— Tom Hibbert
He invented silly nicknames for pop stars. He brought in the "liberal" use of inverted commas and then did it to "death". He was even Mr. Black Type. Yet, he often lavished praise on mediocre records by the likes of Red Lorry Yellow Lorry and Limahl and allowed Margaret Thatcher to drone on in a very boring interview. Paul Margach risks pissing all over the grave of beloved rock journalist while insulting a generation of pop music writers who worship him when he asks...
Who the hell did TOM HIBBERT think he was?
To pass the time, I try imagine how our conversation will go. I look over the questions I have prepared and I realise that I haven't the faintest idea how he will answer them. Will he respond quixotically? Will he be the grumpy bastard that he frequently laments others for being? Will he charm the pants off me to the point where merely the thought of this tongue-in-cheek hit piece will make me coil in shame? Will he dig the fact that I'm turning the tables on him? Will he scoff at this pratt with a blog no one reads?
I look over the file I have complied of his clippings and interviews and I try to go about piecing together a Q & A out of answers he has already given. Cut and paste all the way!
Tom Hibbert. Hibbs. (Somehow he avoided being anointed with one of those silly nicknames he gave many of the subjects he covered in the magazine. His Hibbs might have been a nice, simple go or maybe something like Thomas Ciggies 'n' Booze) The man generally credited with giving Smash Hits its unique voice. Credited by many in fact, even himself. It's easy to forget that the top pop mag wasn't always awash in "ver" and "what the jiggins?" and so forth but that was all the doing of one man. But what was it like before he arrived? "It was rather boring," he reckons.
But then he went about re-christening everyone. Sir Billiam of Idol. Lord Luccan of Mercury. Wacky Macca Thumbs Aloft. Dame David. Horrible Headband. Madge. Lardo le Bon. Mark Unpronouncable Name. And these are just the ones anyone remembers. But did any pop stars take their new monikers badly?
Kate Bush was one. "She didn't like being Kate 'Hello Earth, Hello Birds, Hello Sky' Bush. She didn't think that was at all amusing." (Who would ever have guessed that she of all people would be so prickly?) Good thing Hibbs was there to give her just enough rope to hang herself because has anyone heard even the slightest peep from her in the last three-and-a-half decades since?
"My interview technique," he explains, "was to keep a straight face and embarrass people into answering the questions. If there was a long silence, I'd stay silent too. It seemed to work, although Boy George once threatened to beat me up. He was a very large fellow so that was quite frightening. He's even larger now, ha ha! Then there was that ghastly chap Ringo Starr. He threw me out of his hotel room!"
That's quite the selection of pop stars he managed to piss off. But he may have had a wee bit more trouble once he ventured out of his comfort zone. He famously interviewed Mrs. Thatcher and you might say the player got played. Allowing her to drone on endlessly about how ver kids should "do something", she comes across as quite reasonable. "She was absolutely bloody marvellous," he recalls. Now, to be fair it's been well-documented that getting a word in while dealing with the Iron Lady could be a tricky task but it might have been nice had he come back with asking about what kind of "something" those redundant miners might have "done" with themselves. A missed opportunity perhaps. Good thing he was there to take the mickey out of her taste in music. Tory insiders must have reckoned she was finished after revealing that "How Much Is That Doggy in the Window?" was her favourite song. But at least he got a nice photograph of the two together as a keepsake.
But what of Hibbs' own musical tastes? I think it's fair to speculate that he may not necessarily have liked everything he reviewed favourably. Did the man troll us Hits readers with recommendations for Red Lorry Yellow Lorry's "Monkeys on Juice"? ("...you even want to dance to it in a funny kind of way") Or The Lucy Show's "Undone"? ("You can dance to it, you can call it art if you wish..."; curious the kind of music he figured we were all dancing to) Or Limahl's "Love in Your Eyes"?
I imagine asking him if he ever challenged himself to lavish excess praise on an utterly naff record — or if one of his troublemaking colleagues at ver Hits dared him to do so. Are you seriously going tell me that you enjoyed this over-lush, tedious ballad by one of the era's silliest pop stars? You even claim that it's better than "The Never-Ending Story" (something I actually can't argue with) as if that dreck was itself something to behold. His own protegee Sylvia Patterson later gave Limahl's Colour All My Days album a harsh but fair zero out of ten which is much closer to the objective truth. Didn't he come across as a bit of a fuddy-duddy for championing something so (a) MOR and (b) crap? (Then again, he could very well also have been trolling those who looked up to him by giving his approval to something so utterly uncool)
I search for an answer to insert but I come up empty "handed". Maybe he really did enjoy Limahl's music. Maybe he genuinely felt that challenging Mrs. Thatcher's rubbish record collection was much more practical than going after her policies. Maybe he felt that it was a part of his job to rub pop stars the wrong way.
I'd very much like to find out from the "horses" "mouth" but he still hasn't turned up. I'm not going to wait much longer.
~~~~~
Also Reviewed This Fortnight
Pete Wylie & The Oedipus Wrecks: "Sinful"
Sorry, was I too hard on poor old Hibbs? I don't wish to bash him any further so how about some praise? Certainly his reviews are anything but boring and this fortnight none of 'em read better than for Pete Wylie's "Sinful". So much does he like it that if it weren't for the Single of the Fortnight designation I'd assume that this is his pick. And well it should have been. Transcending the cliches of eighties pop production, it makes the best of the big drums and grandiose sound for a sublime singalong that you'll have difficultly tiring of. Hibbs asks questions that presumably will never be answered (I know how he feels) but does manage to come to the conclusion that Pete Wylie has a massive hit on his hands. I hope he wasn't too disappointed that it only did all right.
Sorry, was I too hard on poor old Hibbs? I don't wish to bash him any further so how about some praise? Certainly his reviews are anything but boring and this fortnight none of 'em read better than for Pete Wylie's "Sinful". So much does he like it that if it weren't for the Single of the Fortnight designation I'd assume that this is his pick. And well it should have been. Transcending the cliches of eighties pop production, it makes the best of the big drums and grandiose sound for a sublime singalong that you'll have difficultly tiring of. Hibbs asks questions that presumably will never be answered (I know how he feels) but does manage to come to the conclusion that Pete Wylie has a massive hit on his hands. I hope he wasn't too disappointed that it only did all right.
