What’s the difference between an album, an EP, an LP, and a mixtape?
In: Technology
Ah, youth! All of this is pretty good, but you don’t mention that, in the days of 78 rpm records, you could buy an album of records by your favorite artist, or genre. This would be, i think, 4 to 6 records, in sleeves, bound like a book, or “album”. Think photo album for the linguistic reference. Each “page” of the album was a sleeve that held a record
So, when LPs came out at 33-1/3 rpm, 12″ disc, it became possible to put the contents of an “album” onto a single disc, and the name stuck. There was a brief period when it became possible to buy an album with 16-2/3 rpm speed – lotta music on a single disc.
Now, the development of plastics figured heavily into this – records used to be made of a hard wax compound that would definitely break if you mishandled or dropped it. You wouldn’t want to risk that happening to a record containing 10 or 12 songs. WIth plastics, records became more durable, making more sense of the multi-song discs.
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