A double album is an audio album of sufficient length that two units of the medium in which it is sold (especially records and compact discs) are necessary to contain the entirety of it.
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, consisting of one practical solo album by each member of the hip-hop duo.
The first double album ever released was Bob Dylan's Blonde on Blonde in 1966, although at the same time Dylan was recording the album Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention were at work on the double album Freak Out!, released two months after Blonde On Blonde.
Since then, the double album format has been more often used for live albums for which material is often plentiful.
In the late 1980s, the compact disc, which can carry more music than a typical vinyl record, became the most common format on which to sell music. Albums which were originally packaged as double records were sold on a single compact disc, such as The Who's Tommy and The Rolling Stones' Exile on Main Street (though not in all cases, such as The White Album). Also, albums of the compact disc era are often longer than ones of previous decades and are packaged on two records if vinyl copies are produced. In general, an album is usually referred to as a double album when it sprawled across two units of the prominent format of its time period.
The following is a list of albums, each of which is double in the vinyl and/or the CD format.
Last updated: 10-29-2005 02:13:46
