102-453: " Red Fraction " is the first single of I've Sound singer Mell and her first single under Geneon Entertainment . Currently, this is Mell's most successful single as it reached #11 in the Oricon charts and sold a total of 38,006 copies. It was featured in the opening credits of the 2006 Japanese anime series Black Lagoon , produced by Madhouse and directed by Sunao Katabuchi . This 2000s Japanese single –related article
204-419: A "cue lever", a device that mechanically lowers the tonearm on to the record. It enables the user to locate an individual track more easily, to pause a record, and to avoid the risk of scratching the record, which may require practice to avoid when lowering the tonearm manually. Early developments in linear turntables were from Rek-O-Kut (portable lathe/phonograph) and Ortho-Sonic in the 1950s, and Acoustical in
306-535: A "single album" would otherwise be called a "single" or "extended play", depending on the length. As a distinct release type, the single album developed during the CD era in the 1990s. Single albums were marketed as a more affordable alternative to a full-length CD album. The Circle Album Chart tracks sales of all albums released as physical media (described as "offline" media), therefore, single albums compete alongside full-length studio albums (LPs) and mini-albums (EPs) on
408-470: A 46:1 gear ratio, resulting in a rotation speed of 78.3 rpm. With these factors applied to the 10-inch format, songwriters and performers increasingly tailored their output to fit the new medium. The three-minute single remained the standard into the 1960s, when the availability of microgroove recording and improved mastering techniques enabled recording artists to increase the duration of their recorded songs. The breakthrough came with Bob Dylan 's " Like
510-474: A Graphophone and my mother was a phonograph." Most of the disc machines designed at the Volta Lab had their disc mounted on vertical turntables. The explanation is that in the early experiments, the turntable, with disc, was mounted on the shop lathe, along with the recording and reproducing heads. Later, when the complete models were built, most of them featured vertical turntables. One interesting exception
612-415: A Rolling Stone " in 1965: although Columbia Records tried to make the record more "radio-friendly" by cutting the performance into halves and separating them between the two sides of the disc , both Dylan and his fans demanded that the full six-minute take be placed on one side and that radio stations play the song in its entirety. The next milestone, which cemented pop radio's tolerance for longer songs,
714-484: A definite method for accomplishing the reproduction. On April 30, 1877, he deposited a sealed envelope containing a summary of his ideas with the French Academy of Sciences , a standard procedure used by scientists and inventors to establish priority of conception of unpublished ideas in the event of any later dispute. An account of his invention was published on October 10, 1877, by which date Cros had devised
816-400: A device that could replicate the function of the human ear. Scott coated a plate of glass with a thin layer of lampblack . He then took an acoustic trumpet, and at its tapered end affixed a thin membrane that served as the analog to the eardrum . At the center of that membrane, he attached a rigid boar's bristle approximately a centimetre long, placed so that it just grazed the lampblack. As
918-541: A different machine that played nonrecordable discs (although Edison's original Phonograph patent included the use of discs. ) In Australian English , "record player" was the term; "turntable" was a more technical term; "gramophone" was restricted to the old mechanical (i.e., wind-up) players; and "phonograph" was used as in British English . The "phonograph" was first demonstrated in Australia on 14 June 1878 to
1020-403: A display such as a television set . The most common form of the vinyl single is the 45 or 7-inch . The names are derived from its play speed, 45 rpm, and the standard diameter, 7 inches (17.8 cm). The 45 rpm speed was chosen to allow a 5 + 1 ⁄ 2 minute playing time from the 7-inch disc. The 7-inch 45 rpm record was released March 31, 1949, by RCA Victor as
1122-437: A foundation to sustain" and added that "When artists have one big record and go run with that, it doesn't work because they never had a foundation to begin with." The same article cited examples such as Cardi B , Camila Cabello and Jason Derulo releasing four or more singles prior to their album releases. Kanye West released singles weekly in 2010 with his GOOD Fridays series. He did this to support his upcoming release at
SECTION 10
#17327722965641224-460: A generic name in the UK since 1910), and since the 1940s a record player , or more recently a turntable , is a device for the mechanical and analogue reproduction of sound . The sound vibration waveforms are recorded as corresponding physical deviations of a helical or spiral groove engraved, etched, incised, or impressed into the surface of a rotating cylinder or disc, called a record . To recreate
1326-660: A human voice was conducted on April 9, 1860, when Scott recorded someone singing the song " Au Clair de la Lune " ("By the Light of the Moon") on the device. However, the device was not designed to play back sounds, as Scott intended for people to read back the tracings, which he called phonautograms. This was not the first time someone had used a device to create direct tracings of the vibrations of sound-producing objects, as tuning forks had been used in this way by English physicist Thomas Young in 1807. By late 1857, with support from
