Record Mirror

The title ceased to be a stand-alone publication in April 1991 when United Newspapers closed or sold most of their consumer magazines, including Record Mirror and its sister music magazine Sounds, to concentrate on trade papers like Music Week. In 2010 Giovanni di Stefano bought the name Record Mirror and relaunched it as an online music gossip website in 2011. The website became inactive in 2013 following di Stefano's jailing for fraud.^[1][2]

Early years, 1954–1963

Record Mirror was founded by former Weekly Sporting Review editor Isidore Green,^[3] who encouraged the same combative journalism as NME. Staff writers included Dick Tatham, Peter Jones^[4] and Ian Dove.^[5] Green's background was in show business and he emphasised music hall, a dying tradition. He published articles and interviews connected with theatre and musical personalities.^{[citation needed]}

On 22 January 1955 Record Mirror became the second music paper after NME to publish a singles chart. The chart was a Top 10, from postal returns from 24 stores. On 8 October, the chart expanded to a Top 20, and by 1956, more than 60 stores were being sampled. In April 1961, increased postage costs affected funding of the returns, and on 24 March 1962 the paper abandoned its charts and began using those of Record Retailer, which had begun in March 1960.^[6]

The first album charts in the UK were published in Record Mirror on 28 July 1956.^[7]

For two months in 1959, Record Mirror failed to appear due to a national printing strike. On its return, Green renamed it Record and Show Mirror, the majority of space devoted to show business. By the end of 1960 circulation had fallen to 18,000 and

1982–1991

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In 1982, the paper changed from tabloid to glossy magazine. During the next nine years it had a more pop-orientated slant and containing features and a tone of voice that was one part Smash Hits, one part the NME. Part of Record Mirror was devoted over to comic articles as a rival to the NME's Thrills section (infamous for Stuart Maconie's Believe It Or Not column which claimed that Bob Holness was the saxophonist on Gerry Rafferty's Baker Street).^[9] Features in this section of Record Mirror included:

• Great Pop Things, a weekly comic strip by Colin B. Morton and Chuck Death which began in 1987 and continued in NME after Record Mirror's closure
• Star-spotting gossip pages, written by Johnny Dee, which also featured comedy articles
• Lip – gossip column written by Nancy Culp, and later Lisa Tilston
• "Spot the Imposter" – photoquiz with a misplaced face in the crowd
• "Phil's World of Wigs" – each week a picture of Phil Collins appeared with new novelty haircuts, the artwork being created by art director Ian Middleton in response to readers' suggestions
• "Pete's Poems" – a weekly poem by record producer Pete Waterman (as edited by Neil Wilson)
• "Sonia's Best Buys" – value for money purchases apparently made by late 1980s singer Sonia
• "The Stone Roses New Line-Up" – each week a new photo of a
  Stone Roses 1989 line-up, for example Harry Enfield
  as his character "Loadsamoney"
• "B's Cheeseboard" – various types of cheese apparently reviewed by Soul II Soul star Jazzie B
• "Star Scene" – pop stars answering questions about items in the news
• "Tanita and Guy's Psychic Joke Hut" – pictures of the heads of
  The House Of Love singer Guy Chadwick and singer-songwriter Tanita Tikaram
  telling each other jokes: both were famed for their serious natures in real life
• "Disco column" – a disco review section from James Hamilton

1991–2013

In 1987, Morgan-Grampian was acquired by United Newspapers (now

As United Newspapers decided to focus on trade papers, Record Mirror was incorporated into Music Week as a pull-out supplement with the title concentrating on dance music and with the Cool Cuts, Club Chart and James Hamilton's BPM column continuing to be published.[11]^{[12][13][14][15]} Hamilton continued to review records for the Record Mirror Dance Update until two weeks before his death on 17 June 1996, with the supplement running an obituary in the 29 June issue with tributes from Pete Tong, Graham Gold and Les 'L.A. Mix' Adams.^[16][17][18]

By the 21st century, the Record Mirror Dance Update had been abandoned with the dance charts incorporated into Music Week (with the Music Week Upfront Club and Cool Cuts still being published in 2020 by Future plc, though this may change in 2021 when the publication goes monthly).^[19][20][21] However, in 2011 Record Mirror was re-launched as an online music gossip website but became inactive two years later following trademark owner Giovanni di Stefano's jailing for fraud.^[11]

Music charts

History of the charts

Record Mirror became the second magazine to compile and publish a record chart on 22 January 1955. Unlike the New Musical Express who conducted a phone poll of retailers for a chart, Record Mirror arranged for its pool of retailers to send in a list of best sellers by post. The paper would finance the costs of this survey and by 1957 over 60 shops would be regularly contributing from a rotating pool of over 80. The chart was a top 10 until 8 October 1955. It then became a top 20; which it stayed at until being replaced by the Record Retailer top 50. It also inaugurated the countries first Long Player chart, which commenced as a top five on 28 July 1956.

