Extended play
[10] EPs are considered "less expensive and time-consuming" for an artist to produce than an album, and have long been popular with punk and indie bands.
[1] EPs are often mistaken for maxi singles, which also may contain four or more tracks but in form of remixes to support one or two main songs as the A-side.
Their narrower grooves, achieved by lowering the cutting levels and sound compression optionally, enabled them to hold up to 7.5 minutes per side—but still be played by a standard 45 rpm phonograph.
[13] EPs were typically compilations of singles or album samplers and were played at 45 rpm on 7-inch (18-cm) discs, with two songs on each side.
In the UK, Cliff Richard and the Shadows, both individually and collectively, and the Beatles were the most prolific artists issuing EPs in the 1960s, many of them highly successful releases.
The success of the EP in Britain lasted until around 1967, but it later had a strong revival with punk rock in the late 1970s and the adaptation of the format for 12-inch and CD singles.
In the late 2000s to early 2010s, reissues of studio albums with expanded track listings were common, with the new music often being released as stand-alone EPs.
In October 2010, a Vanity Fair article regarding the trend noted post-album EPs as "the next step in extending albums' shelf lives, following the "deluxe" editions that populated stores during the past few holiday seasons—add a few tracks to the back end of an album and release one of them to radio, slap on a new coat of paint, and—voila!—a stocking stuffer is born.
When an artist drops an album, they run the risk of it being forgotten in a few weeks, at which point they need to start work on the follow-up, while still promoting and touring their recent effort.
Examples are Elvis Presley's Love Me Tender from 1956 and "Just for You", "Peace in the Valley" and "Jailhouse Rock" from 1957, and the Kinks' Kinksize Session from 1964.
[14] With the advent of the compact disc (CD), more music was often included on "single" releases, with four or five tracks being common, and playing times of up to 25 minutes.
[14] Ricardo Baca of The Denver Post said in 2010, "EPs—originally extended-play 'single' releases that are shorter than traditional albums—have long been popular with punk and indie bands.
[2] In the United States, the Recording Industry Association of America, the organization that declares releases "gold" or "platinum" based on numbers of sales, defines an EP as containing three to five songs or under 30 minutes.
[29] On the other hand, The Recording Academy's rules for Grammy Awards state that any release with five or more different songs and a running time of over 15 minutes is considered an album, with no mention of EP.
The Official Chart Company classifies any record with more than four tracks (not counting alternative versions of featured songs, if present) or with a playing time of more than 25 minutes as an album for sales-chart purposes.
[citation needed] In 1960, Joe Meek released four tracks from his planned I Hear a New World LP on an EP that was marked "Part 1".
[34][35] Released in December 1967 on EMI's Parlophone label, it contained six songs spread over two 7-inch discs and was packaged with a lavish color booklet.
[35] In the United States and some other countries, the songs were augmented by the band's single A- and B-sides from 1967 to create a full LP –a practice that was common in the US but considered exploitative in the UK.
In 1982 Cabaret Voltaire released their studio album "2x45" on the UK-based label Rough Trade, featuring extended tracks over four sides of two 12-inch 45 rpm discs, with graphics by artist Neville Brody.