1428-401: A large-hole record on a player with a quarter-inch spindle by inserting a single "puck" or by using a spindle adapter . Although 7 inches remained the standard size for vinyl singles, 12-inch 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. In addition, the larger surface area of
1530-460: A major marketing mistake on the part of record companies, as it eliminated an inexpensive recording format for young fans to become accustomed to purchasing music. In its place was the predominance of the album, which alienated customers by the expense of purchasing a longer format for only one or two songs of interest. That in turn encouraged interest in file sharing software on the internet like Napster for single recordings, which began to undercut
1632-709: A meeting of the Royal Society of Victoria by the Society's Honorary Secretary, Alex Sutherland who published "The Sounds of the Consonants, as Indicated by the Phonograph" in the Society's journal in November that year. On 8 August 1878 the phonograph was publicly demonstrated at the Society's annual conversazione , along with a range of other new inventions, including the microphone . The phonautograph
1734-522: A more direct procedure: the recording stylus could scribe its tracing through a thin coating of acid-resistant material on a metal surface and the surface could then be etched in an acid bath, producing the desired groove without the complication of an intermediate photographic procedure. The author of this article called the device a phonographe , but Cros himself favored the word paleophone , sometimes rendered in French as voix du passé ('voice of
1836-466: A more natural sound on high-quality replay equipment, compared to many digital releases that are highly processed for portable players in high-noise environmental conditions. However, unlike "plug-and-play" digital audio, vinyl record players have user-serviceable parts, which require attention to tonearm alignment and the wear and choice of stylus, the most critical component affecting turntable sound. The terminology used to describe record-playing devices
1938-422: A range of playback speeds (from 16 to 78 rpm ) and in several sizes (including 12 inches or 30 centimetres). By about 1910, however, the 10-inch (25 cm), 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. The relatively crude disc-cutting techniques of
2040-518: A remix. "Irony" was later included on their debut studio album The Wonder Years . A single album is distinct from a single even if it includes only one song. The single " Gotta Go " by Chungha was released on a single album titled XII , which was a one-track CD. Even though "Gotta Go" was the only song on XII , the two releases charted separately: XII reached No. 4 on the Gaon Album Chart, and "Gotta Go" reached No. 2 on
2142-399: A role in the development of the gramophone , whose inventor, Emile Berliner, worked with the phonautograph in the course of developing his own device. Charles Cros , a French poet and amateur scientist, is the first person known to have made the conceptual leap from recording sound as a traced line to the theoretical possibility of reproducing the sound from the tracing and then to devising
SECTION 20
#17327722965642244-437: A similar machine. On the early phonograph's reproductive capabilities he wrote in retrospect: "It sounded to my ear like someone singing about half a mile away, or talking at the other end of a big hall; but the effect was rather pleasant, save for a peculiar nasal quality wholly due to the mechanism, although there was little of the scratching that later was a prominent feature of the flat disc. Recording for that primitive machine
2346-402: A slightly earlier one that is believed to preserve the voice of U.S. President Rutherford B. Hayes , but as of May 2014 they have not yet been scanned. These antique tinfoil recordings, which have typically been stored folded, are too fragile to be played back with a stylus without seriously damaging them. Edison's 1877 tinfoil recording of Mary Had a Little Lamb , not preserved, has been called
2448-422: A small, simple machine about which few preliminary remarks were offered. The visitor without any ceremony whatever turned the crank, and to the astonishment of all present the machine said: 'Good morning. How do you do? How do you like the phonograph?' The machine thus spoke for itself, and made known the fact that it was the phonograph..." The music critic Herman Klein attended an early demonstration (1881–82) of
2550-634: A smaller, more durable and 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. Columbia Records , which had released the 33 + 1 ⁄ 3 rpm 12-inch vinyl LP in June 1948, also released 33 + 1 ⁄ 3 rpm 7-inch vinyl singles in March 1949, but they were soon eclipsed by
2652-480: A stylus with a small diamond or sapphire tip that runs in the record groove. The stylus eventually becomes worn by contact with the groove, and it is usually replaceable. Styli are classified as spherical or elliptical, although the tip is actually shaped as a half-sphere or a half- ellipsoid . Spherical styli are generally more robust than other types, but do not follow the groove as accurately, giving diminished high frequency response. Elliptical styli usually track
2754-464: Is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Single (music) In music , a single is a type of release of a song recording of fewer tracks than an album or LP record , typically one or two tracks. A single can be released for sale to the public in a variety of physical or digital formats. Singles may be standalone tracks or connected to an artist's album, and in the latter case would often have at least one single release before
