LP Album Catalogue (33 RPM)
About the Vinyl LP Album
The LP album was the most popular format for recorded music for some two decades. The LP has had a lasting appeal over a long period of time. Recording artists, viewed the format as key, even as sales of new releases saw a decline in more recent years. Bear in mind a lot of albums sold in the 1970's and early 1980's sold millions of copies when new, and as such, it isn't difficult to find copies in nice, playable condition. A vinyl record is an analogue recording, and CDs are digital recording. The popularity of the CD in its first years rivalled that of the first years of the LP record. Due to this increase in the popularity of CD's, many people believed that the LP record would disappear by the early 1990's. Vinyl records have, however, been making a gradual comeback in recent years; even though popular demand and sales may never match the levels of their heyday.
Double albums offered extended playing time for live and compilation releases. Record collectors may prefer to have an original copy of an album, arguing that it offers better sound quality than a reissue: record collectors consider that an early UK pressing is the best. It does not have be the first issue as long as it has a lower stamper number on the disc. The much lauded Sgt. Pepper Beatles LP, was released in May 1967. In the case of Sgt. Pepper there is an opinion that the mono album version is better than the stereo one, because of the way different mixes were made. Probably it is just nice to have a copy of an original recording from 1967. The late 1960's saw the introduction of eight track recording technology in studios offering greater opportunities to engineer the sound of a record, as can be heard on the album Abbey Road by the Beatles, recorded at the EMI studios.
The mono Long Play record of the 1950's and 1960's had an extremely good sound quality, which was due in part to the refinements in recording techniques and technology that took place, together with sequential improvements in the playback media (gramophones, record players or turntables). The stereo record was introduced in the mid-1960's. The quality of the sound of some stereo records was inferior to the mono version at this time. Then again turntable, amplification and speaker systems, at the time were not always that sophisticated. And in other cases stereo mixing was the original focus of recording sessions. In the 1970's there was a progression from mono to stereo. Soon, albums were no longer being made in mono as stereo technology took over.