Industrial rock
Industrial rock is a musical genre that fuses industrial music and rock music. Experimental'60s group Cromagnon are said to have been one of the bands that helped foresee the birth of industrial rock, their song "Caledonia" has been noted for its "pre-industrial stomp". Krautrock musicians Michael Rother and Klaus Dinger included industrial noise in their track "Negativland". Neu! Inspired the opening track "Speed of Life" on David Bowie's Low recorded in Berlin. Bowie collaborated with Iggy Pop on his 1977 solo debut The Idiot; the closing track "Mass Production" features mechanical sounds sampled on tape loops which influenced Joy Division who were signed to the industrially themed label Factory Records, founded in 1978. Chrome has been credited as the "beginning of industrial rock" and their 1978 Half Machine Lip Moves was listed on Wire's 100 Records that set the world on fire. Industrial rock was created in the mid- to late 1970s, amidst the punk rock revolution and disco fever. Prominent early industrial musicians include Throbbing Gristle, Cabaret Voltaire, NON, SPK and Z'EV.
Many other artists have been cited as influences such as Kraftwerk and Gary Numan and Tubeway Army as well as Einstürzende Neubauten and Fad Gadget. Many other musical performers were incorporating industrial music elements into a variety of musical styles; some post-punk performers developed styles parallel to industrial music's defining attributes. Pere Ubu's debut, The Modern Dance, was described as "industrial". Killing Joke, considered by Simon Reynolds as "a post-punk version of heavy metal". According to Chris Connelly, Foetus "is the instigator when it comes to the marriage of machinery to hardcore punk."Others followed in their wake. The New York City band Swans were inspired by the local No Wave scene, as well as punk rock, noise music and the original industrial groups. Steve Albini's Big Black followed a similar path, while incorporating American hardcore punk. Big Black has been associated with post-hardcore and noise rock, though their ties to industrial music are apparent; the Swiss trio The Young Gods, who deliberately eschewed electric guitars in favor of a sampler took inspiration from both hardcore and industrial, being indebted to the Bad Brains and Foetus.
In the 1990s, industrial rock broke into the mainstream with artists and bands such as Nine Inch Nails, Rob Zombie, White Zombie, Marilyn Manson. In December 1992, Nine Inch Nails' EP Broken was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America. Nine Inch Nails gained further popularity with the release of their 1994 album The Downward Spiral; the Downward Spiral was certified 4x platinum by the RIAA in 1998. Nine Inch Nails' 1999 album The Fragile was certified 2x platinum in January 2000. With the success of Nine Inch Nails, the band's debut album Pretty Hate Machine was certified 3x platinum by the RIAA. In the 1990s, four Nine Inch Nails songs went on the Billboard Hot 100. Several industrial rock and industrial metal artists such as KMFDM, Fear Factory, Gravity Kills and Sister Machine Gun appeared on the 1995 Mortal Kombat: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack; the soundtrack was certified platinum by the RIAA in January 1996. Marilyn Manson released their album Antichrist Superstar in 1996.
The album was certified platinum by the RIAA two months after its release date. In the United States, Antichrist Superstar sold at least 1,900,000 units. Marilyn Manson's EP Smells Like Children was certified platinum in May 1998. Marilyn Manson's album Mechanical Animals went to number 1, selling 223,000 copies in its first week in stores, knocking The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill by Lauryn Hill off of the top spot. Mechanical Animals was certified platinum by the RIAA in February 1999 and sold at least 1,409,000 copies in the United States. Orgy experienced mainstream success during the 1990s; the band's 1998 album Candyass was certified platinum by the RIAA in July 1999. Orgy's cover of New Order's song "Blue Monday" went to number 56 on the Billboard Hot 100 and number 2 on the Dance Club Songs chart. White Zombie experimented with industrial metal on its 1995 album Astro-Creep 2000, certified 2x platinum by the RIAA in March 1996. White Zombie's vocalist Rob Zombie began creating pure industrial metal albums in his solo career.
