Album
Album covers and liner notes are used, and sometimes additional information is provided, such as analysis of the recording, and lyrics or librettos.
[6] Later, collections of related 78s were bundled in book-like albums[7] (one side of a 78 rpm record could hold only about 3.5 minutes of sound).
It was from this that in medieval and modern times, album came to denote a book of blank pages in which verses, autographs, sketches, photographs and the like are collected.
[9] This in turn led to the modern meaning of an album as a collection of audio recordings issued as a single item.
By the mid-1920s, photo album publishers sold collections of empty sleeves of heavier paper in bound volumes with stiff covers slightly larger than the 10" popular records.
For example, in 1924, George Gershwin recorded a drastically shortened version of his new seventeen-minute composition Rhapsody in Blue with Paul Whiteman and His Orchestra.
[citation needed] When Columbia introduced the Long Playing record format in 1948, it was natural the term album would continue.
[7] Apart from relatively minor refinements and the important later addition of stereophonic sound capability, it has remained the standard format for vinyl albums.
[8] As part of a trend of shifting sales in the music industry, some observers feel that the early 21st century experienced the death of the album.
[19] Albums such as Tubular Bells, Amarok, and Hergest Ridge by Mike Oldfield, and Yes's Close to the Edge, include fewer than four tracks, but still surpass the 25-minute mark.
There are no formal rules against artists such as Pinhead Gunpowder referring to their own releases under thirty minutes as "albums".
On digital music stores such as iTunes the term song is often used interchangeably with track regardless of whether there is any vocal content.
The song is not necessarily free nor is it available as a stand-alone download, adding also to the incentive to buy the complete album.
[20] Commercial sheet music is published in conjunction with the release of a new album (studio, compilation, soundtrack, etc.).
It typically has the album's artwork on its cover and, in addition to sheet music, it includes photos of the artist.
[21] Most pop and rock releases come in standard Piano/Vocal/Guitar notation format (and occasionally Easy Piano / E-Z Play Today).
[28] Compact Cassettes became especially popular during the 1980s after the advent of the Sony Walkman, which allowed the person to control what they listened to.
[28][29] The Walkman was convenient because of its size, the device could fit in most pockets and often came equipped with a clip for belts or pants.
[28] The compact cassette used double-sided magnetic tape to distribute music for commercial sale.
[31] Compact cassettes also saw the creation of mixtapes, which are tapes containing a compilation of songs created by any average listener of music.
[32] After the introduction of Compact discs, the term "Mixtape" began to apply to any personal compilation of songs on any given format.
The 2010s saw a revival of Compact Cassettes by independent record labels and DIY musicians who preferred the format because of its difficulty to share over the internet.
[33] The compact disc format replaced both the vinyl record and the cassette as the standard for the commercial mass-market distribution of physical music albums.
The so-called "MP3 album" is not necessarily just in MP3 file format, in which higher quality formats such as FLAC and WAV can be used on storage media that MP3 albums reside on, such as CD-R-ROMs, hard drives, flash memory (e.g. thumbdrives, MP3 players, SD cards), etc.
They minimize external noises and reverberations and have highly sensitive microphones and sound mixing equipment.
[citation needed] Recordings that are done in one take without overdubbing or multi-tracking are termed "live",[47] even when done in a studio.
Appraising the concept in Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies (1981), Robert Christgau said most "are profit-taking recaps marred by sound and format inappropriate to phonographic reproduction (you can't put sights, smells, or fellowship on audio tape).
But for Joe Cocker and Bette Midler and Bob-Dylan-in-the-arena, the form makes a compelling kind of sense.
A 1947 Billboard magazine article heralded "Margaret Whiting huddling with Capitol execs over her first solo album on which she will be backed by Frank De Vol".
A solo performer working with other members will typically have full creative control of the band, be able to hire and fire accompanists, and get the majority of the proceeds.