2856-409: Is especially important for playback of quadraphonic recordings. A few specialist laser turntables read the groove optically using a laser pickup. Since there is no physical contact with the record, no wear is incurred. However, this "no wear" advantage is debatable, since vinyl records have been tested to withstand even 1200 plays with no significant audio degradation, provided that it is played with
2958-431: Is not known, perhaps a copyright or other legal problem. The lightweight and inexpensive 45 rpm discs introduced by RCA were quickly popular and in the early 1950s all major US labels had begun manufacturing seven-inch singles. In the decades that followed, the seven-inch single was the format that many major artists made their recording debut on and some recordings were exclusively released as vinyl 45s only. According to
3060-483: Is not uniform across the English-speaking world. In modern contexts, the playback device is often referred to as a "turntable", "record player", or " record changer ". Each of these terms denotes distinct items. When integrated into a DJ setup with a mixer , turntables are colloquially known as "decks". In later versions of electric phonographs, commonly known since the 1940s as record players or turntables,
3162-588: Is often identified as the oldest surviving playable sound recording, although the evidence advanced for its early date is controversial. Wax phonograph cylinder recordings of Handel 's choral music made on June 29, 1888, at The Crystal Palace in London were thought to be the oldest-known surviving musical recordings, until the recent playback by a group of American historians of a phonautograph recording of Au clair de la lune recorded on April 9, 1860. The 1860 phonautogram had not until then been played, as it
Red Fraction - Misplaced Pages Continue
3264-500: Is released specifically on physical media. A "single album" refers to a physical release (such as a CD, LP, or other media) that typically contains one to three unique tracks, while a "single" is only a song itself, typically a digital stream or download. Although the terms "single albums" and "singles" are similar and sometimes may overlap, they are generally considered two distinct release types in South Korea. In Western contexts,
3366-533: Is unique and includes an additional term, the single album ( Korean : 싱글 음반 ; RR : singgeul eumban ). In contemporary usage in English, the term "album" refers to an LP-length recording regardless of the medium. In contrast, under the country's copyright law, the Korean usage of "album" ( Korean : 음반 ; RR : eumban ) denotes a musical recording of any length that
3468-543: The New York Times , the popularity of the seven-inch single reached a peak in 1974 when 200 million were sold. In the 1980s its popularity began to decline as jukeboxes became fewer, consumers tended to prefer to buy albums and formats such as cassettes and CDs was overtaking vinyl 45s. Despite its major decline, vinyl seven-inch singles has continued to released in the 2000s by indie labels such as Sub Pop and Third Man Records . In some regions (e.g. US),
3570-512: The Bandcamp storefront. Nowadays physically-released music is mainly bought in the form of full-length albums instead of singles. The most common physical formats of singles had been the 7" (45) vinyl records and the CD single , but singles have also been released on other formats such as 12" vinyl records , 10" shellac records, cassette single , and mini CD . The origins of the single are in
3672-605: The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) introduced digital single certification due to significant sales of digital formats, with Gwen Stefani 's " Hollaback Girl " becoming RIAA's first platinum digital single. In 2013, RIAA incorporated on-demand streams into the digital single certification. Single sales in the United Kingdom reached a low in January 2005, as the popularity of
3774-426: The Royal Society of Victoria , writing "There was a large attendance of ladies and gentlemen, who appeared greatly interested in the various scientific instruments exhibited. Among these the most interesting, perhaps, was the trial made by Mr. Sutherland with the phonograph, which was most amusing. Several trials were made, and were all more or less successful. 'Rule Britannia' was distinctly repeated, but great laughter
3876-469: The 12-inch discs allowed for wider grooves (larger amplitude) and greater separation between grooves, the latter of which results in less cross-talk. Consequently, they are less susceptible to wear and scratches. The 12-inch single is still considered a standard format for dance music , though its popularity has declined in recent years. Before the 7-inch single was introduced, 78 rpm 10-inch shellac records with around three minutes of music on them were
3978-516: The 1950s and 1960s. Singles in digital form became very popular in the 2000s. Distinctions for what makes a "single" have become more tenuous since: the biggest digital music distributor, the iTunes Store , only accepts as singles releases with three tracks or fewer that are less than ten minutes each (with longer releases being classified as " EPs " or "albums"). However, releases which do not fit these criteria have been promoted as singles by artists and labels elsewhere, such as on Spotify and