Rob Zombie's solo debut studio album Hellbilly Deluxe was certified 3x platinum by the RIAA less than two years after its release date. In November 1999, Powerman 5000's album Tonight the Stars Revolt! was certified platinum by the RIAA. The album sold at least 1,316,172 units in the United States. Wax Trax! Records Nothing Records Industrial rock musical groups Industrial rock sales and awards List of industrial music bands Blush, Steven. American Hardcore: A Tribal History. Los Angeles, CA: Feral House. Chantler, Chris. "Splitting heirs". Terrorizer, 96: 54-5. Connelly, Chris. Concrete, Invisible + Fried: My Life as a Revolting Cock. London: SAF Publishing. Irvin, Jim; the Mojo Collection: The greatest albums of all time. Edinburgh: Canongate. Licht, Alan. "Tunnel vision". The Wire, 233: 30-37. Mörat. "Ye gods!" Kerrang!, 411: 12. Reynolds, Simon. Rip it up and start again: Postpunk 1978-1984. London: Faber and Faber Limited. Sharp, Chris. "Atari Teenage Riot: 60 second wipe out". The Wire, 183: 48-49. Stud, B.
& Stud, T.. "Heaven up here". Melody Maker: 26-27. Vale, Vivian. RE/Search #6-#7: Industrial culture handbook. San Francisco, CA: RE/SEARCH PUBLICATIONS. Reed, S. Ale
The Crow: Salvation (soundtrack)
The soundtrack to the third in the Crow film series, The Crow: Salvation album is once again compiled and produced by Jeff Most. As with the soundtrack to The Crow: City of Angels, Salvation includes an otherwise unavailable cover version by Hole: this time of Bob Dylan's "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue". Several other contemporary big-name artists are included, indicating that at this late stage in the series, The Crow brand name still held a certain cache within the grunge / industrial / gothic rock scene; this would not extend to the fourth film, The Crow: Wicked Prayer however, for which no soundtrack album was released. In the UK, the release of The Crow: Salvation's soundtrack pre-dated the release of the film itself by four years; the film was released straight to DVD in 2004. The Juliette Lewis track is not an example of the Licks project; the song is performed by The Infidels, but features a sample of Lewis singing "Born Bad", taken from the film Natural Born Killers. "The Best Things" - Filter "Living Dead Girl" - Rob Zombie "Bad Brother" - The Infidels "Warm Winter" - Kid Rock "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" - Hole "What You Want" - The Flys "Big God" - Monster Magnet "Painful" - Sin "Antihistamine" - Tricky "Independent Slaves" - Days of the New "Everything Sucks" - Pitchshifter "Waking Up Beside You" - Stabbing Westward "Now Is The Time" - The Crystal Method "Burning Inside - Static-X "Rusted Wings" - New American Shame "Underbelly of the Beast" - Danzig
Single (music)
In the music industry, a single is a type of release a song recording of fewer tracks than an LP record or an album. This can be released for sale to the public in a variety of different formats. In most cases, a single is a song, released separately from an album, although it also appears on an album; these are the songs from albums that are released separately for promotional uses such as digital download or commercial radio airplay and are expected to be the most popular. In other cases a recording released. Despite being referred to as a single, singles can include up to as many as three tracks; the biggest digital music distributor, iTunes Store, accepts as many as three tracks less than ten minutes each as a single, as does popular music player Spotify. Any more than three tracks on a musical release or thirty minutes in total running time is either an extended play or, if over six tracks long, an album; when mainstream music was purchased via vinyl records, singles would be released double-sided.
That is to say, they were released with an A-side and B-side, on which two singles would be released, one on each side. Moreover, only the most popular songs from a released album would be released as a single. In more contemporary forms of music consumption, artists release most, if not all, of the tracks on an album as singles; the basic specifications of the music single were set in the late 19th century, when the gramophone record began to supersede phonograph cylinders in commercially produced musical recordings. Gramophone discs were manufactured in several sizes. By about 1910, the 10-inch, 78 rpm shellac disc had become the most used format; the inherent technical limitations of the gramophone disc defined the standard format for commercial recordings in the early 20th century. The crude disc-cutting techniques of the time and the thickness of the needles used on record players limited the number of grooves per inch that could be inscribed on the disc surface, a high rotation speed was necessary to achieve acceptable recording and playback fidelity.
