In this streaming era we live in, we always complain about the length of the albums or messy rollouts... and yet, there's an element of the promotion that gets sidetracked in the conversations: the art of single releases. And no, I don't mean like music videos or traditional promotion, which still exists, but rather the advantages of PHYSICAL single releases. Of course I don't expect than in this times of diminishing sales for an artist to release a CD/cassette/vinyl of every single promotional release in an album cycle (even the bigger ones release those as collectible items), but those small perks that physical (and to some extent, digital single releases before the streaming era) are sorely missed.
You see, back in the days of Elvis and Chuck Berry, singles were the source of income for artists, with the switch to albums not taking place until the 70s with singles becoming advertisement for albums. This last point had an adverse effect in the late-80s and 90s as record labels sometimes didn't issued physical singles from popular songs in the hopes that the audience will buy the whole album instead: this helped, for example, MC Hammer's
Please Hammer, Don't Hurt 'Em to sell over 10 million copies as the lead single,
U Can't Touch This, was released mostly as either
7-or-12-inches records (a small vinyl, for those who might not know) and in
a CD format only in Europe (this is why it only peaked at #7 in Billboard); however, this system also prevented songs like No Doubt's
Don't Speak and Goo Goo Dolls'
Iris to chart at all despite being radio monster (the former in particular remained
16 weeks at number one in the airplay chart, and the latter for 18) because they weren't given physical releases in the United States other than promo CDs.
Even if a balance wasn't always reached (thanks in part to the prominence of digital downloads the next decade), two things remained standard when it comes to singles: a unique art cover, and the accompanying B-side.
The art cover
Back in the
gay olde days, art cover for singles was basically a photograph of the artist either from a photoshoot, a performance or similar, or even a colorful graphic for the title of the song and the artist's name; it was everything that was needed back then. However, as album artwork moved forward from the usual portrait (thanks in part to releases like Otis Reeding's
Otis Blue and the Beatles'
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band) single’s covers slowly started to change to better complement the album's imagery.
If the album artwork revolved around a photograph of the performer, the singles were expected to follow suit (see: Mariah Carey’s entire discography, but specially the single
Fantasy, in which
the cover is the full version of the parent album
Daydream’s
cover photograph); in cases in which the cover was any kind of graphic the singles would revolve around the same theme (see: Coldplay’s entire discography, but especially
the singles for
X&Y that, just like the album, featured the titled written in the
Baudot code), and for visually dedicated performers like Pink Floyd (see: the cover of
The Division Bell singles) and 30 Seconds to Mars (see: the cover of the
Love Lust Faith + Dreams singles) it wasn’t uncommon for the singles cover to follow a certain theme that might not entirely reflect the album cover.
Of course, this didn’t always happened: None of Michael Jackson’s singles reflected the artwork of the era and focused instead into represent the song itself (see:
Scream and
You Are Not Alone vs.
HIStory) and sometimes it was common for the first, last or the occasional loose single to have a different style from the other releases of the era (see: Ariana’s
Problem vs. the other
My Everything singles, or Lady Gaga’s
Paparazzi and
Just Dance vs.
the rest of The Fame era, or
Telephone in
The Fame Monster era), but of course this was always subject to the artistic vision of the performer.
This doesn’t mean that it’s not like this anymore: some performers like Calvin Harris, The 1975 and Beyoncé still try to keep a consistent theme between eras, however they’re dime a dozen in this times. Just take a look at Nicki Minaj in the
Queen era, moving from the consistency of
Barbie Tingz/
Chun-Li to
Rich Sex and then
Bed, all of them without any visual attachment to the parent album’s cover, which was
apparently a stylistically choice… or a choice to say at least.
However, she at least tries, unlike people like Rihanna, who releases remixes EPs (see:
Desperado,
Sex with Me,
Pose,
Consideration) with the album cover instead of a dedicated cover like the other EPs (ex.
Love on the Brain); or Taylor, who after creating a very consistent aesthetic in the
1989 era (with the exception of the
Bad Blood remix, all of the singles in the era
featured a Polaroid-inspired cover) seems to have been contractually forced to use the
reputation album cover for every single of the era (except for
the remixes, which needed
colored version of the
same image because why not?), which was kinda ironic because the
RIAA certifications plaques included a different photo for each track, photos that could have been used very easily if she wanted to. And, in fact, there’s a limited physical release of
Look What You Made Me Do with
a proper cover… not exactly the greatest but at least it’s not the album cover.