4080-422: The 1956 season had ended, Philco decided to discontinue both models, for transistors were too expensive compared to vacuum tubes, but by 1961 a $ 49.95 ($ 509.29 in 2023) portable, battery-powered radio-phonograph with seven transistors was available. There are presently three main phonograph designs: belt-drive , direct-drive , and idler-wheel . In a belt-drive turntable the motor is located off-center from
4182-593: The 2007 holiday season. The format included three songs by an artist, plus a ringtone accessible from the user's computer. Sony announced plans to release 50 singles in October and November, and Universal Music Group expected to release somewhere between 10 and 20 titles. In a reversal of this trend, a single has been released based on a ringtone itself: the Crazy Frog ringtone, which was a cult hit in Europe in 2004,
Red Fraction - Misplaced Pages Continue
4284-502: The 20th century, and phonographs became the first example of home audio that people owned and used at their residences. In the 1960s, the use of 8-track cartridges and cassette tapes were introduced as alternatives. By 1987, phonograph use had declined sharply due to the popularity of cassettes and the rise of the compact disc . However, records have undergone a revival since the late 2000s . This resurgence has much to do with vinyl records' sparing use of audio processing, resulting in
4386-572: The 45 player in March 1949. There was plenty of information leaked to the public about the new 45 rpm system through front-page articles in Billboard magazine on December 4, 1948, and again on January 8, 1949. RCA was trying to blunt the lead Columbia had established upon releasing their 33 + 1 ⁄ 3 LP system in June 1948. To compete with Columbia, RCA released albums as boxes of 45 rpm seven-inch singles that could be played continuously like an LP on their record changer. RCA
4488-469: The 78-rpm format was completely phased out. (Shellac records were heavier and more brittle.) 33s and 45s were, however, made exclusively of vinyl, with the exception of some 45s manufactured out of polystyrene . In 1955, Philco developed and produced the world's first all- transistor phonograph models TPA-1 and TPA-2, which were announced in the June 28, 1955 edition of The Wall Street Journal . Philco started to sell these all-transistor phonographs in
4590-617: The Circle Digital Chart. Even when a single album and single share the same name, they still chart separately, as was the case with the Wonder Girls single album and single " Why So Lonely ": the single album peaked at No. 3 on the Gaon Album Chart, while the single peaked at No. 1 on the Gaon Digital Chart. Record players A phonograph , later called a gramophone (as a trademark since 1887, as
4692-516: The French Academy of Sciences, claiming due scientific credit for priority of conception. Throughout the first decade (1890–1900) of commercial production of the earliest crude disc records, the direct acid-etch method first invented by Cros was used to create the metal master discs, but Cros was not around to claim any credit or to witness the humble beginnings of the eventually rich phonographic library he had foreseen. He had died in 1888 at
4794-606: The Graphophone, U.S. patent 506,348 , was developed by Tainter in 1893 to compete with nickel-in-the-slot entertainment phonograph U.S. patent 428,750 demonstrated in 1889 by Louis T. Glass, manager of the Pacific Phonograph Company. The work of the Volta Associates laid the foundation for the successful use of dictating machines in business, because their wax recording process
4896-524: The Greek words γράμμα (gramma, meaning 'letter') and φωνή (phōnē, meaning 'voice'). In British English , "gramophone" may refer to any sound-reproducing machine that utilizes disc records . These were introduced and popularized in the UK by the Gramophone Company . Initially, "gramophone" was a proprietary trademark of the company, and any use of the name by competing disc record manufacturers
4998-699: The RCA Victor 45. The first regular production 45 rpm record pressed was "PeeWee the Piccolo": RCA Victor 47-0146 pressed December 7, 1948 at the Sherman Avenue plant in Indianapolis ; R.O. Price, plant manager. The claim made that 48-0001 by Eddy Arnold was the first 45 is evidently incorrect (even though 48-0000 has not turned up, 50-0000-Crudup, 51-0000-Meisel, and 52-0000 Goodman are out there) since all 45s were released simultaneously with
5100-579: The Société d'encouragement pour l'industrie nationale, Scott's phonautograph was recording sounds with sufficient precision to be adopted by the scientific community, paving the way for the nascent science of acoustics. The device's true significance in the history of recorded sound was not fully realized prior to March 2008, when it was discovered and resurrected in a Paris patent office by First Sounds, an informal collaborative of American audio historians, recording engineers, and sound archivists founded to make
5202-516: The United States 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. Singles continued to be produced in the UK and Australia and survived the transition from compact disc to digital download. The decline of the physical single in the US during this time has been cited as
SECTION 50
#17327722965645304-423: The Volta Associates were sure that they had a number of practical inventions, they filed patent applications and began to seek out investors. The Volta Graphophone Company of Alexandria, Virginia, was created on January 6, 1886, and incorporated on February 3, 1886. It was formed to control the patents and to handle the commercial development of their sound recording and reproduction inventions, one of which became