By March 1962, Record Mirror adopted publication of Record Retailer's top 50 from 24 March 1962. After 21 April 1966, Record Mirror published a "Bubbling Under List" right under the main chart (at the time, the Singles Top 50, the Albums Top 30 and the EP Top 10). "The Breakers", as it was called later in the year, were 10 to 15 records (for the singles chart) which had not made the top 50 that week, but were poised to reach the main chart the next week, ranked in sales order, i.e. as if they occupied positions 51 to 64. "The Breakers" list was ceased when BMRB took over chart compilation in February 1969, but by September 1970, it was re-instated (for singles only) appearing off and on under the main chart, up until May 1978 (when the top 75 was introduced). In the years 1974 and 1975, the list even expanded to 30 titles, of which the first 10 were called "Star Breakers" and given in order of sales, with the other 20 listed alphabetically.

In January 1983, when Gallup took over chart compilation, the singles chart extended to a Top 100, with positions 76–100 as 'The Next 25' – excluding singles dropping out of the Top 75 or with significantly reduced sales. 'The Next 25' was discontinued by Music Week in November 1990 who decided to only include records that were hits (that is, inside the Top 75). Record Mirror continued printing the Top 100 until it became part of the trade paper in April 1991, with Music Week continuing to print the hits, though the full Top 200 singles chart and Top 150 albums chart could be accessed by subscribing to Music Week's spin-off newsletter Charts Plus and also to Hit Music which superseded it. (Note: As of December 2020 the Official Charts Company website is still missing a lot of the data on regards to records in positions 76 to 100 from 1991 to 12 February 1994)^[22][23]

In addition to the Gallup charts (the future Official Charts Company Top 100), Record Mirror was the only magazine during the 1980s to print the weekly US singles and album charts, with analysis by chart statistician Alan Jones.^[24]

Music charts included

• UK Top 100 Singles Chart
• UK Top 75 Albums and Compilation Albums Charts
• Vintage chart from a bygone year
• US Billboard Singles Chart
• US Billboard Albums Chart
• US Billboard Black Singles Chart
• Music Video Chart
• 12-inch singles
  Top 20 Chart
• Compact Disc Top 20 Chart
• Reggae Chart (dropped in 1987)

James Hamilton

In June 1975, DJ James Hamilton (1942–1996) started writing a weekly "disco" column, which in 1980s expanded into a general dance music section known as BPM. Later, Hamilton introduced the DJ Directory, including the Beats and Pieces news section and four charts: "Club Chart", "Cool Cuts", "Pop Dance", and Hi-NRG Chart.

Hamilton had started DJing in London in the early 1960s, and had been writing about US soul and R&B for Record Mirror since 1964, originally as Dr Soul.

• Norman Jopling
• Graeme Andrews
• Derek Boltwood
• Roy Burden
• Terry Chappell
• Rodney Collins
• Lon Goddard
• David Griffiths
• Tony Hall
• Peter Jones
• Bill McAllister
• Valerie Mabbs
• Ian Middleton
• Barry May
• Alan Stinton

Photographic department

• Dezo Hoffmann
• David Louis [Louis Levy]
• Bill Williams
• Eileen Mallory
• Alan Messer
• Feri Lukas
• David Magnus
• Keith Hammett

Production Editor

• Colin Brown

1970s

Journalists

• Barry Cain^[25]
• Ronnie Gurr^[26]
• Mike Gardner
• Jan Iles
• David Hancock
• Peter Harvey
• Tim Lott^[27]
• Alf Martin^[28]
• Mike Nicholls
• Sheila Prophet
• Rosalind Russell
• John Shearlaw
• Daniela Soave
• Penny Valentine
• Chris Westwood
• Paula Yates – wrote a column in the paper^[28] titled "Natural Blonde"

Photographic department

• Andy Phillips
• Paul Slattery

Cartoonist

Jack Edward Oliver, 1970–1977

Advertisement production

Mick Hitch

1980s and 1990s

Business team

• Mike Sharman – Publisher
• Steve Bush-Harris
• Carole Norvell-Read
• Tracey Rogers
• Geof Todd
• Jo Embleton

Journalists