Episode 179 - The Double Album Mixtape (Disc 1)

Download

The dreaded double album. In the eyes of some, it’s an aberration. A sure sign of a band with too much ego/money/time and not enough tunes to make it really work. Well, join us this week as we talk all things double album.

The double album dates back to the last 50s, with Ella Fitzgerald first releasing a double LP set with her 1956 album Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Cole Porter Songbook. Yet many will claim that Blonde on Blonde by Bob Dylan is the first true example of a double album in popular culture because it was the first double LP set that contained original songs.

Whatever the case, the double album truly began to blossom into the 70s, when many bands started to take advantage of the double LP format to create sprawling works that no single LP could contain. Different variations on the format followed - the triple album, the Sesquialbum, the quadruple album, the box set to name them - but as time went by, and the physical format gave way to streaming, it seems that double albums are no longer the statement they once were.

On this episode we’ll cover the history of the double album, talk about some highlights, discuss some of our favourites as well as some good (and bad) examples of the genre.

Next week, we talk about the three albums we’ve picked as the best examples of the format.