Jonathan Darby ([email protected])
Tue, 27 Oct 1998 00:08:16 -0000
(The following info applies to the UK ,other countries might have different
rules)
I thought I'd post this to Wire just in case anybody else was interested.
The reason that there is only three songs on each of the CD singles is that
if you release a CD single you are only allowed to put either 4 songs or 20
minutes worth of music on it which ever is the least. Until recently record
companies were allowed to put 8 songs or 40 minutes worth of music on which
lead to endless amount of remixes being put onto the end of CD singles.
Record companies are also only allowed to release a single on three formats
i.e. CD, tape, vinyl but most record companies choose to put out 2 CD's and
a tape. If they want to release a vinyl version of the song as well as 2
CD's and a tape then they must discontinue one of the others. That is why
some songs have the vinyl or second CD released a week later (I think this
happened with Stay but I'm not sure at all) although this isn't very popular
anymore vinyl releases are usually scrapped altogether unless it's a dance
tune.
Next time your in a record store have a look and see if you can find a
single on 2 CD's, tape and vinyl.
Also except to pay 3.99 when you go into the record shop this week as
singles are usually only 1.99 for the first week to get them into the chart
at as high a position as possible. This also goes some way to explaining
why singles are released on 2 CD's it counts as two sales of the single if
you buy both CD's and gets the single higher up in the charts.
Hope this helps
Jon.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.0b2 on Mon Oct 26 1998 - 16:19:35 PST