LP Record

LP Record

The LP (Long Play), or long-playing microgroove record, is a format for phonograph (gramophone) records, an analog sound storage medium. Introduced by Columbia Records in 1948, it was soon adopted as a new standard by the entire record industry. Apart from relatively minor refinements and the important later addition of stereophonic sound capability, it has remained the standard format for vinyl "albums" up to the present.

At the time the LP was introduced, nearly all phonograph records for home use were made of an abrasive (and therefore noisy) shellac compound, employed a much larger groove, and played at approximately 78 rpm, limiting the playing time of a 12-inch record to less than five minutes per side. The new product was a 12 or 10-inch fine-grooved disc made of vinyl and played with a smaller-tipped "microgroove" stylus at a speed of 33⅓ rpm. Each side of a 12-inch LP could play for more than 20 minutes. Only the microgroove standard was truly new, as both vinyl and the 33⅓ rpm speed had been used for special purposes for many years, as well as in one unsuccessful earlier attempt to introduce a long-playing record for home use. Although the LP was especially suited to classical music because of its extended continuous playing time, it also allowed a collection of ten or more typical "pop" music recordings to be put on a single disc. Previously, such collections, as well as longer classical music broken up into several parts, had been sold as sets of 78 rpm records in a specially imprinted "record album" consisting of individual record sleeves bound together in book form. The use of the word "album" persisted for the one-disc LP equivalent.

The LP was soon confronted by the "45", a 7-inch fine-grooved vinyl record playing at 45 rpm, introduced by RCA Victor in 1949. Originally expected to compete with the LP, boxed "albums" of 45s were issued, as well as "EP" (Extended Play) 45s, which squeezed two or even three selections onto each side, but the 45 succeeded only in directly replacing the "78" as the format for issuing "singles" of individual popular songs. Reel-to-reel magnetic tape recorders posed a new challenge to the LP in the 1950s, but the higher cost of prerecorded tapes was one of several factors that confined tape to a niche market. Despite the later introduction of cartridge and cassette tapes, which were more convenient and less expensive than reel-to-reel tapes and became popular for use in automobiles beginning in the mid-1960s, the LP was not seriously challenged as the primary medium for listening to recorded music at home until the 1970s, when the audio quality of magnetic tapes was greatly improved by better tape formulations and noise reduction systems. Only the 1983 advent of the digital Compact Disc (CD), which offered a recording that was generally noiseless and not audibly degraded by repeated playing or relatively careless handling, succeeded in toppling the LP from its throne, but only after the initially high prices of CDs and CD players had come down.

Along with phonograph records in general, some of which were made of other materials, LPs are now widely referred to simply as "vinyl". From the late 1990s and growing steadily through the 21st century onwards, a renewed interest in vinyl has occurred and the demand for the medium has been on a steady increase yearly in niche markets, particularly among audiophiles, DJs and fans of indie music. Most sales of music are of compact discs or digital file formats because of their generally cheaper prices and wider availability.