WHAT ARE YOU GETTING US FOR OUR ANNIVERSARY?

The year was 1986. The kids were rocking out to [checks notes], huh, Kate Bush and Metallica. And a saucy, irreverent, wacky, nutty and sporadically proofread music tip sheet emerged from the twisted minds of two biz insiders.

They called it HITS. Some said this was because of the founders’ conviction that hit songs were the indispensable fuel of the biz. Others believed it was simply an anagram for “SHIT.” Both hypotheses are credible.

Oddly enough, through boom and bust, CDs and downloads, file-sharing and wardrobe malfunctions, Spotifys and TikToks, HITS persisted.

We owe our survival (which has been likened to that of cockroaches after a nuclear war more times than we’d care to admit) to you, gentle reader. We look forward to expressing our gratitude in the customary way—by producing a tree-killing doorstop crammed with dumb jokes, aka the HITS Anniversary Special.

What will be in this issue? Hard to say as we’re usually in a blackout when it’s compiled. Expect lots of shiny photos of industry peeps, nostalgic nuggets from the archives and more to fill the white space between ads. Or something.

OK, onward to 37, whether you like it or not. Probably not.