1.
Single (music)
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In music, a single or record single is a type of release, typically a song recording of fewer tracks than an LP record, an album or an EP record. This can be released for sale to the public in a variety of different formats, in most cases, a single is a song that is released separately from an album, although it usually also appears on an album. Typically, 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 as a single may not appear on an album. As digital downloading and audio streaming have become prevalent, it is often possible for every track on an album to also be available separately. Nevertheless, the concept of a single for an album has been retained as an identification of a heavily promoted or more popular song within an album collection. Despite being referred to as a single, singles can include up to as many as three tracks on them. The biggest digital music distributor, iTunes, accepts as many as three tracks less than ten minutes each as a single, as well as popular music player Spotify also following in this trend. Any more than three tracks on a release or longer than thirty minutes in total running time is either an Extended Play or if over six tracks long. The basic specifications of the single were made in the late 19th century. Gramophone discs were manufactured with a range of speeds and in several sizes. By about 1910, however, the 10-inch,78 rpm shellac disc had become the most commonly used format, the inherent technical limitations of the gramophone disc defined the standard format for commercial recordings in the early 20th century.26 rpm. With these factors applied to the 10-inch format, songwriters and performers increasingly tailored their output to fit the new medium, the breakthrough came with Bob Dylans Like a Rolling Stone. Singles have been issued in various formats, including 7-inch, 10-inch, other, less common, formats include singles on digital compact cassette, DVD, and LD, as well as many non-standard sizes of vinyl disc. Some artist release singles on records, a more common in musical subcultures. The most common form of the single is the 45 or 7-inch. The names are derived from its speed,45 rpm. The 7-inch 45 rpm record was released 31 March 1949 by RCA Victor as a smaller, more durable, the first 45 rpm records were monaural, with recordings on both sides of the disc. As stereo recordings became popular in the 1960s, almost all 45 rpm records were produced in stereo by the early 1970s
2.
Pearl Jam
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Pearl Jam is an American rock band formed in Seattle, Washington, in 1990. Since its inception, the bands line-up has comprised Eddie Vedder, Mike McCready, Stone Gossard, the bands fifth member is drummer Matt Cameron, who has been with the band since 1998. Boom Gaspar has also been a member with the band since 2002. Drummers Dave Krusen, Matt Chamberlain, Dave Abbruzzese and Jack Irons are former members of the band, formed after the demise of Gossard and Aments previous band, Mother Love Bone, Pearl Jam broke into the mainstream with its debut album, Ten, in 1991. In 2006, Rolling Stone described the band as having spent much of the past decade deliberately tearing apart their own fame, to date, the band has sold nearly 32 million records in the United States and an estimated 60 million worldwide. Pearl Jam has outlasted and outsold many of its contemporaries from the alternative rock breakthrough of the early 1990s, stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic referred to Pearl Jam as the most popular American rock & roll band of the 90s. Pearl Jam is to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on April 7,2017, Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament were members of pioneering grunge band Green River during the mid-1980s. Green River toured and recorded to moderate success but disbanded in 1987 due to a division between the pair and bandmates Mark Arm and Steve Turner. In late 1987, Gossard and Ament began playing with Malfunkshun vocalist Andrew Wood, in 1988 and 1989, the band recorded and toured to increasing interest and found the support of the PolyGram record label, which signed the band in early 1989. Mother Love Bones debut album, Apple, was released in July 1990, Ament and Gossard were devastated by the death of Wood and the resulting demise of Mother Love Bone. Gossard spent his time writing material that was harder-edged than what he had been doing previously. After a few months, Gossard started practicing with fellow Seattle guitarist Mike McCready, whose band, Shadow, had broken up, after practicing for a while, the trio sent out a five-song demo tape in order to find a singer and a drummer. They gave former Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Jack Irons the demo to see if he would be interested in joining the band, Irons passed on the invitation but gave the demo to his basketball buddy, San Diego, California singer Eddie Vedder. Vedder was the lead vocalist for a San Diego band, Bad Radio and he listened to the tape shortly before going surfing, where lyrics came to him. He then recorded the vocals to three of the songs in what he described as a mini-opera entitled Momma-Son. Vedder sent the tape with his vocals back to the three Seattle musicians, who were impressed enough to fly Vedder up to Seattle for an audition, within a week, Vedder had joined the band. With the addition of Dave Krusen on drums, the band took the name Mookie Blaylock, the band played its first official show at the Off Ramp Café in Seattle on October 22,1990, and soon signed to Epic Records and renamed themselves Pearl Jam. In a 2006 Rolling Stone cover story however, Vedder admitted that this story was total bullshit, Pearl Jam entered Seattles London Bridge Studios in March 1991 to record its debut album, Ten
3.
