I understand they have different definitions, but tbh these are basically just different words to describe an album, and it just comes down to marketing ploys. Am I correct?
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Album (or LP) is the standard thing that an artist puts out. Lots of songs including some separately released as singles.
EP – is shorter. Usually 4 to 5 songs by the artist
Mixtape is a compilation that people self-produce of different artists.
These used to be technical definitions based on the type of recorded media being sold.
An “album” was originally a little book of 78 rpm records — like a photo album but of vinyl records. When 78’s fell out of favor, this switched to a single 33 rpm record which held 45-50 minutes of music. No longer a booklet but still called an album.
In the 1950s a single was one 45 rpm record with one song on each side (the A-side and the B-side).
At some point a vinyl record came out which was in between those two. I’m not sure if it was a bigger sized 45 rpm disc or a smaller sized 33 rpm disc. This held 2-3 songs on each side and became known as an EP.
Cut forward to CDs and digital downloads. The size limitations of the piece of vinyl and the speed it’s played at doesn’t matter anymore but after a few decades people got used to the old types of releases. So an album is usually 40+ minutes of songs. An EP is usually about half that and a single is usually 1 song and perhaps now multiple “B-sides”.
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