Single (music)

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For other uses, see Single (disambiguation).

Image:Cdsingles.png

A collection of various CD singles

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 on a traditional gramophone record. The record is typically a 7-inch or 12-inch black vinyl disc playing at 45 RPM, though other formats exist. The disc is reversible, usually with the main track (the "A-side") on one side, and the second track (the "B-side") on the reverse or "flip" side. 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. Many vinyl singles contain more than one track per side; this is particularly true of 12 inch singles. Vinyl singles were originally sold in standard paper sleeves, but now often have their own printed card covers with special artwork and text.

Cassette singles - popular in the 1990s, 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. Björk was the first ever artist to release a single on the DVD format with the track "All Is Full Of Love" in July 1999, as an opportunity to maximize the exposure of the groundbraking promo video by Chris Cunningham featuring Björk as a pair of robots. 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: Gwen Stefani's album Love. Angel. Music. Baby.). However, since an artist's most popular songs are often singles later albums including their earlier works may have many, such as S Club 7's Best - The Greatest Hits album.

1 Situations in UK and US
- 1.1 United Kingdom
- 1.2 United States
2 History
- 2.1 Video singles
3 See also

Situations in UK and US

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 in the US, the most popular UK charts are based only on sales data, not airplay. As well as pre-releasing singles to radio stations, most UK releases from major labels since the 1990s are launched at a very low price in their first week with a much higher price afterwards, to encourage as many people as possible to buy it simultaneously and thus achieve as high a chart position as possible. In the 1990s and early 2000s singles typically debuted at their peak position, completely the opposite behaviour to the chart-climbing of the past. The trend towards entering at peak position led to the common sight of not one single in the UK Top 75 gaining in the chart. Singles also spent less time at #1 and fall down the chart more rapidly, spending less time overall since they never climbed to their peak. In addition, while before the 1990s, the first single from an album was released several weeks in advance of the album, singles were 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 (this was allowed by the UK singles chart only because a physical version of the same single was due for release shortly afterwards, downloads with no physical release have only been allowed to chart since January 2007). By mid-2006 legal song downloads accounted for 78% of all UK single sales.[1]

These new rules have meant that, unlike in the 1990s and early 2000s, singles enter lower down the chart and climb to their peak, most commonly when the physical copy is released. This change in trend can be seen when you compare 2006 with 2005. In 2005 only two songs climbed to number one, whereas in 2006 sixteen climbed. Such is the impact of downloads on the chart that they are reminiscent of the singles chart before the 1990s. Songs tend to hang around the charts for longer and songs which were previously ineligible to chart are now able to, such as the aforementioned Gnarls Barkley song, "Crazy", which reentered having been deleted physically in 2006 and older songs, such as Bill Conti's "Gonna Fly Now" which charted in the lower reaches of the top 75 following the release of "Rocky Balboa" in 2007.

While the CD single has declined in popularity, sales of 7" vinyl singles are on the increase as of 2006,[2] [3] with some prominent artists, such as Arctic Monkeys, reportedly selling more singles on 7" than on CD. As a result of this, many singles are now released in two 7" versions and one CD version, rather than one 7" and two CDs as was common in the 1990s.

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.

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.).

Image:45rpm.jpg

45 rpm gramophone record

The most common form of the vinyl single is the 45. Its name is derived from the speed at which it is played, 45 RPM (revolutions per minute). The standard size of a 45 is 7" in diameter.

The 7" 45 RPM record was introduced in 1949 by RCA as a smaller, higher fidelity replacement for the 78 RPM shellac discs. 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.

Although 7" remained the standard size for vinyl singles, 12" singles were introduced for use by DJs in discos in the 1970s. The longer playing time of these singles allowed the inclusion of extended dance mixes of tracks. The 12" single is still considered a standard format for dance music, though its popularity has declined in recent years.

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 [4]. 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^{[citation needed]}.

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.

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).