5406-566: The age of 45. Thomas Edison conceived the principle of recording and reproducing sound between May and July 1877 as a byproduct of his efforts to "play back" recorded telegraph messages and to automate speech sounds for transmission by telephone . His first experiments were with waxed paper. He announced his invention of the first phonograph , a device for recording and replaying sound, on November 21, 1877 (early reports appear in Scientific American and several newspapers in
5508-439: The album itself, called lead singles . The single was defined in the mid-20th century with the 45 (named after its speed in revolutions per minute ), a type of 7-inch sized vinyl record containing an A-side and a B-side , i.e. one song on each side. The single format was highly influential in pop music and the early days of rock and roll , and it was the format used for jukeboxes and preferred by younger populations in
5610-541: The beginning of November, and an even earlier announcement of Edison working on a "talking-machine" can be found in the Chicago Daily Tribune on May 9 ), and he demonstrated the device for the first time on November 29 (it was patented on February 19, 1878, as US Patent 200,521). "In December, 1877, a young man came into the office of the Scientific American , and placed before the editors
5712-478: The chart, even if they only contain one song. The Circle Digital Chart , which tracks downloads and streams of sole tracks, is regarded as the official "singles" chart. To give an example of the differences between full-length albums, single albums, and singles, the K-pop girl group Wonder Girls released the single album The Wonder Begins , which consists of the single "Irony" alongside two other unique tracks and
5814-553: The compact disc was overtaken by the then-unofficial medium of the music download. Recognizing this, on 17 April 2005, Official UK Singles Chart added the download format to the existing format of physical CD singles. Gnarls Barkley was the first act to reach No.1 on this chart through downloads alone in April 2006, for their debut single " Crazy ", which was released physically the following week. On 1 January 2007, digital downloads (including unbundled album tracks ) became eligible from
5916-426: The cylinder was rotated and slowly progressed along its axis , the airborne sound vibrated a diaphragm connected to a stylus that indented the foil into the cylinder's groove, thereby recording the vibrations as "hill-and-dale" variations of the depth of the indentation. By 1890, record manufacturers had begun using a rudimentary duplication process to mass-produce their product. While the live performers recorded
6018-430: The default hole size fitted the original RCA 1.5-inch (3.8 cm) hub which, due to a format war , was incompatible with the 0.25-inch (6.4 mm) spindle of a Columbia-system 33 1/3 RPM 12-inch LP player. In other regions (e.g. UK, Australia), the default was a small hole compatible with a multi-speed 0.25-inch spindle player, but with a "knock out" that could be removed for usage on a larger hub player. One could play
6120-581: The earliest sound recordings available to the public. The phonautograms were then digitally converted by scientists at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California, who were able to play back the recorded sounds, something Scott had never conceived of. Prior to this point, the earliest known record of a human voice was thought to be an 1877 phonograph recording by Thomas Edison . The phonautograph would play
6222-508: The earliest verified recordings by the famous that have survived to the present. Alexander Graham Bell and his two associates took Edison's tinfoil phonograph and modified it considerably to make it reproduce sound from wax instead of tinfoil. They began their work at Bell's Volta Laboratory in Washington, D. C., in 1879, and continued until they were granted basic patents in 1886 for recording in wax. Although Edison had invented
SECTION 60
#17327722965646324-485: The early 1960s. These were eclipsed by more successful implementations of the concept from the late 1960s through the early 1980s. The pickup or cartridge is a transducer that converts mechanical vibrations from a stylus into an electrical signal. The electrical signal is amplified and converted into sound by one or more loudspeakers . Crystal and ceramic pickups that use the piezoelectric effect have largely been replaced by magnetic cartridges . The pickup includes
6426-494: The fall of 1955, for the price of $ 59.95. The October 1955 issue of Radio & Television News magazine (page 41), had a full page detailed article on Philco's new consumer product. The all-transistor portable phonograph TPA-1 and TPA-2 models played only 45rpm records and used four 1.5 volt "D" batteries for their power supply. The "TPA" stands for "Transistor Phonograph Amplifier". Their circuitry used three Philco germanium PNP alloy-fused junction audio frequency transistors. After
6528-571: The first Dictaphone . After the Volta Associates gave several demonstrations in the City of Washington, businessmen from Philadelphia created the American Graphophone Company on March 28, 1887, in order to produce and sell the machines for the budding phonograph marketplace. The Volta Graphophone Company then merged with American Graphophone, which itself later evolved into Columbia Records . A coin-operated version of
6630-549: The first instance of recorded verse . On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the phonograph, Edison recounted reciting Mary Had a Little Lamb to test his first machine. The 1927 event was filmed by an early sound-on-film newsreel camera, and an audio clip from that film's soundtrack is sometimes mistakenly presented as the original 1877 recording. Wax cylinder recordings made by 19th-century media legends such as P. T. Barnum and Shakespearean actor Edwin Booth are amongst
