Record Mirror was a British music newspaper that was published between 17th June 1954 and 6th April 1991. Launched two years after the NME, Record Mirror was founded by former Weekly Sporting Review editor Isidore Green, who encouraged the same combative form of journalism as the NME.
The paper became respected by both mainstream pop music fans and series record collectors but it never attained the kinds of circulation figures of its higher-profile rival NME. However, during the 1960's and early 1970's it did achieve a respectable circulation based upon its reputation.
On 22nd January 1955 Record Mirror became the second music paper (after the NME) to publish a singles chart. the chart was made up of a Top 10 and was compiled from postal returns from 24 record stores which were funded by the paper itself. Later on the 8th October the chart was expanded to a Top 20 and by 1956 the returns from more than 60 stores were being sampled.
The chart hit some trouble in April 1961 when increased Postage costs affected the funding of the postal returns by Record Mirror. This resulted in the paper abandoning its own chart on the 24th March 1962 and began using those for Record Retailer, which had begun in March 1960 while the first ever Album chart was published in the Record Mirror on 28th July 1956.
Green was replaced as editor of the magazine in 1961 with the new editor renaming the magazine New Record Mirror. An increased emphasise of the charts was brought in with innovative chart coverage including Jazz, Country and pop music was introduced. this eventually led to the inclusion of the UK Top 50 singles Chart, Top 30 Album Chart and Top 10 EP Chart as complied by Record Retailer. The paper also included the USA Top 50 singles as compiled by Cash Box. This helped the paper to rapidly increase its circulation and gave the paper a broader coverage of the charts than any other pop weekly.
By November 1963 the paper returned to its name of Record Mirror and became the first paper to start printing in colour. 1969 saw the increase in size to a larger tabloid format while in 1982 the paper reverted to a more glossy magazine format to compete with the ever popular Smash Hits and to increase sales.
During the 1980's Record Mirror was the only consumer music paper to carry the official UK singles and UK Albums chart used by the BBC for radio 1 and Top of the Pops, while also carrying the equivalent US Billboard charts.
Record Mirror closed on the same day, 2nd April 1991, as the sister paper Sounds with the last issue, dated 6th April 1991, featuring Transvision Vamp on the cover. The reason for the closure was that the owners, United Newspapers, closed or sold off most of their consumer magazine in order to concentrate on their newspaper business.
In 2010, Giovanni di Stafano, bought the rights to the name Record Mirror and re-launched it as an online music gossip website in 2011, bearing little relation to its previous incarnation.
