A double album (or double record) is an audio album which spans two units of the primary medium in which it is sold, typically records and compact discs.
A double album is usually, though not always, released as such because the recording is longer than the capacity of the medium. Recording artists often think of double albums as a single piece artistically; however, there are exceptions such as Pink Floyd's Ummagumma (one live album and one studio record packaged together), and OutKast's Speakerboxxx/The Love Below, (effectively two solo albums, one by each member of the duo).
Since the advent of the compact disc, albums are sometimes released with a bonus disc featuring additional material as a supplement to the main album, with live tracks, studio out-takes, cut songs, or older unreleased material. An innovation is the accompaniment of a CD with a DVD of related material, such as video related to the album or DVD-Audio versions of the same recordings. These could be regarded as a new form of double album; some such discs were also released on a two-sided format called DualDisc.
The same principles apply to the triple album, which comprises three units. Packages with more units than three are often packaged as boxed sets.
Read more about Double Album: History, Manual Sequence and Automatic Sequence, Sesquialbum, Triple Album, Box Set, Simultaneous Releases
Famous quotes containing the words double and/or album:
“Even in harmonious families there is this double life: the group life, which is the one we can observe in our neighbour’s household, and, underneath, another—secret and passionate and intense—which is the real life that stamps the faces and gives character to the voices of our friends. Always in his mind each member of these social units is escaping, running away, trying to break the net which circumstances and his own affections have woven about him.”
—Willa Cather (1873–1947)
“What a long strange trip it’s been.”
—Robert Hunter, U.S. rock lyricist. “Truckin’,” on the Grateful Dead album American Beauty (1971)