Yield (album)
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Yield is the fifth studio album by the American alternative rock band Pearl Jam, released on February 3,1998. Following a short tour for its previous album, No Code, Pearl Jam recorded Yield throughout 1997 at Studio Litho and Studio X in Seattle. The lyrics deal with themes, albeit seen in a more positive manner compared to the bands earlier work. Yield received positive reviews and debuted at two on the Billboard 200. While like No Code the album soon began dropping down the charts, the band did more promotion for the album compared to No Code, including a return to full-scale touring and the release of a music video for the song Do the Evolution. The record has been certified platinum by the RIAA in the United States, the album is Pearl Jams last release with drummer Jack Irons, who left the band during the albums promotional tour. For its fifth album, Pearl Jam again worked with producer Brendan OBrien, Yield was recorded throughout 1997 in Seattle, Washington at Studio X and Studio Litho, the latter of which is owned by guitarist Stone Gossard. The album was mixed by OBrien at his mixing facility at Southern Tracks in Atlanta. The album would be the last collaboration with OBrien for several years and they would not work with the producer again until he was brought on board in 2008 to remix their debut album Ten and to produce 2009s Backspacer. Compared with Vitalogy and No Code, Yield represented more of an effort between all members of the group. Ament said that took that to heart, and OBrien added that most of the songs came to the studio finished. Ament also said that Vedders reaction to the rest of the new material kept everybody energized about their place in the band. Vedder worked with the band members on their own material before work was started on his. Guitarist Mike McCready noticed a change in Vedders attitude during the recording of Yield, stating, I used to be afraid of him and we talk more now, and hang out. He seems very, very centered now, Vedder said that the band was able to team up and have a partnership while the album was being recorded. The band spent an amount of time rehearsing the songs to get the best takes possible. Gossard commented that there was more contouring and honing of demo material than on previous records, regarding the recording sessions, drummer Jack Irons said, We didnt put any time limit on it. It was like, When this records done, we call it a record and we took out time to come up with ideal sounds and feel for every song, so that each had its own identity
4.
A-side and B-side
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The terms A-side and B-side refer to the two sides of 78,45, and 33 1/3 rpm phonograph records, whether singles, extended plays, or long-playing records. Creedence Clearwater Revival had hits with both A-side and B-side releases, others took the opposite approach, producer Phil Spector was in the habit of filling B-sides with on-the-spot instrumentals that no one would confuse with the A-side. With this practice, Spector was assured that airplay was focused on the side he wanted to be the hit side, the earliest 10-inch,78 rpm, shellac records were single sided. Double-sided recordings, with one song on side, were introduced in Europe by Columbia Records. There were no record charts until the 1930s, and radio stations did not play recorded music until the 1950s, in this time, A-sides and B-sides existed, but neither side was considered more important, the side did not convey anything about the content of the record. The term single came into use with the advent of vinyl records in the early 1950s. At first, most record labels would randomly assign which song would be an A-side, under this random system, many artists had so-called double-sided hits, where both songs on a record made one of the national sales charts, or would be featured on jukeboxes in public places. As time wore on, however, the convention for assigning songs to sides of the record changed. By the early sixties, the song on the A-side was the song that the company wanted radio stations to play. It was not until 1968, for instance, that the production of albums on a unit basis finally surpassed that of singles in the United Kingdom. In the late 1960s stereo versions of pop and rock songs began to appear on 45s. The majority of the 45s were played on AM radio stations, by the early 1970s, double-sided hits had become rare. Album sales had increased, and B-sides had become the side of the record where non-album, non-radio-friendly, with the advent of cassette and compact disc singles in the late 1980s, the A-side/B-side differentiation became much less meaningful. With the decline of cassette singles in the 1990s, the A-side/B-side dichotomy became virtually extinct, as the dominant medium. However, the term B-side is still used to refer to the tracks or coupling tracks on a CD single. With the advent of downloading music via the Internet, sales of CD singles and other media have declined. B-side songs may be released on the record as a single to provide extra value for money. There are several types of material released in this way, including a different version, or, in a concept record
5.