78 rpm was chosen as the standard because of the introduction of the electrically powered, synchronous turntable motor in 1925, which ran at 3600 rpm with a 46:1 gear ratio, resulting in a rotation speed of 78.26 rpm. With these factors applied to the 10-inch format and performers tailored their output to fit the new medium; the 3-minute single remained the standard into the 1960s, when the availability of microgroove recording and improved mastering techniques enabled recording artists to increase the duration of their recorded songs. The breakthrough came with Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone". Although CBS tried to make the record more "radio friendly" by cutting the performance into halves, separating them between the two sides of the vinyl disc, both Dylan and his fans demanded that the full six-minute take be placed on one side, that radio stations play the song in its entirety; as digital downloading and audio streaming have become more prevalent, it has become possible for every track on an album to be available separately.
The concept of a single for an album has been retained as an identification of a more promoted or more popular song within an album collection. The demand for music downloads skyrocketed after the launch of Apple's iTunes Store in January 2001 and the creation of portable music and digital audio players such as the iPod. In September 1997, with the release of Duran Duran's "Electric Barbarella" for paid downloads, Capitol Records became the first major label to sell a digital single from a well-known artist. Geffen Records released Aerosmith's "Head First" digitally for free. In 2004, Recording Industry Association of America introduced digital single certification due to significant sales of digital formats, with Gwen Stefani's "Hollaback Girl" becoming RIAA's first platinum digital single. In 2013, RIAA incorporated on-demand streams into the digital single certification. Single sales in the United Kingdom reached an all-time low in January 2005, as the popularity of the compact disc was overtaken by the then-unofficial medium of the music download.
Recognizing this, On 17 April 2005, Official UK Singles Chart added the download format to the existing format of physical CD singles. Gnarls Barkley was the first act to reach No.1 on this chart through downloads alone in April 2006, for their debut single "Crazy", released physically the following week. On 1 January 2007 digital downloads became eligible from the point of release, without the need for an accompanying physical. Sales improved in the following years, reaching a record high in 2008 that still proceeded to be overtaken in 2009, 2010 and 2011. Singles have been issued in various formats, including 7-inch, 10-inch, 12-inch vinyl discs. Other, less common, formats include singles on Digital Compact Cassette, DVD, LD, as well as many non-standard sizes of vinyl disc; the most common form of the vinyl single is the 45 or 7-inch. The names are derived from its play speed, 45 rpm, the standard diameter, 7 inches; the 7-inch 45 rpm record was released 31 March 1949 by RCA Victor as a smaller, more durable and higher-fidelity replacement for the 78 rpm shellac discs.
The first 45
Stabbing Westward (album)
Stabbing Westward is the self-titled fourth and final studio album by the American industrial rock band Stabbing Westward. It is their only album to be produced by Ed Buller and released on Koch Records; the album was released on May 22, 2001, the band broke up on February 9, 2002. The album shows a change in direction for the band; the album's songs are much less heavy and aggressive, while the industrial focus has given way to a more melodic sound. Before the album was released, Christopher Hall said in an interview that Stabbing Westward wrote great pop-rock songs, but the band had always ended up making them ugly by adding effects and screaming, etc. On this album, he claimed, they decided to write what they wanted, regardless of fan expectation."The Only Thing" is a love song for Chistopher Hall's wife. All tracks written by Stabbing Westward. There is a US release, a "Best Buy Exclusive." This package contains a bonus disk featuring unreleased acoustic versions of "So Far Away" and "Wasted."
On the second disk there is a misprint: it says "Perfect" instead of "Wasted." This two-disc set was only available at Best Buy stores in 2001 and only during the first week of its release. Stabbing WestwardChristopher Hall – vocals Derrek Hawkins – guitar, acoustic guitar Jim Sellers – bass, baritone guitar Walter Flakus – keyboards, programming Andy Kubiszewski – drums, marimba, acoustic guitarAdditionalEd Buller – production, engineer Kent Matcke – editing, engineer Enrique Gonzales – editing, assistant engineer Howie Weinberg – mastering Tom Lord-Alge – mixing Matthew Welch – photography Paul McMenamin – art direction, artwork Scott Rivera – artwork
Ultima IX: Ascension
Ultima IX: Ascension is the ninth and final part of the main series of the role-playing video game series Ultima. Developed by Origin Systems and published by Electronic Arts, Ultima IX was released in 1999 for Microsoft Windows after years in development hell, it was a commercial failure. Following the Avatar's escape from Pagan, he is transported back to Britannia for one final battle with the Guardian, ruining the physical and moral fabric of that land by use of eight columns; the Avatar must fight his way to the runes of virtue found in each of the columns, cleanse them in the shrines of Virtue face off against the Guardian himself. A difference from previous Ultima games is that in Ultima IX the player has less control of what path to take in the game. Most areas of Britannia are blocked off until specific tasks are completed, reducing the amount of initial exploration available to the player; the game world is rendered in a detailed and seamless manner, but Britannia is much smaller in overall area than previous games.
