Not quite an album. More than a single.

July 5, 2024 11:57 AM

An Ideal for Living by Corey duBrowa (Hozac Books) is the first book devoted to a music packaging format that has gone virtually unknown to some in the U.S. Yet from early jazz and rock through the punk, new wave, post-punk, alternative/indie rock eras, and ultimately up to the present, the extended play, or EP (usually four or sometimes six tracks), has been a staple of the record industry. from The Little-Known Legacy of the EP [Daily Heller]

An An Ideal for Living: A Celebration of the EP Primer Playlist [Flood]
Magnet Exclusive: Excerpt from Corey duBrowa's “An Ideal for Living: A Celebration of the E.P.”

posted by chavenet (2 comments total)

Small but Perfectly Formed: 50 Must-Have EPs (NME)
posted by box at 1:44 PM on July 5 [1 favorite]

Great post, I'm more used to the album format but sometimes the briskness of an EP really hits the spot. And like Britt Daniel says in that Magnet excerpt, sometimes magic really happens in this little zone relatively free of expectations.

EPs I love that are not mentioned in any of the links above:

of Montreal, Icons, Abstract Thee

A great companion piece to one of their best albums, Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer? with the same themes and similar high quality of songwriting.

the Mountain Goats, New Asian Cinema / Isopanisad Radio Hour / Devil in the Shortwave.

Three incredibly consistently good EPs from the incredibly prolific Mountain Goats, released around the magical transitional period circa The Coroner's Gambit when John Darnielle was starting to dabble in arrangements more elaborate than "acoustic guitar into boombox mic."

The Fiery Furnaces, EP

It's called "EP" but it's 10 songs totaling 41 minutes? More digestible than (IMO) their masterpiece Blueberry Boat. The opening suite of three songs is some of the catchiest stuff they've ever written, which is saying a lot.

Joanna Newsom, Joanna Newsom & The Ys Street Band

Worth it for "Colleen" alone, the only one of the three songs here not also released elsewhere, but the performances of songs from Ys and The Milk-Eyed Mender with instrumentation like that on Have One On Me (best Joanna Newsom album don't @ me) are a delight too.

JPEGMAFIA, EP!

Another ten-song "EP" apparently just called that due to being shorter than the artist's other stuff. I don't know if these count! JPEGMAFIA's stuff is always chaotic so having something a bit smaller is more digestible. Also a good showcase of his various styles, from straight up rapping on "BALD!" and "CUTIE PIE!" to the autotuned smooth r&b/pop of "BODYGUARD!"

Iron & Wine, Woman King

And another transitional EP, between the stripped-down Our Endless Numbered Days and full-band The Shepherd's Dog. Wonderfully diverse, starts and finishes with a couple absolutely great songs.

Kool & Kass, Coke Boys 5

OK this is just Kool A.D. (of Das Racist) and Kassa Overall messing around over other people's beats and overusing producer tags but it has some great lines and overall amuses the shit out of me.

posted by valrus at 9:43 AM on July 6 [1 favorite]