6732-409: The following year. Alexander Graham Bell 's Volta Laboratory made several improvements in the 1880s and introduced the graphophone , including the use of wax-coated cardboard cylinders and a cutting stylus that moved from side to side in a zigzag groove around the record. In the 1890s, Emile Berliner initiated the transition from phonograph cylinders to flat discs with a spiral groove running from
6834-407: The glass plate was slid horizontally in a well formed groove at a speed of one meter per second, a person would speak into the trumpet, causing the membrane to vibrate and the stylus to trace figures that were scratched into the lampblack. On March 25, 1857, Scott received the French patent #17,897/31,470 for his device, which he called a phonautograph. The earliest known surviving recorded sound of
6936-410: The groove more accurately, with increased high frequency response and less distortion. For DJ use, the relative robustness of spherical styli make them generally preferred for back-cuing and scratching. There are a number of derivations of the basic elliptical type, including the shibata or fine line stylus, which can more accurately reproduce high frequency information contained in the record groove. This
7038-476: The hard rubber used to make the discs with a shellac compound. Berliner's early records had poor sound quality, however. Work by Eldridge R. Johnson eventually improved the sound fidelity to a point where it was as good as the cylinder. In the 1930s, vinyl (originally known as vinylite) was introduced as a record material for radio transcription discs , and for radio commercials. At that time, virtually no discs for home use were made from this material. Vinyl
7140-457: The introduction of Apple's iTunes Store originally known as iTunes in January 2001, along with the emergence of portable music devices like the iPod . In September 1997, with the release of Duran Duran 's " Electric Barbarella " for paid downloads, Capitol Records became the first major label to sell a digital single from a well-known artist. Previously, Geffen Records also released Aerosmith 's " Head First " digitally for free. In 2004,
7242-546: The late 19th century, when music was distributed on phonograph cylinders that held two to four minutes' worth of audio. They were superseded by disc phonograph records , which initially also had a short duration of playing time per side. In the first two to three decades of the 20th century, almost all commercial music releases were, in effect, singles (the exceptions were usually for classical music pieces, where multiple physical storage media items were bundled together and sold as an album). Phonograph records were manufactured with
7344-495: The list. To be eligible for inclusion in charts, the single must meet the requirement set by the charting company that governs the playing time of the single. In popular music , the 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
7446-400: The master phonograph, up to ten tubes led to blank cylinders in other phonographs. Until this development, each record had to be custom-made. Before long, a more advanced pantograph -based process made it possible to simultaneously produce 90–150 copies of each record. However, as demand for certain records grew, popular artists still needed to re-record and re-re-record their songs. Reportedly,
7548-566: The matrixes to stamp disc can be shipped to other printing plants for a global distribution of recordings; cylinders could not be stamped until 1901–1902, when the gold moulding process was introduced by Edison. Through experimentation, in 1892 Berliner began commercial production of his disc records and "gramophones". His " phonograph record " was the first disc record to be offered to the public. They were five inches (13 cm) in diameter and recorded on one side only. Seven-inch (17.5 cm) records followed in 1895. Also in 1895 Berliner replaced
7650-492: The medium's first major African-American star George Washington Johnson was obliged to perform his " The Laughing Song " (or the separate "The Whistling Coon") up to thousands of times in a studio during his recording career. Sometimes he would sing "The Laughing Song" more than fifty times in a day, at twenty cents per rendition. (The average price of a single cylinder in the mid-1890s was about fifty cents.) Lambert 's lead cylinder recording for an experimental talking clock
7752-473: The movements of the stylus are transformed into an electrical signal by a transducer . This signal is then converted back into sound through an amplifier and one or more loudspeakers . The term "phonograph", meaning "sound writing", originates from the Greek words φωνή (phonē, meaning 'sound' or 'voice') and γραφή (graphē, meaning 'writing'). Similarly, the terms "gramophone" and "graphophone" have roots in
7854-426: The music recording market. 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. Another development of the 2000s was the popularity of mobile phone ringtones based on pop singles. In September 2007, Sony BMG announced that it would introduce a new type of CD single, called "ringles", for
7956-464: The next five years developing the New York City electric light and power system. Meanwhile, Bell, a scientist and experimenter at heart, was looking for new worlds to conquer after having patented the telephone . According to Sumner Tainter , it was through Gardiner Green Hubbard that Bell took up the phonograph challenge. Bell had married Hubbard's daughter Mabel in 1879 while Hubbard
