An Ideal for Living by Corey duBrowa (Hozac Books) is the first book devoted to a music packaging format that has gone virtually unknown to some in the U.S. Yet from early jazz and rock through the punk, new wave, post-punk, alternative/indie rock eras, and ultimately up to the present, the extended play, or EP (usually four or sometimes six tracks), has been a staple of the record industry. duBrowa—a veteran freelance contributing editor and music writer for Rolling Stone, GQ, MAGNET, Paste, No Depression, Village Voice, Seattle Weekly, The Stranger, The Oregonian, Willamette Week and The Rocket—says, “While my two decades as a rock critic were the inspiration behind the exploration of the EP, I realized I was always delighted to be asked to review an EP over the years but had never seen a book, magazine article or even essay that was focused only on this particular (and underrated) musical format.” Between DJing for KXSF-FM in San Francisco and hosting the Bring Yr Own Beats program and serving as Google’s VP of communications and public affairs, he used the 2020 pandemic “creative time” to author this welcome volume of music package design history. Here he talks about the origin, legacy and continued recording of EPs.
“EP” means “extended play.” Did the EP come into being prior to 12-inch LPs, after LPs, or to compete with 45s? I recall hearing that they were a U.K. phenomenon and rare in U.S. record stores, at least the ones I frequented that carried the latest 7-inch 45s. Is that my misconception?
The EP came out of a good old-fashioned form factor war between Columbia Records, which issued the first LPs—Long Playing records—in 1948, and RCA Victor, which had issued the first 7-inch 45 RPM singles in 1949. RCA saw an opportunity to compete with the LP by issuing an EP—more than a single, less than an album, typically four songs split two a side—in the early 1950s. My research traces the first of these to a 1952 RCA Victor holiday catalog called Music to Play on Christmas Day—the first true EPs likely came from this, and my book includes the Three Suns’ 1952 double EP (eight songs) Christmas Party to represent the milestone.
In the U.K.—perhaps as formal an explanation as my book is likely to produce—the Official Chart Company defines the boundary between EP and LP at 25 minutes of maximum length and no more than four tracks. (A pretty rigid definition; as time went on, artists were less likely to pay strict attention to these “rules” as such.) The playing time of most EPs has generally been between 10–30 minutes of recorded sound. As form factors changed over the years, 10- and 12-inch vinyl discs, cassettes, compact discs and digital downloads and streams would all assume EP-length dimensions, which came to be defined less as a strict number of tracks or playing time vs. four or more tracks of equal importance, as opposed to a four-track single with an obvious “A-side” and numerous other “B’s” worth of filler.
What was the graphic style of the EP sleeve? Did it usually follow the original album design?
Many early EPs were cardboard picture sleeves or gatefolds, just like album covers would have been. If you look at Frank Sinatra’s 1955 EPs In the Wee Small Hours (parts 1 and 2), you’ll see a cardboard gatefold that mimics the look and feel of the album. But many early EPs are almost indistinguishable from 45 RPM singles, except for having more songs per side. Later, there were 10-inch EPs and “mini albums” that looked much more like albums than singles.
How else was the EP different in any way from a bonafide album?
The first EPs were typically seven-inch records with more tracks than a typical single. Although these releases shared a size and speed with 45 RPM singles, they were a recognizably different format than the seven-inch single—and were often given a different title than just the “lead track” or hit that might be included. The Beatles’ The Beatles’ Hits EP from 1963 (which included “Please Please Me” and “Love Me Do”) and the Kinks’ Kinksize Hits from 1965 (“You Really Got Me,” “All Day and All of the Night”) are examples of this, collecting previously released tracks and radio/chart hits in a single, economical package. Other EPs in the book are the only place where certain songs from an artist can be found—Pavement’s 1992 EP Watery, Domestic contains four unique tracks that were never issued in any other format, and this is true of a number of other examples.
How did you amass your collection?
Time and the miracle of Discogs (ha). I was able to research and find items on my wish list that I had never seen in any record store anywhere in the world, thanks to Discogs. That website is a vital public service!
Which artists were most popular on EP?
It depends upon the era, but the only EPs ever to be certified as million-sellers by the RIAA are both by Elvis Presley: Elvis – Volume 1 from 1956 and Jailhouse Rock from 1957. It’s very likely that 1964’s The Beatles EP sold over a million copies but was never certified by RIAA. In the U.K., the EP played a hugely influential role during the 1960s in particular, with artists such as the Shadows (eight No. 1 EPs for a total span of 69 weeks at the top of the charts during the decade) and Donovan (who never had a No. 1 single or album in his native country, but whose 1965 Universal Soldier release spent eight weeks at the top of the EP chart) dominating the sales landscape. The EP’s main advantages when it first emerged were perceived to be a lower price than the LP and its ability to cull the best songs from that LP or previous singles, attributes that failed to yield a unique identity when compared to better-selling formats such as the LP or 45 RPM single.
Why did you become interested in this form?
I tell a story at the very beginning of the book about my aunt taking me record shopping for my birthday and buying a copy of Oingo Boingo’s 1980 self-titled EP as part of my haul; it struck me as such an unusual object (a ten-inch object in a world of 12-inch albums) that I think it captured my attention in a way that always stuck with me. So later, when I went to do research about the EP, I was shocked by how little information was available, or through a trusted source. It just seemed like an obvious subject to tackle given my early attraction as a young person and the lack of information much later.
I wish EPs were more frequent in the U.S. Why do you think they were not?
Funny enough, I talked to the head of catalog at Pandora (digital music platform) as part of my research and he confirmed that EPs are—to this day—as much as nearly 20% of their online catalog. They are much cheaper to produce and market than an LP, not to mention, simpler to record and master. So even though they aren’t as prevalent as the LP, the EP has managed to stubbornly hang on as a permanent part of the music landscape through the vinyl, tape, CD, download and streaming era.