The Hit Parade is a music group that was initially formed by three schoolfriends: Julian Henry, Raymond Watts, and Matthew Moffatt. They founded their own JSH Records label as a vehicle for their releases and released their first single Forever in 1984. Their second and third singles were My Favourite Girl and The Sun Shines in Gerrards Cross. A year later The Hit Parade signed to Stiff Records but the label went out of business before anything (other than a track on a compilation album) was released. The first Hit Parade LP With Love From The Hit Parade was released in 1988. The album has been re-issued several times and is viewed as 80s indie classic. In the 1990s, The Hit Parade signed to Sarah Records label and recorded a single In Gunnersbury Park b/w Harvey and an album, The Sound Of The Hit Parade, in 1993. The Hit Parade then signed to Vinyl Japan and later Polystar Records, had a minor hit with Hello Hannah Hello and toured Japan several times, played at the opening of the Virgin Megastore Shinjuku, Tokyo, appearing on MTV Japan and other music TV shows, and signed to Minty Fresh Records in USA. In 2006 the band produced their fifth LP with The Field Mice and St Etienne producer Ian Catt, The Return of the Hit Parade. In 2014, the Hit Parade released Cornish Pop Songs, songs set in South West England. Five years later the eighth Hit Parade LP The Golden Age Of Pop was released on JSH Records. Now the band is back together for Under The Bridge 2, the new compilation by Skep Wax featuring bands linked to the Sarah Record experience.

What Julian Henry says: “We were asked to submit a new Hit Parade song to Under The Bridge 2 album and so that was the trigger for us to meet up and record something new. Compilation LPs are an old fashioned idea and so I wrote ‘Apple Tree’ with that in mind; I was reminded of hanging about in record shops and searching out new groups. I liked the idea that The Hit Parade might be stumbled upon by chance, discovered by fans of other groups, not pumped out by an algorithm as music is today. I wanted an Apple Tree because that’s the symbol of the birth of something new“.

His Mixtape:

The Seekers – Georgy Girl (1966)

I was too young to see the film but the bouncy optimism of this song captures the happiness, whimsy and fresh air of what the 1960s seemed to be about in my mind.

Roy Wood – Forever (1973)

I’ve always admired Roy Wood. This song became a start point for everything I’ve recorded with my group the Hit Parade. The fact that he can match the dexterity of both Neil Sedaka and Brian Wilson in a three minute recording is evidence of his brilliance.

Stereolab – French Disko (1993)

I saw many punk bands play live in 1977 and 1978 but this song, recorded years later, became my favourite memory of what punk ideal represented, the revolutionary politics, the relentless thrash of the guitars and drone of the vocal have an odd potency.

Girls – Lust For Life (2002)

It only became clear after JR White died how much he’d given to Girls but this whole album became the record I wish I’d recorded for years after.

Jay Z – Fallin (2007)

I enjoy songs about failure and loss and Jay Z has written this with such wit and brilliance it makes me chuckle.

Alvvays – The Agency (2014)

Alvvays are the most romantic group I’ve heard in a long while. They made me want to own a jazzmaster too. It’s the blend of old and new I like.

The Compilation:

Under The Bridge 2 is the sequel to the celebrated 2022 compilation album that reunited groups and songwriters who had once recorded for cult label Sarah Records.  The new album showcases the continuing creativity of a special group of musicians who have never rested on their laurels.
Bigger and more expansive than the first album, Under the Bridge 2 is a double LP, containing twenty brand new tracks.  There is a huge range of material here, from intense, dark chamber pop to dense shoegaze to out-and-out indiepop.  Exciting new constellations are revealed: The Gentle Spring (a new project by Michael Hiscock of The Field Mice); Vetchinsky Settings (a collaboration between James Hackett of The Orchids and Mark Tranmer of St Christopher); and Mystic Village (which features new songs by Robert Cooksey of The Sea Urchins).
You will see familiar starry names like Even As We Speak, The Orchids and Secret Shine – bands whose line-ups have remained mostly unchanged since the 1990s. And there are established bands who didn’t appear on the first album but are now represented – bands like Action Painting! and The Hit Parade.
Most of the tracks are exclusive and unreleased: there’s the first new song from The Catenary Wires since 2021, a brand new fizzbomb from Jetstream Pony, a haunting instrumental from GNAC.
The emphasis of Under The Bridge is on the new.  The artists’ shared history means they have a shared aesthetic, even a shared ethos – they all believe that the future is more important than the past.  They are as independent and as uncompromising as ever, but they are still uncynical – and still excited about what Pop Music can be.
Meanwhile, the reputation and mystique of Sarah Records, the label where all these bands first met, continue to grow.  Jane Duffus’s book These Things Happen has tapped into an ongoing appetite for news about a label that bucked the trend, ignored standard music industry rules and released some of the best pop music of the 1990s.
Rob Pursey of Skep Wax Records says “‘”It was exciting to be reunited with the bands we’d shared a label with back in the 1990s.  It’s even more exciting to hear how the bands have evolved: they all seem to get stronger with the passing years.“

Under The Bridge 2 is available as vinyl double LP, CD and digital download and will be out on Skep Wax on April 6th. It will not be on streaming sites. Look here for more information on Under the Bridge 2 and here for more information on The Hit Parade

There will also be three UK gigs to celebrate the new release:
6 April: 14 Iced Bears, The Gentle Spring, Wandering Summer
Sheffield, The Shakespeare.
7 April: The Gentle Spring, Mystic Village, The Hit Parade (Julian Henry solo)
London, The Lexington
14 June: Secret Shine, Jetstream Pony, Soundwire
Bristol, The Louisiana