The Best of Boyfriend

by Melissa Hyland (Editor)

• Used

  Hardcover
  2008

  $3.42

  Boyfriend , a new kind of girls' paper, was launched in the spring of 1959. It was the first girls' magazine to truly put music first. Each week there would be a new 'Boyfriend' - Russ Conway, Johnny Mathis, Lonnie Donegan - introducing his life story and, to prove that he had a softer side, his favourite romantic story.You could also meet 'The Girl Behind the Boy'. Whether this was so you could emulate her to get your own pop-star boyfriend or a case of know your enemy so you could steal her boyfriend, I don't know.Away from the music, Rachel Lindsay handed out fashion tips on everything from clothing to hairstyles and twins Johnny and Jeannie Talbot offered weekly advice on the Boyfriend problems page. Boyfriend really came into its own when the sixties began to swing. The magazine gave itself over to modern pop: as early as February 1963, before their first album was out, Boyfriend was describing The Beatles as even more modern than modern. Cliff Richard was a favourite of the magazine and was given his own column to introduce other stars of the pop scene...although it's unlikely that Cliff ever got any closer to the column than cashing the pay cheque he earned from the magazine for using his name. Seven years after its birth, Boyfriend sank beneath a swelling tide of pop magazines and girls all over the country mourned its passing. The Best of Boyfriend celebrates the life of an iconic sixties publication with a welter of material that represent some of the best pate.