Prospectus

Issue date: 4/8/08 Section: The Swearingen

[For the purposes of this article, an extended play is a musical recording with at least three non-album tracks, fewer than ten total tracks, and a running time under thirty minutes. By this definition, some recordings marketed as LPs or singles would qualify as EPs and therefore be eligible for my geeky list; conversely some recordings marketed as EPs would be ineligible; while that might seem a bit confusing, I assure you my definition is more sensible than the record industry's, which asserts that Weezer's (terrible) ten song, twenty-eight-minute Green Album constitutes a full-fledged LP, while Modest Mouse's (awesome) eleven song, seventy-two-minute Interstate 8 merits the diminutive EP designation.]

Generally speaking, the extended play format doesn't make a whole lot of sense:

From a record company's perspective, a CD with 10-20 minutes of music costs just as much to manufacture as one with 30-40 minutes, only the retail price is going to be lower because it's an EP as opposed to a full-length album; it's also not going to sell anywhere close to as many copies because far less money goes into commercial promotion and, for the most part, only hardcore fans will buy the thing.

From the greedy rockstar's perspective, 4-8 songs could easily be padded with some filler-a fifteen-minute dirge with a long, boring guitar solo maybe-and released as a more lucrative LP.

From the (theoretical) perspective of the artist who cares about his fans or the integrity of his work, the question arises: why not hold off and release the songs on a fully realized album so your fans don't have to pay $7-$10 for the EP and then another $12-$15-or if their fans shop at Sam Goodie, maybe more like $25-for the next album?

And from the consumer's perspective, EPs are a lot of money for very little music, and music that's very seldom worthwhile at that.

Nevertheless, a handful of EPs rise above the cynical nature of their medium to achieve something truly special: more than offering a song for an artist anthology mix-tape, these EPs offer two, and sometimes THREE songs worthy of inclusion on artist anthology mix-tapes. Without further ado, here are my top eleven EPs of all time:

11. Radiohead: Airbag/How Am I Driving?

In 1993, Radiohead crawled out of some Oxfordshire dungeon to achieve sudden ubiquity with the bathetic "Creep," only to be summarily dismissed as one-hit-wonders. In 1994, Radiohead made their first move towards critical respectability with the My Iron Lung EP, and three years later, they were the world's only mega-popular rock band that didn't suck profusely. How did they do it? Cockney witchery of some sort? Probably.

Continued...

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