CD single
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This article is about the 12cm single. Not to be confused with 8cm single, the standard in the Red Book for the term CD single. A CD single is a single in the form of a standard size compact disc. It is not to be confused with the Mini CD single, the format was introduced in the mid-1980s but did not gain its place in the market until the early 1990s. With the rise in digital downloads in the early 2010s, sales of CD singles have decreased, commercially released CD singles can vary in length from two songs up to six songs like an EP. Some contain multiple mixes of one or more songs, in the tradition of 12 vinyl singles, depending on the nation, there may be limits on the number of songs and total length for sales to count in singles charts. Containing four tracks, it had a limited print run. CD singles were first made eligible for the UK Singles Chart in 1987, the Mini CD single format was originally created for use for singles in the late 1980s, but met with limited success, particularly in the US. The smaller CDs were more successful in Japan and have become more common in Europe. By 1989, the CD3 was in decline in the US and it was common in the 1990s for US record companies to release both a two-track CD and a multi-track maxi CD. In the UK, record companies would also release two CDs but, usually, these consisted of three tracks or more each. Pressure from record labels made singles charts in some countries become song charts, allowing album cuts to chart based only on airplay, without a single ever being released. At the end of the 1990s, the CD was the single format in the UK, but in the US. In Australia, the Herald Sun reported the CD single is set to become extinct, while CD singles no longer maintain their own section of the store, copies are still distributed but placed with the artists albums. That is predominantly the case for popular Australian artists such as Jessica Mauboy, Kylie Minogue and, most recently, Delta Goodrem, the ARIA Singles Chart are now predominantly compiled from legal downloads, and ARIA also stopped compiling their physical singles sales chart. On a Mission by Gabriella Cilmi was the last CD single to be stocked in Kmart, Target and Big W, sanity Entertainment, having resisted the decline for longer than the other major outlets, has also ceased selling CD singles. In Greece and Cyprus, the term CD single is used to describe a play in which there may be anywhere from three to six different tracks. These releases charted on the Greek Singles Chart with songs released as singles, in September 2003, there was talk of ringtones for mobile phones outstripping CD singles sales for the year 2004
6.
Compact Cassette
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The Compact Cassette or Musicassette, also commonly called cassette tape, audio cassette, or simply tape or cassette, is an analog magnetic tape recording format for audio recording and playback. It was released by Philips in 1962, having developed in Hasselt. Compact cassettes come in two forms, either already containing content as a cassette, or as a fully recordable blank cassette. Its uses ranged from portable audio to home recording to data storage for early microcomputers, the first cassette player designed for use in car dashes was introduced in 1968. Between the early 1970s and the early 2000s, the cassette was one of the two most common formats for prerecorded music, first alongside the LP record and later the compact disc. Compact Cassettes contain two miniature spools, between which a magnetically coated, polyester-type plastic film is passed and wound and these spools and their attendant parts are held inside a protective plastic shell. This reversal is achieved either by flipping the cassette, or by having the machine itself change the direction of tape movement. In 1935, decades before the introduction of the Compact Cassette, AEG released the first reel-to-reel tape recorder and it was based on the invention of the magnetic tape by Fritz Pfleumer, which used similar technology but with open reels. These instruments were expensive and relatively difficult to use and were therefore used mostly by professionals in radio stations. In 1958, following four years of development, RCA Victor introduced the stereo, quarter-inch, reversible, however, it was a large cassette, and offered few pre-recorded tapes. Despite the multiple versions, it failed, consumer use of tape only took off in the early 1960s, after playback machines reached a comfortable, user-friendly design. This was achieved primarily by the introduction of transistors which replaced the bulky, fragile, reel-to-reel tape then became more suitable to household use, but still remained an esoteric product. The team at Philips was led by Lou Ottens in Hasselt, Philips was competing with Telefunken and Grundig in a race to establish its cassette tape as the worldwide standard, and it wanted support from Japanese electronics manufacturers. However, the Philips Compact Cassette became dominant as a result of Philips decision to license the format free of charge, Philips also released the Norelco Carry-Corder 150 recorder/player in the US in November 1964. By 1966 over 250,000 recorders had been sold in the US alone, by 1968,85 manufacturers had sold over 2.4 million players. By the end of the 1960s, the business was worth an estimated 150 million dollars. In the early years sound quality was mediocre, but it improved dramatically by the early 1970s when it caught up with the quality of 8-track tape, the Compact Cassette went on to become a popular alternative to the 12-inch vinyl LP during the late 1970s. The mass production of blank Compact Cassettes began in 1964 in Hanover, prerecorded music cassettes were launched in Europe in late 1965
7.
