The Hit Factory Recording Studio Reborn! — Part 1 - Mixonline
By Tom Kenny. After nearly 20 years, The Hit Factory -- the legendary NYC studio that reinvented popular music -- is truly back. On the Cover: In January 2023, after 20 years, Troy Germano reacquired rights to The Hit Factory name, bringing back one of the world’s iconic studio brands and renaming his world-class Germano Studios in NoHo, New York City. Pictured in Studio 2, from left: Slick Rick, engineer Kenta Yonesaka, Troy Germano, Mark Ronson and Steve Jordan.Soon after you read this, a new website for the Hit Factory will go live, replacing germanostudios.com. Emails to [email protected] will begin being forwarded to [email protected]. And all the new signage, reviving a familiar, decades-old logo, will have been hung, announcing that Germano Studios, located at 676 Broadway in Manhattan’s NoHo District, is now The Hit Factory.From his perspective, hanging the signs last month announcing the rebirth of The Hit Factory was the equivalent of bringing back the family name—one that should never have been lost in the first place. By all accounts, Eddie Germano, a producer, singer, entrepreneur and Troy’s father, was a charismatic, welcoming, only-in-New-York, larger-than-life individual. In 1975, while a part owner and day-to-day manager of the hottest studio in town, Record Plant, he decided to go solo and purchased the two-room Hit Factory studios on 353 W.In 1981, The Hit Factory relocated to 237 West 54th Street, across the street from Studio 54, and the talent followed: Graceland by Paul Simon, Born in the U.S.A. by Bruce Springsteen, Under a Blood Red Sky (U2), Steel Wheels (Rolling Stones), Up Your Alley (Joan Jett and the Blackhearts)—the list fills pages.