Single (music)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In music, a single is a short recording of one or more separate tracks. This can be released for sale to the public in a variety of different formats.
- Vinyl singles consist of two or more tracks released on a traditional Gramophone record. The disc itself is reversible, with the main track on one side (the "A-side"), while the second track (the "B-side") would be played when the disc was flipped over. Some singles, such as The Beatles' "Come Together"/"Something" or Queen's "We Are the Champions"/"We Will Rock You", were released as double A-sides (or "AA"), where the two tracks were given an equal importance. Vinyl singles were originally sold in standard paper sleeves, but now often have their own printed card covers with special artwork and text.
- Compact Cassette singles - these are becoming obsolete and are now rarely released as commercial singles. As they are reversible they usually consist of one main track on the A-side, and one or more additional tracks on the B-side. The case or sleeve of a cassette single also usually includes printed artwork and tracklistings.
- CD singles usually consist of the A-side accompanied by one or more separate tracks. Extended single CDs or Maxi singles often also include several remixes of the main song, another completely different song, (the B-side) and sometimes a short music video. CD singles do have a defined ordering of tracks, so that even on a double A-side single, one track has to come first. Occasionally, a single will not be identical in name to the featured track—such as the Nine Inch Nails single, "Closer to God". The case or sleeve of a CD single also usually includes printed artwork and tracklistings.
- Limited edition CD singles are sometimes released as a marketing ploy. These are usually on sale for a specified period of time only, or are produced in limited numbers and may include bonus tracks or specialist artwork designed to appeal to the specialist or the collectors market.
- Video singles are singles in the form of a videotape. Although the format has existed in form since the early 1980s in the form of Video 45s, the format gained higher levels of mainstream popularity when Madonna released "Justify My Love" as a video single in 1990 following the blacklisting of the video by MTV. U2 also released "Numb", the lead single from their 1993 album Zooropa as a video single.
- DVD singles are musical singles in the form of DVDs. The format was introduced in the late 1990s/early 2000s. Although many record companies refused to issue CD singles, they readily issued DVD Singles, and some popular DVD singles include Kelly Clarkson's "A Moment Like This," Jessica Simpson's "With You," and Beyoncé's "Crazy In Love". The DVD single never really caught on in the USA, and many are out of print nowadays causing some to view them as collector items. The DVD single replaced the Video single.
- Download singles consist of one track or song that can be obtained as a digital download from an online supplier. Several different versions or remixes of the same single release may be available, but each one has to be downloaded separately.
Single releases are often made simultaneously in more than one format, as a single track download, and on CD or vinyl. Variations can include two different CDs, one with each track first (such as Muse's non-album single Dead Star/In Your World or In Your World/Dead Star), as two separate CDs with different B-sides and artwork, or as two CDs with one track each (such as Kent's single FF/VinterNoll2). Records with more than two A-sides are usually not considered singles, but EPs.
Although non-album singles are sometimes released, the lead tracks (and sometimes B-sides) of singles usually come from an album (either one already released or one about to be) and the release of the single is partly to promote sales of the album, and to ensure radio playlisting. CD singles often feature "radio edit" or "single edit" versions of the main song, which differ from the original recording in being edited to an attractive length for radio play, having expletives censored (often by re-recording with different lyrics), or both.
A typical number of singles to be released from an album is two to four—more is considered exceptional. (Eg: Mariah Carey's album The Emancipation of Mimi).
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[edit] Situations in UK and US
[edit] United Kingdom
In the United Kingdom before the early 1990s, singles were released to radio and shops on the same day. As radio airplay increased, the single would climb in the chart, reach a peak position, often about a month later, and then slowly drop out of the chart. Since the early 1990s, record companies have released singles to radio months in advance of their commercial release. This familiarises the audience with the song, ensuring that it enters the chart with maximum sales. Unlike with the US, the most popular UK charts are based only on sales data, not airplay. Thus, today's singles typically debut at their peak position. This trend has led to the common sight of not one single in the UK Top 75 gaining in the chart. Singles also spend less time at #1 and fall down the chart more rapidly, spending less time overall since they never climb to their peak. In addition, while before the 1990s, the first single from an album was released several weeks in advance of the album, today singles are typically released one or two weeks before the album's release.
