Hit Parader – sign of the times

Remember the days when you could sing along to the hits, understood the lyrics, and sometimes if you didn’t memorize them, you would go to your local news stand, grab a copy of ‘Hit Parader’ ? From it’s humble beginnings in 1942, it was basically a song lyric entity, then by the mid -1960s, it shifted gears  and became ‘in tune’ with the changing times, broadening to a magazine format, then by the 1970s,  included feature stories on the artists of the day, such as The Rolling Stones, Three Dog Night, Kiss, and others. As the 1980s approached, ‘Hit Parader,’ began to cater more to the hard rock and metal genres. Eventually, in 1991 it was the end of the line, of a magazine that was a part of our culture for decades.