More from Smash Hits '84!

More SMASH HITS nonsense!!!! This time from early Autumn 1984... September to be precise. This issue's cover star is the mighty Stuart Goddard, aka Adam Ant, back from the pop dumpster after the previous year's panto-pop shocker "Puss in Boots". This time he's got a new concept kids. He's an rockabilly boxing astronaut!! Of course he is... and he is about to have a top 20 hit with "Apollo 9", a mad ahead-of-it's-time classic. But this would be the final appearance of the Antster on the cover of ver Hits. Indeed, we'd see little more of him for the rest of the 80's bar a forgettable Live Aid performance the following year. Shame. Still in retrospect you can see where it all began to go wrong...

Also, tucked away in the top left corner is Dame David Bowie! Hurrah! Following the success of the 1983 "Let's Dance" album, the Dame returns with "Blue Jean"! A great single but with an awful video complete with (deep breath) "acting" from Dave. We all know how bad  that is. All the previous year's good work was undone by the accompanying "Tonight" album, which is frankly cack, much like his output from there on. "Dancing in the Streets" and Tin Machine await... Big marks to the designers of the cover though - how Eighties is that? Fabulous.

Classic Hits cover to the left. Duran Duran's Simon Le Bon at his most punchable best. Wearing a great T-shirt. Gawd knows what he's on the cover for as they didn't have any records out - still those were the days... when it wasn't all about promotion. Also... George Michael solo!! Dumping Andrew for a solo single (a taste of things to come) with "Careless Whisper". Culture Club...in Japan! As dull as Culture Club would be anywhere I suppose. Prince is there, as "Purple Rain" is massive this year. And rightly so. Thompson Twins and Spandau Ballet are also featured but they are bound for the dumper very soon. And rightly so. Yes Divine IS mentioned on the cover, as  "You Think You're A Man" is a big gay crossover hit (1984 is big on hi-energy single hits - Hazell Dean anybody?).

"What's This Hippy Doing Here?" barks the coverline for this issue. He is of course Neil from "The Young Ones" played by Nigel Planer who's having a massive hit with a cover of Donovan's "Hole In My Shoe" on the back of the success of the second series of the show. And amazingly for a comedy record, it was and still is bloody good. No negative vibe merchants here.

Other nonsense in this issue includes diminutive teenage fave singer songwriter Nik Kershaw (he's the one that's not Howard Jones) who wasn't letting the sun go down on him. His fans may have been a different matter.  Michael Jackson features for some reason, the "Thriller" era being well over by now. OMD are hardy perrenials still having single hits, this one being the twee "Talking Loud & Clear". Blurrghhh. Oh and Martin Kemp. Double blurghhhhh.

AWOOGA! AWOOGA! MULLETS AHOY!! Adorning the Readers' Poll issue are these two blokes with questionable hair. One of the statements on this cover may have been true (for some), the other proved to be entirely incorrect. For the gentlemen on the right is John Taylor, charismatic (or "fit" if you're a gurl) bass player for Duran Duran. The bloke on the left is the son of a dead Beatle. Alas, Julian Lennon (for it is he) had a great hit with "Too Late For Goodbyes" which sounded almost entirely like an outtake by his dad.  And it was goodbye to Julian for a few years as he never troubled the charts again until 1991 and the dire "Saltwater".  Again, the Smash Hits readers fail to predict the stars of the future, instead voting for someone with big hair (Howard Jones won the previous year).

The Readers' Poll issue would notoriously be pamphlet thin and a time filler over Christmas until we got to the New Year... which this time would be 1985!!! More soon...