8058-527: The past'). Cros was a poet of meager means, not in a position to pay a machinist to build a working model, and largely content to bequeath his ideas to the public domain free of charge and let others reduce them to practice, but after the earliest reports of Edison's presumably independent invention crossed the Atlantic he had his sealed letter of April 30 opened and read at the December 3, 1877 meeting of
8160-401: The periphery to near the centre, coining the term gramophone for disc record players, which is predominantly used in many languages. Later improvements through the years included modifications to the turntable and its drive system, stylus, pickup system, and the sound and equalization systems. The disc phonograph record was the dominant commercial audio distribution format throughout most of
8262-496: The phonograph in 1877, the fame bestowed on him for this invention was not due to its efficiency. Recording with his tinfoil phonograph was too difficult to be practical, as the tinfoil tore easily, and even when the stylus was properly adjusted, its reproduction of sound was distorted, and good for only a few playbacks; nevertheless Edison had discovered the idea of sound recording . However immediately after his discovery he did not improve it, allegedly because of an agreement to spend
8364-483: The platter, either underneath it or entirely outside of it, and is connected to the platter or counter-platter by a drive belt made from elastomeric material. The direct-drive turntable was invented by Shuichi Obata, an engineer at Matsushita (now Panasonic). In 1969, Matsushita released it as the Technics SP-10, the first direct-drive turntable on the market. The most influential direct-drive turntable
8466-430: The point of release, without the need for an accompanying physical. Sales gradually improved in the following years, reaching a record high in 2008 that still proceeded to be overtaken in 2009, 2010 and 2011. In the late 2010s, artists began a trend of releasing multiple singles before eventually releasing a studio album. An unnamed A&R representative confirmed to Rolling Stone in 2018 that "an artist has to build
8568-455: The sound, the surface is similarly rotated while a playback stylus traces the groove and is therefore vibrated by it, faintly reproducing the recorded sound. In early acoustic phonographs, the stylus vibrated a diaphragm that produced sound waves coupled to the open air through a flaring horn , or directly to the listener's ears through stethoscope -type earphones. The phonograph was invented in 1877 by Thomas Edison ; its use would rise
8670-462: The standard format. Later, 10-inch vinyl singles have commonly been released as limited edition collectors items, which sometimes includes rare tracks or special artwork. With the rise of digital downloading and audio streaming, individual tracks within an album became accessible separately. Despite this shift, the notion of a "single" from an album remains, pinpointing the more promoted or favored songs. The surge in music downloads escalated following
8772-543: The stylus, which thus described a spiral, recording 150 grooves to the inch. The basic distinction between the Edison's first phonograph patent and the Bell and Tainter patent of 1886 was the method of recording. Edison's method was to indent the sound waves on a piece of tin foil, while Bell and Tainter's invention called for cutting, or "engraving", the sound waves into a wax record with a sharp recording stylus. In 1885, when
8874-411: The time and the thickness of the needles used on record players limited the number of grooves per inch that could be inscribed on the disc surface and a high rotation speed was necessary to achieve acceptable recording and playback fidelity. 78 rpm was chosen as the standard because of the introduction of the electrically powered synchronous turntable motor in 1925, which ran at 3,600 rpm with
8976-514: The time, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy , and ended up releasing 15 tracks in the program. CD singles and 7-inch records are now obscure and uncommon for new releases: as of the 2020s singles are predominantly digital, and physical releases are mainly full-length albums instead, on CD and 12-inch LPs. The sales of singles are recorded in record charts in most countries in a Top 40 format. The charts are often published in magazines and numerous television shows and radio programs count down
9078-445: The youngest purchasers of music (younger teenagers and pre-teens ), who tend to have more limited financial resources. Starting in the mid-1960s, albums became a greater focus and became more important as artists created albums of uniformly high-quality and coherent themes, a trend that reached its apex in the development of the concept album . Over the 1990s and the early 2000s, the single generally received less and less attention in
9180-548: Was a comparatively simple matter. I had to keep my mouth about six inches away from the horn and remember not to make my voice too loud if I wanted anything approximating to a clear reproduction; that was all. When it was played over to me and I heard my own voice for the first time, one or two friends who were present said that it sounded rather like mine; others declared that they would never have recognised it. I daresay both opinions were correct." The Argus newspaper from Melbourne, Australia, reported on an 1878 demonstration at
