it used to be, I cannot help but mourn its demise.

Labels: Australian Pop

• 2 comments

2 Comments:

• 9:31 PM | Phil said...
  There are so many factors contributing to the death of teen mags, especially pop mags. I worked with one of the last Eds of SH over here (on another teen mag) and she tried, in vain, to stem the loss of SH readers by turning it into a girl's lifestyle mag. But then even the teen girl's glossies started hemorrhaging readers.
  
  Blame the web, blame mobile phones, blame celeb culture, blame weekly rags... there are loads of reasons teenagers aren't into teen mags.
  
  The only consolation is that music is as popular, if not more so, than ever. It's only the medium teens get their music which has changed. Keep up the good work Adem!

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• 3:17 AM | Adem IAR said...
  Oh I definitely agree with you Phil, I guess it's just still upsetting - the old nostalgia kicking in. Like I said, I'll not miss what Smash Hits was when it died here in Australia, much like in the UK it was a grey, meek shadow of its former self. Just the name, I guess, saying goodbye to it after associating some good times with it.
  
  Thank you Phil, it's muchly appreciated (you keep up the good work too, loving Wor..!!)

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