Double album

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A double album is an audio album of sufficient length that two units of the medium in which it is sold (especially records and compact discs) are necessary to contain the entirety of it.

1 History
2 Sesquialbums and triple albums
3 Critical reaction
4 See also
5 Notes and sources

[edit] History

The first ever double album was Benny Goodman's Live at Carnegie Hall, the famous jazz concert of 1938, released by Columbia Records in 1950. The first rock double album, and first studio double album, ever released is believed to have been Bob Dylan's Blonde on Blonde in 1966,^[1] also on Columbia, although at the same time Frank Zappa and his Mothers of Invention band were at work on the double album Freak Out!, released two months after Blonde on Blonde. The first rap double album was Tupac Shakur's All Eyez on Me.

The double album was a much more common format during the vinyl LP era than during the CD era. A single LP had two sides, each of which could be no longer than half an hour, however, not unlike the bitrate/filesize quality relationship with modern digital music storage, having less recorded on one side of a record allowed for the greater sound quality of what is being recorded (thus one sacrifices quality for space). Most LPs were between 30 and 45 minutes in length. A single CD can be as long as about 80 minutes. Hence, many old two LP albums have been re-released as a single CD. The double album format is now more often used for live albums for which material is often plentiful. The format is also frequently used for concept albums.

Since the late 1980s, albums which were originally packaged as double records are often sold on a single compact disc, such as the aforementioned Blonde on Blonde, The Who's Tommy, Elton John's Goodbye Yellow Brick Road,The Rolling Stones' Exile on Main St., and Prince's 1999 (though not in all cases, because it may not fit on one CD, such as the Beatles' White Album and Pink Floyd's The Wall). Also, albums of the compact disc era are often longer than those of previous decades, and are sometimes packaged on two records if vinyl copies are produced. In general, an album is usually referred to as a double album when its audio content requires two units of the prominent format of its time period.

Recording artists often think of double albums as a single piece artistically; however, there are exceptions such as Pink Floyd's Ummagumma, one live album and one studio record packaged together, and OutKast's Speakerboxxx/The Love Below, consisting of one practical solo album by each member of the hip-hop duo. Particularly in the compact disc era, artists sometimes will release albums with bonus discs, featuring studio out-takes, alternate mixes, or other material that would not typically be suitable album material but which would be of interest to fans (e.g., The Beatles' Let It Be... Naked, which featured a bonus disc of studio chatter and jamming entitled Fly on the Wall).

[edit] Sesquialbums and triple albums

There were only a few examples during the vinyl-LP era of a sesquialbum, i.e., a one-and-a-half album. Johnny Winter released a three-sided album on two 12-inch discs, with the flip side of the second disc being blank. The vinyl release of Pavement's Wowee Zowee also had only three sides of music. More recently, Boards of Canada's 2002 album, Geogaddi, is a two-and-a-half album (a triple album, but with one side of vinyl left uncut). The Monty Python album Matching Tie and Handkerchief was originally issued with two concentric grooves with different programs on side B. Elvis Costello and The Clash (amongst other 1980s acts) would sometimes release early pressings of their albums with extra material on a 45 rpm single. Leonard Cohen wanted to do the same with his album Recent Songs but Columbia rejected the idea. In 1993, Alice in Chains made a limited-edition vinyl release of Jar of Flies/Sap, which was a "sesqui-double-EP". The album contained 2 EPs of music, but only took up three sides of the double album; the fourth side was an etching of the band's name.

The triple album contains three units of the medium; the first one of note in the rock era was George Harrison's All Things Must Pass. A recent example of the kind is 2006's American Hunger by US rapper GM Grimm. Packages with more units than that are generally called boxed sets.

[edit] Critical reaction

The concept of a double album is one that often sparks critical debate. Some see them as a testament to a band's creativity, and many double albums, such as The Rolling Stones' Exile on Main St., Dylan's Blonde on Blonde, The Beatles' White Album or Led Zeppelin's Physical Graffiti, were met with great praise upon their release and are now widely considered to be classics. Others, such as Guns N' Roses' Use Your Illusion I and Use Your Illusion II, received somewhat mixed reviews upon their release, but with the passing of time their reputation has improved.

On the other hand, double albums are often seen as self indulgent and bloated, containing "filler" tracks or old studio out-takes which would not usually be considered of a high enough standard to appear on a single album. In many instances, double albums come at a time in a band's career when they have achieved much success and possibly believe that fans will buy anything they put out.