[mb-users] Are 12" releases considered EPs?

[Chris Bransden]

On 17/10/06, Lauri Watts <krazykiwi at gmail.com> wrote:
> This is really long and boring and technical. But here goes anyway.
>
> The traditional reason to put out singles, is to sell albums.  To sell
> albums, ideally you want to get in the sales charts, because then you
> will get radio airplay, and people will want the album.  To get in the
> sales charts, you have to 'qualify' under certain rules, and releases
> that don't qualify, are not technically 'singles', by industry
> standards.

yep, though i think this is more of a technicality. for a lot of
artists, there would be no advantage in charting, so this isn't an
issue.

> You can formulate a basic set of rules though.  If it's european, pre
> 1997, and under 40 minutes long, and contains remixes it's still a
> single unless it says otherwise.  And if it's european, pre 1997, and
> under 25 minutes long, it doesn't matter how many songs are on it,
> it's _still_ a single.  Unless the band says otherwise.

nah i really wouldn't go with this. the regulations as to what
is/isn't a single is an attempt to track sales of what is an
essentially unordered industry. the rules did force certain trends, of
course, but only for those artists to whom the singles charts, etc,
were important. elvis more or less invented the EP, but that was on
7"s (under 15 mins long), and 7" punk EPs, anyone? punk bands didn't
always call them as such, but that was the standard for the genre.

IMO common sense prevails. generally you can make an educated guess if
you know the band in question.