And let’s not even talk about Dua Lipa:
New Love,
Be The One and
Last Dance are photos of her with a flowery background,
Hotter Than Hell sort of follows the idea (albeit with a red background), and then…
Blow Your Mind (Mwah) and
Room For 2 uses the photo that will eventually became the parent album cover (without the song title and with a colder tint) only to be followed by
Thinking ‘Bout You reusing the same photo only with the song’s title this time AND THEN
Lost In Your Light removing the song’s title once again, only to be bought back in the
remixes EP; at least by this point
New Rules finally found a new image (which was
colored in a different way depending of the release, except for the fan-made-turned-official-release
Initial Talk remix, which apparently needed its own separate cover) and
IDGAF doing its thing with Dua shaving her armpits (once again
recolored in the
remixes EPs for your convenience, as it should be)… however, this makes me wonder why the
Live Acoustic EP could get its own photo while the promo single
Want To needed to rehash the cover of the upcoming
The Complete Edition, which is basically a glittered version of the actual album cover and the same photo of 4 of the 8 singles released at the moment.
Of course Dua isn’t the only one, or the worst example, just the most prominent I could think of. Art covers are a dying art, especially in an era in which they are mostly seen in small screens, and when even albums can go lazy in the artwork department (ex. The Rolling Stones’
Blue & Lonesome, Britney Spears’
Glory) or not even bothering to have any real artwork (ex. Post Malone’s
Beerbongs & Bentleys, Kanye West’s
Yeezus) what can we really expect from the streaming era in the singles department? Photoshop failures like Mariah’s
You Don't Know What to Do or Selena Gomez and Marshmello’s
Wolves? Trying way too much approaches like DJ Khaled’s
No Brainer and Sia’s
Cheap Thrills? Lazy efforts like
Bitch I’m Madonna, or Ed Sheeran in the
whole Divide era? Or whatever the fuck Jessie J’s
Bang Bang was?
The B-Sides
When singles were released in vinyl, the A-side was usually reserved for the popular or commercially viable track, and the B-side was, well, a different story:
- Outtakes from the recording session of the parent album (ex. Michael Jackson’ Shout, a B-Side from Cry, and Fleetwood Mac’s Silver Spring, a B-Side from Go Your Own Way)
- Tracks that didn’t fit thematically or sonically with the parent album (ex. The Beatles’ You Know My Name (Look Up The Number), a B-Side from Let It Be; ABBA’s Should I Laugh or Cry, a B-Side from One of Us)
- Tracks with little to no commercial appeal, which the artist wanted to share with the audience for one reason or another (ex. Madonna’s Up Down Suite, a B-Side from Rain; and Kate Bush’s Ken, a B-Side from Love and Anger and originally a song composed for the comedy show The Comedy Strips Presents…)
- A few times, the “B-side” was actually a second A-side; this is similar to today’s strategy of releasing two singles at the same time to different markets or to see which ones sticks (ex. The Beatles’ Eleanor Rigby/Yellow Submarine in 1966 and Elvis Presley’s Hound Dog/Don’t Be Cruel in 1956)
- Sometimes, the B-Side outshined the A-Side or became as popular as the lead track (ex. Gloria Gaynor’s I Will Survive, a B-Side from Substitute, and Queen’s We Are The Champions/We Will Rock You from 1977)
- In the earlier days in which mono and stereo coexisted together, it was the norm to include both versions of a track in each side, for the disc jockey’s convenience.
