Record Mirror

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Record Mirror was a British weekly music newspaper.

It competed with New Musical Express, Disc & Music Echo, Sounds, and Melody Maker, but had the smallest circulation of the UK consumer music weeklies and was considered to be the least important of the genre[citation needed]. The first ever UK album chart was published in Record Mirror in 1956, and in the 1980s it was the only music paper to carry the official UK singles and album charts.

In an effort to boost sales it changed to a Smash Hits-style glossy magazine format in 1982, but ceased publication in April 1991, with sister publication Sounds closing in the same week (of the above mentioned publications only NME survives today.) Its final cover stars were Transvision Vamp. In its final years it veered wildly from being a largely humourless imitation of Smash Hits to attempting to gain credibility as the magazine of record for the emerging rave and acid scene.

Record Mirror was continued as a four-page supplement in Music Week, driven by the chart section, although in later years the supplement concentrated solely on dance music. The RM dance charts were later incorporated into Music Week itself.

The Record Mirror is mentioned in the song "Last of the Skinheads" and "Bring Back the Skins" (Both versions of the same song) by Judge Dread as being as he regarded "the best thing about". The reggae page was also mentioned.

Contents

[edit] Features

Articles and features in a typical edition of Record Mirror were as follows:

  • News - including release info and tours.
  • Index - New bands and competitions
  • Great Pop Things - comic strip by Colin B. Morton and Chuck Death
  • Lip - gossip with Nancy Culp or Lisa Tilson
  • Dance pages - with Cool Cuts Top 20 chart
  • Independents - reviews and new acts plus chart rundown for indie singles and album
  • 33 - Album reviews
  • 45 - Singles reviews
  • J Edward Oliver's cartoon page
  • Alan Jones' Chartfile
  • The Natural Blonde column by Paula Yates
  • In 1984, when British tabloid newspapers started running bingo competitions, Record Mirror became the first (and possibly only) music paper to experiment with something similar. Free cards were attached to the front of the magazine, inside which would be printed a number of song titles from that week's Top 40. The winner would have to match the chart positions of those records with the numbers inside the card. The competition was short-lived and had no discernible effect on sales.
  • In later years the magazine became well known for its idiosyncratic sense of visual humour: for example, urban rap pioneers Public Enemy could be superimposed on a surfing or laidback Californian surf scene, photographs of sheds were used to randomly illustrate spurious articles about hi-nrg, and the iconic pipe-smoking trilby-hatted character "Mr Acid Head" was later picked up by rave-based record label and used repeatedly as sleeve art.

===Babble Johnny Dee's late 1980s star-spotting gossip pages also feature a number of comedy articles such as:

  • Phil's World Of Wigs - Each week a picture of Phil Collins with new novelty haircuts. Created weekly by maverick 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 various muppets, Harry Enfield as Loadsamoney and Benny Hill).
  • Spot The Imposter - photoquiz with a misplaced face in the crowd.
  • B's Cheeseboard - Soul 2 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. Invariably included a 'quote' from Samantha Fox to the effect that she was out of the country
  • Pete's Poems - a weekly poem by producer Peter Waterman, as edited by Neil Wilson
  • Tanita and Guy's Psychic Joke Hut - jokes told by House Of Love singer Guy Chadwick and Tanita Tikaram

[edit] 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 (also known as the Disco chart)

[edit] Charts

As well as the above listed charts:

  • Vintage Chart
  • USA Billboard Singles
  • USA Billboard Albums
  • USA Billboard Black Singles
  • Music Video
  • UK Top 100 Singles
  • UK Top 100 Albums (from 1989 Top 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)

[edit] See also