Author Archives: JMF

101 Forgotten Pop Hits of the 1980s by Nick Parkhouse

I had recently finished Nothing But a Good Time, an oral history of the hair metal era, and was searching for other pop oral histories to read when I came across an interview with Parkhouse.  He recounts how he was chatting with a man in a pub about 80s playlists including the same batch ofContinue reading “101 Forgotten Pop Hits of the 1980s by Nick Parkhouse”

Hit Men by Frederic Dannen

This review refers to the 1990 edition with 2010 epilogue. Hit Men mainly covers the top 40 music industry in the 1980s and the tension between the major record labels, the independent promoters known as “the Network,” and how this shaped radio airplay.    There is a connection between independent promotion and organized crime andContinue reading “Hit Men by Frederic Dannen”