Biography
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Years Active
1984 – present (40 years)
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Members
- Harvey Williams
- Mike Watts
- Raymond Watts
The Hit Parade are an indie pop group based in London, UK. Named after the NBC US TV show Your Hit Parade which was broadcast across America in the 1950s as a showcase of the best of chart music, The Hit Parade were formed in 1984 by three British schoolfriends Raymond Watts, Matthew Moffatt and Julian Henry. The group have released five CDs and nine singles to date.
Originally hailing from Little Chalfont and Gerrards Cross in the London suburbs, the band recorded their first three singles using a primitive recording studio located in the garage of Watts' family house. Their early records "My Favourite Girl" and "The Sun Shines In Gerrards Cross" became Singles Of The Week in Melody Maker, Record Mirror and other 1980s music publications, and were played on Radio1 by DJs including John Peel, David 'Kid' Jenson, Janice Long and others.
The Hit Parade have never been commercially successful but they have earned the respect of post punk critics, fans and label owners for their determined pursuit of pop purity, and have proved to be more durable than many of their peers. The group have refused to deviate from the format of the three minute pop single and proclaimed the latin motto "Semper Eadem" (always the same) on their early records. Critics have compared them to a wide range of British pop acts including The Jam, Postcard Records, a-Ha, Wham, Everything But The Girl, Pulp and Aztec Camera.
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