For example, the largest city of Britannia, consists of only a few buildings. Combat changed from previous Ultima games, controlling more like an action game than the turn-based strategic combat of the earlier games. In the beginning of Ultima IX, the Avatar had somehow returned to Earth for an unspecified amount of time before getting back to Britannia; the game starts just after the end of Ultima VIII, in which the Avatar is transported to a Guardian-controlled Britannia. He arrives in Britannia on a mountain overlooking the Guardian's keep in Terfin; the Avatar is transported to Stonegate by Hawkwind the Seer, who informs him that great columns have appeared throughout the land, their malignant influence has caused plagues and other natural disasters. Under their power, the people of Britannia have twisted the Virtues into mockeries of their true meaning; the Guardian is helped by Lord Blackthorn, who leads the Wyrmguards and forces the people to obey the Guardian. As the quest progresses, the Avatar learns that the Guardian has stolen the Runes of the Virtues and twisted them into the glyphs that form the heart of each of the columns.
Most of the game consists of traveling through the dungeons to recover the glyphs and visiting the Shrines of the Virtues to meditate and cleanse them. It is revealed that the Guardian is nothing other than the dark half of the Avatar himself, the only way to save Britannia is for the Avatar to ascend to a higher plane, taking the Guardian with him; the player is able to accomplish this via an Armageddon spell cast behind a Barrier of Life, which takes the Avatar and the Guardian to a higher plane out of Britannia. Origin Systems released a number of preview video clips in the five years between the original release of Ultima VIII and the final release of Ultima IX in December 1999, first in the Ultima Collection and intermittently in between; these screenshots and clips pointed to a different plot from the released version, which many longtime fans of the Ultima saga agreed was unsatisfying and unrewarding. On December 9, 1999, a synopsis of the original script was posted to the "Ultima Horizons" discussion board.
The synopsis was released with his permission. White worked directly with Garriott, John Watson, Brian Martin in developing the game's original story before leaving Origin; the beginning of the game is more or less the same as the beginning of the actual Ultima IX release, except that the Avatar never returns to Earth after his sojourn in Pagan in Ultima VIII. Just as in the official plot, there are columns created by the Guardian with malignant influence. Further, Lord British has become enfeebled and left government of the kingdom in the hands of a tribunal consisting of the lords of the cities of Moonglow and Jhelom, but they have proved unable to deal with the crises and have fractured into mutually distrustful city-states that are, at the time the Avatar arrives, at the brink of war; the Guardian is behind all of this, orchestrating these events with the aid of Lord Blackthorn, but few within the kingdom suspect this. Among those suspicious is Samhayne, a benevolent smuggler of contraband and food supplies to the various cities.
He enlists the aid of the Avatar to find proof of these shadowy manipulations that are causing Britannia to disintegrate. With the help of his longtime friends Shamino and Iolo and Samhayne's protégé Raven, they uncover that Lord Blackthorn is secretly advising members of the council and goading them to war. Blackthorn is unmasked, he is caught on at Terfin, executed at Lord British's command, but the Guardian escapes. The Avatar and Lord British travel to Stonegate for the final confrontation with the Guardian, but after it appears that they had killed him, they are told that it is not enough; the columns that the Guardian created have embedded themselves too within the fabric of Britannia itself, soon they will destroy the world, funnelling the power of its destruction back into the Guardian, resurrecting him and making him stronger. The only way to destroy the Guardian is to extinguish the life force of Britannia itself, but the people may be saved by evacuating them to the island of Skara Brae and using the power of the Runes of Virtue to protect them.