Phonograph record
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The groove usually starts near the periphery and ends near the center of the disc. The phonograph disc record was the medium used for music reproduction until late in the 20th century. It had co-existed with the cylinder from the late 1880s. Records retained the largest market share even when new formats such as compact cassette were mass-marketed, by the late 1980s, digital media, in the form of the compact disc, had gained a larger market share, and the vinyl record left the mainstream in 1991. The phonograph record has made a resurgence in the early 21st century –9.2 million records were sold in the U. S. in 2014. Likewise, in the UK sales have increased five-fold from 2009 to 2014, as of 2017,48 record pressing facilities remain worldwide,18 in the United States and 30 in other countries. The increased popularity of vinyl has led to the investment in new, only two producers of lacquers remains, Apollo Masters in California, USA, and MDC in Japan. Vinyl records may be scratched or warped if stored incorrectly but if they are not exposed to heat or broken. The large cover are valued by collectors and artists for the space given for visual expression, in the 2000s, these tracings were first scanned by audio engineers and digitally converted into audible sound. Phonautograms of singing and speech made by Scott in 1860 were played back as sound for the first time in 2008, along with a tuning fork tone and unintelligible snippets recorded as early as 1857, these are the earliest known recordings of sound. In 1877, Thomas Edison invented the phonograph, unlike the phonautograph, it was capable of both recording and reproducing sound. Despite the similarity of name, there is no evidence that Edisons phonograph was based on Scotts phonautograph. Edison first tried recording sound on a paper tape, with the idea of creating a telephone repeater analogous to the telegraph repeater he had been working on. The tinfoil was wrapped around a metal cylinder and a sound-vibrated stylus indented the tinfoil while the cylinder was rotated. The recording could be played back immediately, Edison also invented variations of the phonograph that used tape and disc formats. A decade later, Edison developed a greatly improved phonograph that used a wax cylinder instead of a foil sheet. This proved to be both a better-sounding and far more useful and durable device, the wax phonograph cylinder created the recorded sound market at the end of the 1880s and dominated it through the early years of the 20th century. Berliners earliest discs, first marketed in 1889, but only in Europe, were 12.5 cm in diameter, both the records and the machine were adequate only for use as a toy or curiosity, due to the limited sound quality
8.
Epic Records
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Epic Records is an American record company owned by Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, Inc. Epic was founded predominantly as a jazz and classical music label in 1953 and it later expanded its scope to include a more diverse range of musical genres, including pop, R&B, rock and hip hop. Historically, the label has housed popular acts such as Boston, ABBA, Michael Jackson, Celine Dion, Dave Clark Five, Gloria Estefan, Pearl Jam, Shakira, Anastacia, and Sly & the Family Stone. Along with Columbia and RCA Records, Epic is one of Sony Music Entertainments three main record labels, L. A. Reid has served as chairman and CEO of Epic since July 2011. Sylvia Rhone was appointed president in March 2014, Epic Records was launched in 1953 by Columbia Records for the purpose of marketing jazz, pop and classical music that did not fit the theme of its more mainstream Columbia Records label. Initial classical music releases were from Philips Records which distributed Columbia product in Europe, pop talent on co-owned Okeh Records were transferred to Epic which made Okeh a rhythm and blues label. Epics bright-yellow, black, and blue became a familiar trademark for many jazz. By 1960, the musical base had been expanded to include all genres. This was done in part to prevent the roster of Columbia Records from being overstuffed with newer artists, subsequently, Epic became better known for its signing of newer, fledgling acts. By the end of the 1960s, Epic earned its first gold records and had evolved into a formidable hit-making force in rock and roll, R&B and country music. Among its many acts, it included Roy Hamilton, Bobby Vinton, The Dave Clark Five, The Hollies, Tammy Wynette, Donovan, The Yardbirds, Lulu, July, Helen Shapiro and Jeff Beck. Also during the 1960s, Epic oversaw the smaller subsidiary CBS labels including Okeh Records, in 1968, Epic recordings began being distributed in the UK by CBS after the distribution deal with EMI expired that year, Epic itself launched in England around 1971. Epic was involved in a trade of artists. Graham Nash was signed to Epic because of his membership in The Hollies, when the newly formed Crosby, Stills & Nash wanted to sign with Atlantic Records, Ahmet Ertegün worked out a deal with Clive Davis whereby Richie Furays new band Poco would sign with Epic. Also contributing to the success was its distribution of Philadelphia International Records. Sony bought CBS Records in 1987, and the company was renamed Sony Music in 1991. In 2004, Sony merged with another powerhouse music distributor, BMG, bringing labels such as RCA, Arista, Columbia, Epic, Jive, in February 2009, singer and songwriter Amanda Ghost was appointed president of Epic Records. Later in the year, Sony BMG Music merged Epic and Columbias operations, Sony BMGs Legacy Recordings reissues the companys classic and catalog titles