- For longer songs, the track sometimes was divided between both sides, with the A-side being the portion played at radio and the B-side the remainder of the track (ex. Don McLean’s American Pie and Bob Dylan’s Like A Rolling Stone, two tracks that became popular in their full version, and the Isley Brothers’ Shout)
With the advent of cassettes, 12” vinyl, and later CDs, the distinction of B-side became obsolete, instead the name became an umbrella term for whatever accompanied a single release in its release, which didn’t needed to be a sole track:
- Alternative versions of the main track like extended (ex. Donna Summer’s 8-minute-version of I Feel Love and the Non-Stop Express Mix of Madonna’s Express Yourself) or average remixes (ex. Jamie xx/The xx’s take on Florence + the Machine’s You’ve Got The Love, and The Magician’s remix of Lykke Li’s I Follow Rivers), acoustic versions (ex. Radiohead’s Creep and Cliff Nobles’ The Horse, the instrumental version and B-Side of Love is All Right, which became a #2 hit in Billboard while the original version was ignored), live versions (ex. My Chemical Romance’s Welcome to the Black Parade from the 7” vinyl, and Mariah’s Hero [Live from Here Is Mariah] from the US Maxi CD single), alternative language versions (ex. Kylie Minogue’s Los Amores, a Spanish version of All The Lovers; and Beyoncé’s solo Spanish version of Beautiful Liar called Bello Embustero) or other kind of rarities like radio edits (ex. Daft Punk’s Get Lucky) or demos (ex. Metallica’s Nothing Else Matters).
- Album cuts, if the album itself was close to release or if the artist was in need of promotion (ex. Kanye’s Can’t Tell Me Nothing included Barry Bonds for some reason, and Duran Duran’s comeback single Ordinary World included several of their previous hits like Hungry Like The Wolf and The Reflex in order to capitalize on the band’s newfound success)
- Instrumental or alternative version of album tracks (ex. The “shaketon” version of Shakira’s La Tortura and Alan Walker’s instrumental take of Faded)
- Tracks recorded or completed for the sole purpose of being used as a B-side (ex. The covers in the Spotify Singles releases of any given artist)
B-Sides were a necessity of the time, as they added an extra incentive to the casual fans to buy the single if they already owned the album, and gave non-fans a chance to explore more of the artist’s catalogue. However, as technology moved forward, the idea of B-Sides became obsolete and was slowly replaced by bonus tracks in deluxe or extended editions; in the past, B-Sides were compiled in especial dedicated albums (ex. Gorillaz’
G Sides and
D Sides, The Killers’
Sawdust) and Oasis’
The Masterplan)), included as bonus tracks in reissues or being only available in box sets (ex. The Smashing Pumpkins’
The Aeroplane Flies High, Nirvana’s
With the Lights Out and Prince’s
The Hits/The B-Sides) as an incentive for new or diehard fans.
In today’s era is very common for single’s accompaniment to be either commissioned remixes or alternative edits for radio or videos, which would rarely get released in physical format or at all: Remixes are mostly thrown out in streaming services and digital stores without too much fanfare and normally as separated releases (ex. St. Vincent’s version of Maroon 5’s
Girls Like You) and other version suffer of the same fate (ex. The
“acoustic” and
live renditions of Dua Lipa’s
New Rules) or just get outright ignored (ex. The radio edit of Calvin Harris’s
Faking It and the no-rap version of Camila Cabello’s
Havana debuted in
Now That’s What I Call Music! 65) as singles/EPs sections of artists get cluttered with entries featuring the exact same or similar photo for each slightly different version of a track when maxi singles or remixes EP were used with the exact same purpose.
Today’s equivalent of B-Sides seems to be releasing a single and putting it as the first track in a made-up EP consisting of the previously released tracks from the same era, sometimes without even bothering changing the cover at all, just to get some of that juicy and sweet streaming money: The Chainsmokers pioneered this with their current release pattern of one song per month and inventing an EP out of thin air out of them (right now it’s called
Sick Boy… Save Yourself and features 6 singles), however they’re not the only ones who do this: Twenty One Pilots has
My Blood and A Few Others from Trench (which follows
Jumpsuit/Levitate/Nico And The Niners), Muse recently released the originally titled
The Dark Side/Something Human/Thought Companion/Dig Down (two of those songs are from 2017 BTW)… heck,
even my faves aren’t safe from this practice. Unfortunately, artists doesn’t seems interested in the B-Sides concept anymore, outside of the occasional Record Store Day release, and honestly in this current music climate I can’t blame them. We always talk about how streaming have made charts stagnant or unpredictable/unreliable (sometimes at the same time) or albums/singles rollout meaningless, and yet, we don’t really stop thinking about how much EVERYTHING else has changed, either for the best or for the worst.
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