The Spell of Armageddon is cast, Britannia is destroyed, along with the Guardian and Lord British, but the Avatar ascends to a higher plane of existence by the power of the spell. The people that were evacuated to Skara Brae are protected by the Runes and they live on, to find another world to call their own; this plot compares the
Columbia Records
Columbia Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, the North American division of Japanese conglomerate Sony. It was founded in 1887, evolving from the American Graphophone Company, the successor to the Volta Graphophone Company. Columbia is the oldest surviving brand name in the recorded sound business, the second major company to produce records. From 1961 to 1990, Columbia recordings were released outside North America under the name CBS Records to avoid confusion with EMI's Columbia Graphophone Company. Columbia is one of Sony Music's four flagship record labels, alongside former longtime rival RCA Records, as well as Arista Records and Epic Records. Artists who have recorded for Columbia include Harry Styles, AC/DC, Louis Armstrong, Tony Bennett, Beyoncé, Dave Brubeck, The Byrds, Johnny Cash, Mariah Carey, The Chainsmokers, The Clash, Miles Davis, Rosemary Clooney, Neil Diamond, Celine Dion, Bob Dylan, Wind & Fire, Duke Ellington, 50 Cent, Erroll Garner, Benny Goodman, Adelaide Hall, Billy Joel, Janis Joplin, John Mayer, George Michael, Billy Murray, Pink Floyd, Lil Nas X, Frank Sinatra and Garfunkel, Bessie Smith, Bruce Springsteen, Barbra Streisand, Andy Williams, Pharrell Williams, Bill Withers, Paul Whiteman, Joe Zawinul The Columbia Phonograph Company was founded in 1887 by stenographer and New Jersey native Edward D. Easton and a group of investors.
It derived its name from the District of Columbia. At first it had a local monopoly on sales and service of Edison phonographs and phonograph cylinders in Washington, D. C. Maryland, Delaware; as was the custom of some of the regional phonograph companies, Columbia produced many commercial cylinder recordings of its own, its catalogue of musical records in 1891 was 10 pages. Columbia's ties to Edison and the North American Phonograph Company were severed in 1894 with the North American Phonograph Company's breakup. Thereafter it sold only phonographs of its own manufacture. In 1902, Columbia introduced a molded brown wax record, to use up old stock. Columbia introduced black wax records in 1903. According to one source, they continued to mold brown waxes until 1904 with the highest number being 32601, "Heinie", a duet by Arthur Collins and Byron G. Harlan; the molded brown waxes may have been sold to Sears for distribution. Columbia began selling disc records and phonographs in addition to the cylinder system in 1901, preceded only by their "Toy Graphophone" of 1899, which used small, vertically cut records.
For a decade, Columbia competed with both the Edison Phonograph Company cylinders and the Victor Talking Machine Company disc records as one of the top three names in American recorded sound. In order to add prestige to its early catalog of artists, Columbia contracted a number of New York Metropolitan Opera stars to make recordings; these stars included Marcella Sembrich, Lillian Nordica, Antonio Scotti and Edouard de Reszke, but the technical standard of their recordings was not considered to be as high as the results achieved with classical singers during the pre–World War I period by Victor, England's His Master's Voice or Italy's Fonotipia Records. After an abortive attempt in 1904 to manufacture discs with the recording grooves stamped into both sides of each disc—not just one—in 1908 Columbia commenced successful mass production of what they called their "Double-Faced" discs, the 10-inch variety selling for 65 cents apiece; the firm introduced the internal-horn "Grafonola" to compete with the popular "Victrola" sold by the rival Victor Talking Machine Company.
During this era, Columbia used the "Magic Notes" logo—a pair of sixteenth notes in a circle—both in the United States and overseas. Columbia stopped recording and manufacturing wax cylinder records in 1908, after arranging to issue celluloid cylinder records made by the Indestructible Record Company of Albany, New York, as "Columbia Indestructible Records". In July 1912, Columbia decided to concentrate on disc records and stopped manufacturing cylinder phonographs, although they continued selling Indestructible's cylinders under the Columbia name for a year or two more. Columbia was split into one to make records and one to make players. Columbia Phonograph was moved to Connecticut, Ed Easton went with it, it was renamed the Dictaphone Corporation. In late 1922, Columbia went into receivership; the company was bought by its English subsidiary, the Columbia Graphophone Company in 1925 and the label, record numbering system, recording process changed. On February 25, 1925, Columbia began recording with the electric recording process licensed from Western Electric.
