In 2010, Giovanni di Stefano bought the name Record Mirror and relaunched it as an online music gossip website in 2011.
[1][2] Record Mirror was founded by former Weekly Sporting Review editor Isidore Green,[3] who encouraged the same combative journalism as NME.
[citation needed] On 22 January 1955, Record Mirror became the second music paper after NME to publish a singles chart.
Circulation rose, aided by an editorial team of Peter Jones, Ian Dove and Norman Jopling.
He brought in freelance columnists James Asman, Benny Green and DJ David Gell to implement a chart coverage including jazz, country and pop music.
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 music coverage, helped circulation rise to nearly 70,000.
New Record Mirror was the first national publication to publish an article on the Beatles,[8] and the first to feature the Rolling Stones, the Searchers, the Who, and the Kinks.
The acquisition saw the magazine change printers, drop full colour pin-ups and increase its size to a larger tabloid format.
Jones continued as editor, supported by Valerie Mabbs, Lon Goddard, Rob Partridge, Bill McAllister (the first music journalist to herald Elton John and Rod Stewart), and broadcast-specialist Rodney Collins, who had moved from Record Retailer.
Collins's links with pirate radio gave Record Mirror a continental circulation and a Dutch supplement was frequently included.
When Keith Moon presses him to tell what he read in the Record Mirror, Pete says, to the rest of the band's laughter, that the paper said that he was known by the other members of the Who as "Bone".
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).
Eleanor Levy, the final editor, believed the decision to close the magazine was "taken by accountants rather than people who understand music.
"[10] 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.
[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.
[24] 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.
[15][16] After a visit to the Paradise Garage in the 1970s to see Larry Levan play, he came back to the UK a convert to mixing records, unknown at the time.