Record Mirror

Record Mirror was a British weekly pop music newspaper, founded by Isadore Green and featured, news articles, interviews, record charts, record reviews, concert reviews, letters from readers and photographs. The paper became respected by both mainstream pop music fans and serious record collectors. It was the most progressive of the four competing pop weeklies of its day, which included Melody Maker, New Musical Express, Record Mirror and Disc magazine.

Launched two years after the NME - with its first issue on 17 June 1954 - Record Mirror attained lower circulation than its high-profiled rival, but during the 1960s and early 1970s it did achieve a good circulation based on its reputation. The first ever UK album chart was published in Record Mirror in 1956, and during the 1980s it was the only consumer music paper to carry the UK singles and UK albums charts used by the BBC for Radio 1 and Top of the Pops.

The descendant publication of Record Mirror ceased being printed in April 1991

The title rights to Record Mirror were purchased in 2010 by Giovanni Di Stefano for an undisclosed sum and a relaunch is planned for early 2011.^{[citation needed]}

History

Between 1953 and 1958 the paper was run by Isadore Green, who was a former newspaper sports editor and encouraged the same combative form of journalism as New Musical Express. Staff writers included Dick Tatham, Peter Jones and later Ian Dove. But Green had a strong interest in show business and he changed the paper's format, placing an emphasis on the British music hall, a tradition which was rapidly dying out at that time. He also published articles and interviews connected with theatre and musical personalities. His publication's interest in gossip from TV, radio, stage and screen at home and abroad was not well received.^{[citation needed]}

For two months in 1959, Record Mirror failed to appear due to a national printing strike. On its return, Green had renamed it Record and Show Mirror with the majority of space being devoted to traditional show business. By the end of 1960 the circulation had fallen to only eighteen thousand copies and Decca Records, the main shareholder of Record and Show Mirror, became uneasy with their investment. They had been buying shares for years in order to support Record and Show Mirror, but they did not do so to influence editorial content. Nevertheless their involvement precluded much advertising from their main rival EMI.

In March 1961, Decca replaced Green with their own editor, Jimmy Watson, a former Decca group press officer. Watson changed the title to New Record Mirror and streamlined the paper and eliminated the show business element. Watson oversaw a rapid circulation rise, aided by an editorial team of Peter Jones, Ian Dove and Norman Jopling. He also brought in freelance columnists James Asman, Benny Green and DJ David Gell, to implement an innovative chart coverage including jazz, Country and pop music. This eventually included the official UK Top 50 singles, Top 30 LPs and Top 10 EPs, as compiled by Record Retailer. The paper also listed the USA Top 50 singles, as compiled by Cash Box. The inclusion of charts such as the Top 20 five years ago, for singles and R&B releases, gave a far broader coverage than any other Pop weekly.

Over the next few years regular features such as Ian Dove’s "Rhythm & Blues Round Up", Peter Jones's "New Faces" and Norman Jopling’s "Fallen Idols and Great Unknowns", combined with New Record Mirror’s specialist music coverage, helped the circulation rise rapidly to nearly seventy thousand copies a week. An example of this was The Great Unknowns series which included music by Smokey Robinson and Carla Thomas and others recording on the Motown, Stax and Atlantic record labels. This was at a time when the charts in the USA were largely inaccessible to British radio listeners and Tony Hall's America's Hot 10 on Luxembourg and AFN was the only other similar chart. At this time New Record Mirror was the only music paper which specialised in adult pop music, whereas Melody Maker largely concentrated on jazz and NME aimed more at a much younger age group.

New Record Mirror became the first national publication to publish an article on The Beatles, and the first to feature many other groups from the Sixties’ UK beat boom era, including The Rolling Stones, The Searchers, The Who, and The Kinks. Bill Harry, founder and editor of the Liverpool publication Mersey Beat, was employed to write a column on the Liverpool music scene. Other local columnists reported on the burgeoning interest in beat music in other major cities such as Birmingham, Manchester, Sheffield and Newcastle. New Record Mirror took an interest in black American R&B artists, becoming a valuable reference source for UK R&B fans. The paper also maintained a regular flow of articles on old style rock and roll.

During 1963 Decca Records’ chairman Edward Lewis sold a substantial share of Decca's interest in Record Mirror to John Junor, editor of the Sunday Express. Junor had been intrigued by a new printing method being developed by Woodrow Wyatt. This was a four-colour printing process being used at Wyatt's print works in Banbury. Junor subsequently began looking for an association to run a trial for this printing process, prior to printing the Sunday Express in colour. He chose New Record Mirror to run trials on the new colour printing methods.

Junor temporarily moved in his own Sunday Express production team to Shaftesbury Avenue and the New Record Mirror became more mainstream. In November 1963, the paper returned to the name Record Mirror, and featured a colour picture of the Beatles on the front cover, becoming the first music paper to be printed in full colour. Although the entire first print run of 120,000 sold, the following issue saw the circulation fall to about sixty thousand. Junor swiftly sacked editor Jimmy Watson and replaced him by promoting Peter Jones.

