A magnetic recording medium having a high areal recording density of about 3 to about 20 Gb/in.sup.2, an Mrt of about 0.30 to about 0.60 memu/cm.sup.2, a coercivity greater than 2,500 Oersteds and a coercivity squareness of about 0.70 to about 0.95 is obtained by depositing one or more pairs of magnetic layers comprising a magnetically isotropic layer directly on a magnetically anisotropic layer. Chromium intermediate layers are employed to separate each pair of magnetically isotropic/anisotropic layers. In one embodiment, the magnetically anisotropic layer comprises a cobalt-base alloy containing chromium and tantalum and the magnetically isotropic layer comprises a cobalt-base layer containing chromium, platinum and tantalum.