Some other strategies are employed in the release of lead singles from an album. Occasionally, lead singles are released months in advance of the album they appear on. Two examples are Oasis' "Some Might Say" and Pulp's "Help the Aged". Less commonly, two separate singles are released at the same time to promote an album. An example is the simultaneous release of the Manic Street Preachers' "Found That Soul" and "So Why So Sad".
In the UK, the trend of single sales declining and no singles rising in the chart has been checked somewhat by the introduction of digital sales. The American duo Gnarls Barkley made history by releasing "Crazy", which became the first UK number-one single based solely on downloads. By mid-2006 legal song downloads accounted for 78% of all UK single sales.[1]
[edit] United States
In the United States, since the early 1990s, singles have increasingly not been issued commercially at all. While this had precluded them from charting on the Hot 100, Billboard magazine recognised the trend and in December 1998 modified the rules to allow airplay-only tracks, which they call album cuts, to chart. Since then, airplay-only singles have frequently topped the chart. However, the former rule disqualified such long-term airplay #1 hits as No Doubt's "Don't Speak" from charting on the Hot 100 at all. Recently, Billboard has also accounted for digital sales in its calculation of single chart positions.
[edit] History
Singles have been issued on various formats, including 7-inch, 10-inch and 12-inch vinyl discs (usually playing at 45 rpm); 10-inch shellac discs (playing at 78 rpm); cassette, 3 and 5-inch CD singles and 7-inch plastic flexi discs. Other, less common, formats include singles on digital compact cassette, DVD, and LD, as well as many non-standard sizes of vinyl disc (5", 8", etc.).
The most common form of the vinyl single was the 45. Its name is derived from the speed at which it was played, 45 RPM (revolutions per minute). The standard size of a 45 is 7" in diameter.
Originally, the 45 RPM record was introduced as a longer play version of the 78 RPM discs. The first 45 RPM records were monaural, with recordings on both sides of the disc. Produced in several sizes, the 7", large hole version became the most popular. As stereo recordings became popular in the 1960s, almost all 45 RPM records were produced in stereo by the end of the decade.
The sales of singles are recorded in charts in most countries in a Top 40 format. These charts are often published in magazines and numerous television shows and radio programs count down the list. In order to be eligible for inclusion in the charts the single must meet the requirements set by the charting company, usually governing the number of songs and the total playing time of the single.
In popular music, the relative commercial and artistic importance of the single (as compared to the EP or album) has varied over time, technological development, and according to the audience of particular artists and genres. Singles have generally been more important to artists who sell to the youngest purchasers of music (younger teenagers and pre-teens), who tend to have more limited financial resources and shorter attention spans. Perhaps the golden age of the single was on "45's" in the 1950s and early 1960s in the early years of rock music; albums became a greater focus as artists like The Beatles and others created albums of uniformly high quality and coherent themes (one of many examples being the concluding medley on Abbey Road), a trend which reached its apex in the development of the concept album. Over the 1980s and 1990s, the single has generally received less and less attention as albums, which on compact disc had virtually identical production and distribution costs but could be sold at a higher price, became most retailers' primary method of selling music. The single became almost exclusively a promotional tool for radio play and to appear on television via the video clip.
Dance music, however, has followed a different commercial pattern, and the single, especially the 12-inch vinyl single, remains a major method by which dance music is distributed.
As of 2006, the single seems to be undergoing something of a revival. Commercial music download sites reportedly sell mostly single tracks rather than whole albums, and the increase in popularity seems to have rubbed off on physical formats [2]. Portable MP3 players, which make it extremely easy to load many songs from different artists and play them, are claimed to be a major factor behind this trend.
A related development has been the popularity of mobile phone ringtones based on pop singles (on some modern phones, the actual single can be used as a ringtone). These are reportedly a very lucrative new business for the music industry.
In a reversal of this trend, recently a single has been released based on a ringtone itself. The Crazy Frog ringtone, which had become a cult hit in Europe in 2004, was released as a mashup with Axel F in June 2005 amid a massive publicity campaign and subsequently hit #1 on the UK charts.
[edit] Video singles
In relation to music singles, the industry has released music videos as singles as well. Originally released on very short VHS cassettes (T-15), these eventually were released on LaserDisc as LD-singles (18 cm or 8" format, instead of the full 1'/12"/30 cm LD), and on cDVD as DVD-singles (8 cm or 3" format, instead of the full 12 cm/5.25" DVD).