Jones worked to maintain the paper’s popular newer image and kept Jones's specialist articles, to satisfy more committed readers. The circulation recovered and he hired former NME journalist Richard Green. The paper successfully continued with the same editorial format throughout the Sixties. Following the acquisition in 1962 of NME by the publishers Odhams, Record Mirror was the only independent popular music newspaper; its offices became a haven for those in the pop business.

During 1969 Record Mirror was acquired by Record Retailer and was incorporated into the larger Record Retailer offices in Carnaby Street. The acquisition of Record Mirror by Record Retailer, owned by Billboard at that time, also saw Record Mirror change printers, drop full colour pin-ups and increase its size to a larger tabloid format. Peter Jones continued as editor, supported by Valerie Mabbs, Rob Partridge, Bill McAllister, the first music journalist to herald the burgeoning talents of soon-to-be superstars Elton John and Rod Stewart, and broadcast specialist Rodney Collins, who had moved over from the sister publication Record Retailer. Collins's links with pirate radio gave Record Mirror a healthy continental circulation and a Dutch supplement was frequently included. Terry Chappell resumed as production editor and Bob Houston supervised the change in layout format. Group editorial manager Mike Hennessey also contributed many outstanding articles including the first interview with Beatle John Lennon, in the "Who wrote what" column. The Record Mirror photographic studio became independent, remaining under the control of Dezo Hoffmann, who continued to supply photographs to the paper.

By 1977 Record Retailer had become Music Week and Record Mirror was included in a sale by Billboard Magazine to the Morgan Grampian Group. Both offices moved to Covent Garden. The Grampion Group then moved to Greater London House, North London in 1981. In an effort to boost sales during 1982, the paper changed to a Smash Hits-styled glossy magazine. During the next nine years the paper became an imitation of Smash Hits, working to gain credibility as the magazine of record for the emerging rave and acid music scenes.

Commercial pressures eventually brought the paper to a final closure in April 1991, when the final cover featured the alternative rock band Transvision Vamp. Record Mirror was continued as a four-page supplement in Music Week, driven by the chart section. In later years the supplement concentrated solely on dance music. These dance charts were later incorporated into Music Week.

Associated features

Chart coverage

• Vintage Chart
• USA Billboard Singles
• USA Billboard Albums
• USA Billboard Black Singles
• Music Video
• UK Top 100 Singles
• UK Top 100 Albums
• UKTop 75 Albums and Compilations
• Twelve Inch Top 20
• Compact Disc Top 20
• This Week's Chart and Chart File - chart facts by Alan Jones
• Reggae (dropped in 1987)
• Great Pop Things. A comic strip by Colin B. Morton and Chuck Death
• J Edward Oliver's cartoon page

DJ Directory

Also known as BPM in earlier editions and edited by James Hamilton

• Beats and Pieces - dance gossip
• Hot Vinyl - Track listings of new records
• Remixes
• Pop Dance Chart
• Hi-NRG Chart
• The Club Chart (previously known as the Disco chart)

Information Articles

• News - including release info and tours.
• Index - New bands and competitions
• Dance pages - with Cool Cuts Top 20 chart
• Reviews and new acts plus chart rundown for indie singles and album
• 33 - Album reviews
• 45 - Singles reviews
• Alan Jones' Chartfile

Trivia associated with Record Mirror

• Johnny Dee wrote star spotting gossip pages, which also featured a number of comedy articles
• Lip - gossip with Nancy Culp or Lisa Tilson
• Phil's World Of Wigs - Each week a picture of Phil Collins appeared with new novelty haircuts. the art work was created by art director Ian Middleton, in response to reader's suggestions.
• The Stone Roses New Line Up - Each week a new photo of a gurning celeb would be added to The Stone Roses 1989 line up, for example Harry Enfield as Loadsamoney
• Spot The Imposter - photoquiz with a misplaced face in the crowd
• B's Cheeseboard - Soul II Soul star Jazzie B reviewed various types of cheese
• Sonia's Best Buys - value for money purchases apparently made by late 80's singer Sonia
• Star Scene - pop stars answering questions about items in the news
• Pete's Poems - a weekly poem by record producer Pete Waterman, as edited by Neil Wilson
• Tanita and Guy's Psychic Joke Hut - jokes told by The House Of Love singer Guy Chadwick and Tanita Tikaram
• The Natural Blonde column by Paula Yates
• In 1984, when British tabloid newspapers started running bingo competitions, Record Mirror became the first music paper to experiment with something similar.
• In later years the magazine became well known for its idiosyncratic sense of visual humour. The iconic pipe smoking character "Mr Acid Head" was later picked up by a rave based record label and used as sleeve art.

Employees in 1960s

Journalists

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

Photographic department

• Dezo Hoffmann
• Bill Williams
• Eileen Mallory
• Alan Messer
• Feri Lukas
• David Magnus
• Keith Hammett

Production Editor

• Colin Brown

Employees in 1970s

Journalists

• Barry Cain
• Ronnie Gurr
• Mike Gardner
• Tim Lott
• Alf Martin
• Mike Nicholls
• John Shearlaw
• Daniela Soave
• Chris Westwood
• Rosalind Russell
• Sheila Prophet

Photographic department

• Andy Phillips
• Paul Slattery

See also

• UK Singles Chart
• Hit Music
• Music Week