9282-441: Was a horizontal seven inch turntable. The machine, although made in 1886, was a duplicate of one made earlier but taken to Europe by Chichester Bell . Tainter was granted U.S. patent 385,886 on July 10, 1888. The playing arm is rigid, except for a pivoted vertical motion of 90 degrees to allow removal of the record or a return to starting position. While recording or playing, the record not only rotated, but moved laterally under
9384-466: Was also releasing 7-inch singles pressed in different colors for different genres, making it easy for customers to find their preferred music. The novelty of multicolored singles wore off soon: by 1952, all RCA singles were pressed in black vinyl. The lowest recording numbers found (so far) for each genre of RCA 45s are: 47-0146 yellow, 47-2715 black, 48-0001 green, 49-0100 deep red, 50-0000 cerise, 51-0000 light blue. 52-0000 deep blue. What became of 48-0000
9486-413: Was caused by the repetition of the convivial song of 'He's a jolly good fellow,' which sounded as if it was being sung by an old man of 80 with a cracked voice." Edison's early phonographs recorded onto a thin sheet of metal, normally tinfoil , which was temporarily wrapped around a helically grooved cylinder mounted on a correspondingly threaded rod supported by plain and threaded bearings . While
9588-605: Was invented on March 25, 1857, by Frenchman Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville , an editor and typographer of manuscripts at a scientific publishing house in Paris. One day while editing Professor Longet's Traité de Physiologie , he happened upon that customer's engraved illustration of the anatomy of the human ear, and conceived of "the imprudent idea of photographing the word." In 1853 or 1854 (Scott cited both years) he began working on "le problème de la parole s'écrivant elle-même" ("the problem of speech writing itself"), aiming to build
9690-592: Was only a transcription of sound waves into graphic form on paper for visual study. Recently developed optical scanning and image processing techniques have given new life to early recordings by making it possible to play unusually delicate or physically unplayable media without physical contact. A recording made on a sheet of tinfoil at an 1878 demonstration of Edison's phonograph in St. Louis, Missouri, has been played back by optical scanning and digital analysis. A few other early tinfoil recordings are known to survive, including
9792-443: Was practical and their machines were durable. But it would take several more years and the renewed efforts of Edison and the further improvements of Emile Berliner and many others, before the recording industry became a major factor in home entertainment . Discs are not inherently better than cylinders at providing audio fidelity. Rather, the advantages of the format are seen in the manufacturing process: discs can be stamped, and
9894-601: Was president of the Edison Speaking Phonograph Co., and his organization, which had purchased the Edison patent, was financially troubled because people did not want to buy a machine that seldom worked well and proved difficult for the average person to operate. The sound vibrations had been indented in the wax that had been applied to the Edison phonograph. The following was the text of one of their recordings: "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamed of in your philosophy. I am
9996-463: Was released as a mashup with " Axel F " in June 2005 amid a massive publicity campaign and subsequently hit No. 1 on the UK chart. The term single is sometimes regarded as a misnomer since one record usually contains two songs: the A-side and B-side . In 1982, CBS marketed one-sided singles at a lower price than two-sided singles. In South Korean music , the terminology for "albums" and "singles"
10098-410: Was rigorously challenged in court. However, in 1910, an English court decision ruled that the term had become generic; In American English , "phonograph", properly specific to machines made by Edison, was sometimes used in a generic sense as early as the 1890s to include cylinder-playing machines made by others. But it was then considered strictly incorrect to apply it to Emile Berliner 's Gramophone,
10200-614: Was the Technics SL-1200 , which, following the spread of turntablism in hip hop culture, became the most widely-used turntable in DJ culture for several decades. In some high quality equipment the arm carrying the pickup, known as a tonearm, is manufactured separately from the motor and turntable unit. Companies specialising in the manufacture of tonearms include the English company SME . More sophisticated turntables were (and still are) frequently manufactured so as to incorporate
10302-770: Was the Beatles Hey Jude ; released August 1968 it clocked in at over seven minutes, pushing the limits of the 45 rpm single. Singles have been issued in various formats, including 7-inch (18 cm), 10-inch and 12-inch discs, usually playing at 45 rpm; 10-inch shellac discs, playing at 78 rpm; maxi singles ; 7-inch plastic flexi discs ; cassettes ; 8 or 12 cm (3.1 or 4.7 in) CD singles, and less commonly on Digital Compact Cassette and many non-standard sizes of vinyl disc (5 in or 13 cm, 8 in or 20 cm, etc.). Singles were also released on DVD and Laserdisc video formats, which would additionally contain music videos to be watched on
10404-399: Was used for the popular 78-rpm V-discs issued to US soldiers during World War II . This significantly reduced breakage during transport. The first commercial vinylite record was the set of five 12" discs " Prince Igor " (Asch Records album S-800, dubbed from Soviet masters in 1945). Victor began selling some home-use vinyl 78s in late 1945; but most 78s were made of a shellac compound until
#563436