"Viva-tonal" records set a benchmark in tone and clarity unequaled on commercial discs during the 78-rpm era. The first electrical recordings were made by Art Gillham, the "Whispering Pianist". In a secret agreement with Victor, electrical technology was kept secret to avoid hurting sales of acoustic records. In 1926, Columbia acquired Okeh Records and its growing stable of jazz and blues artists, including Louis Armstrong and Clarence Williams. Columbia had built a catalog of blues and jazz artists, including Bessie Smith in their 14000-D Race series. Columbia had a successful "Hillbilly" series. In 1928, Paul Whiteman, the nation's most popular orchestra leader, left Victor to record for Columbia. During the same year, Columbia executiv
Album
An album is a collection of audio recordings issued as a collection on compact disc, audio tape, or another medium. Albums of recorded music were developed in the early 20th century as individual 78-rpm records collected in a bound book resembling a photograph album. Vinyl LPs are still issued, though album sales in the 21st-century have focused on CD and MP3 formats; the audio cassette was a format used alongside vinyl from the 1970s into the first decade of the 2000s. An album may be recorded in a recording studio, in a concert venue, at home, in the field, or a mix of places; the time frame for recording an album varies between a few hours to several years. This process requires several takes with different parts recorded separately, brought or "mixed" together. Recordings that are done in one take without overdubbing are termed "live" when done in a studio. Studios are built to absorb sound, eliminating reverberation, so as to assist in mixing different takes. Recordings, including live, may contain sound effects, voice adjustments, etc..
With modern recording technology, musicians can be recorded in separate rooms or at separate times while listening to the other parts using headphones. Album covers and liner notes are used, sometimes additional information is provided, such as analysis of the recording, lyrics or librettos; the term "album" was applied to a collection of various items housed in a book format. In musical usage the word was used for collections of short pieces of printed music from the early nineteenth century. Collections of related 78rpm records were bundled in book-like albums; when long-playing records were introduced, a collection of pieces on a single record was called an album. An album, in ancient Rome, was a board chalked or painted white, on which decrees and other public notices were inscribed in black, it was from this that in medieval and modern times album came to denote a book of blank pages in which verses, sketches and the like are collected. Which in turn led to the modern meaning of an album as a collection of audio recordings issued as a single item.
In the early nineteenth century "album" was used in the titles of some classical music sets, such as Schumann's Album for the Young Opus 68, a set of 43 short pieces. When 78rpm records came out, the popular 10-inch disc could only hold about three minutes of sound per side, so all popular recordings were limited to around three minutes in length. Classical-music and spoken-word items were released on the longer 12-inch 78s, about 4–5 minutes per side. For example, in 1924, George Gershwin recorded a drastically shortened version of the seventeen-minute Rhapsody in Blue with Paul Whiteman and His Orchestra, it ran for 8m 59s. Deutsche Grammophon had produced an album for its complete recording of the opera Carmen in 1908. German record company Odeon released the Nutcracker Suite by Tchaikovsky in 1909 on 4 double-sided discs in a specially designed package; this practice of issuing albums does not seem to have been taken up by other record companies for many years. By about 1910, bound collections of empty sleeves with a paperboard or leather cover, similar to a photograph album, were sold as record albums that customers could use to store their records.
These albums came in both 12-inch sizes. The covers of these bound books were wider and taller than the records inside, allowing the record album to be placed on a shelf upright, like a book, suspending the fragile records above the shelf and protecting them. In the 1930s, record companies began issuing collections of 78 rpm records by one performer or of one type of music in specially assembled albums with artwork on the front cover and liner notes on the back or inside cover. Most albums included three or four records, with two sides each, making six or eight compositions per album; the 12-inch LP record, or 33 1⁄3 rpm microgroove vinyl record, is a gramophone record format introduced by Columbia Records in 1948. A single LP record had the same or similar number of tunes as a typical album of 78s, it was adopted by the record industry as a standard format for the "album". Apart from minor refinements and the important addition of stereophonic sound capability, it has remained the standard format for vinyl albums.
The term "album" was extended to other recording media such as Compact audio cassette, compact disc, MiniDisc, digital albums, as they were introduced. 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. While an album may contain as many or as few tracks as required, in the United States, The Recording Academy's rules for Grammy Awards state that an album must comprise a minimum total playing time of 15 minutes with at least five distinct tracks or a minimum total playing time of 30 minutes with no minimum track requirement. In the United Kingdom, the criteria for the UK Albums Chart is that a recording counts as an "album" i
