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thewrll
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22 Jun 2013, 8:05 pm

What do you consider an Single/EP/Album. I consider a single two songs under 25 minutes. An EP based on on the Wikipedia article is 3 or 4 songs and no longer than 25 minutes. And an album is one song or more that is 25 minutes or longer and 5 songs or more no matter the length.



Erlonman
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22 Jun 2013, 8:31 pm

I think you are right on the money. The only problem is certain punk albums do not adhere to these rules, mostly because their songs are incredibly short.



thewrll
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22 Jun 2013, 8:35 pm

That's why an album is 5 or more songs, no matter the length.



charcoalsketches
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22 Jun 2013, 11:10 pm

Single: 2 or 3 songs meant to promote and sell the sibgle, an EP to me is an album that doesn't have to do that. It, to me, is a mini-album that you can do anything with. The argument of an album being less than 29 minutes is to be argued, if you listened to a good amount of punk/hardcore records. As for the whole less than 10 minutes thing, that is to be .argued, since some albums have less than that and span over 30 mns (i.e. Explosions in the Sky, Mono albums). Even a Brakes album I heard was 26 minutes



PresidentPorpoise
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23 Jun 2013, 12:46 am

Honestly, I think those are some solid guidelines for what should constitute an EP, but I think that that it's more subjective than that. I think that the length of a band's usual studio albums can have something to do with how a band classifies something. For example, the EP "No One's First and You're Next" by Modest Mouse has 8 songs and is 33 minutes long. But their studio albums are more along the lines of an hour long, and tend to have at least a good 14 songs on them. This EP is also apparently a collection of B-sides and unreleased material from their previous two studio albums, so I'd say the fact that they didn't actually go into the studio and write new material has to do with this EP not being classified as a studio album. I also feel like bands will do more to promote a studio album than they will an EP.

So I think it really depends on a band's subjective opinion of how they want to label a musical release when it comes to EP vs. studio album. I'd say that an EP significantly shorter and almost always has fewer tracks than a band's studio albums, and is generally less heavily promoted than a band's studio albums.