I've got a short attention span. Real short. So while I can certainly appreciate long-winded mixtapes and extended double LPs, I usually skip around or occupy myself elsewhere while Sonic Youth keeps track of time in the background. Generally speaking, I prefer music pocket-sized, often in the form of EPs or 7"" records.I guess I'm not the only one, either. In the past calendar year, more and more artists seem to be embracing the art of the extended play record.
The EP was created in the 1980s by record labels and bands looking for an easy promotional tool. Labels would pick the choice nugs from the bands' LPs and ship them off to disc jockeys who would sift through them and circulate the hit singles over the radio. Likewise, venue employees would hear these brief snippets and decide which bands they wanted to book at their joints.
But nowadays, most promotional work is done over the Internet. A few thousand bands and record labels send mp3s and press releases to a few million e-mail inboxes, and everything else just sort of happens all the same. As far as promotion is concerned, the EP has been streamlined into solitary mp3s.
But people still produce EPs and 7"" records. A lot of them. Most of you will remember the hullabaloo generated by Sufjan Stevens' unannounced All Delighted People EP just a few weeks ago, but even that seemed more like a clearinghouse of old ideas than something as deliberate as, say, Freddie Gibbs' Str8 Killa EP.
Str8 Killa is nowhere near as accomplished as Gangsta Gibbs' longer mixtapes, but it does serve as a fitting introduction to a gangster rapper who takes no prisoners. It brought one of underground rap's most heralded talents to an audience that couldn't always stomach the extended vulgarities or harsh street narratives.
Other bands wield the EP for different purposes. Japandroids are an excitable garage-rock duo from Vancouver, British Columbia, who are as lovelorn as they are spunky. They broke it big early last year with their explosive, albeit brief debut LP, Post-Nothing. But while they've spent the time since touring their fun-loving live show across the globe, they've stayed in our collective conscious by introducing a series of 7"" records on Polyvinyl label.
The series includes five previously unreleased tracks from the band's Post-Nothing sessions, each paired with a cover. The EPs are slated for periodic release throughout the year, ostensibly culminating in the kind of anticipation that would eagerly purchase a brand new LP shortly thereafter.
Likewise, Tallest Man on Earth recently released an iTunes exclusive EP entitled Sometimes the Blues is Just a Passing Bird. The five new songs on the EP serve as a gentle reminder that Kristian Matsson is maybe the most pure, prolific troubadour we're likely to hear.
Beach House did the same on their own recent iTunes sessions—though those songs did little more than remind us that the kind of full-bodied beauty on their 2010 release, Teen Dream, is not easily replicable.
But while Beach House might not have really helped their cause for Teen Dream's lasting relevance, they didn't do much to hurt it, either. The EP is a low-cost maneuver because it requires very little investment from us listeners—we can just as easily discard it as we can use it as a launch pad into a new favorite artist.
Sure, it's extremely impressive when a rapper can freestyle so well over 18 tracks in one week; and there's something really powerful about the way certain bands seem to meld meaty themes and subjects into long-form albums. I totally get into the kind of intellectual stimuli that challenge contemporary narrative structures. I like all that stuff. But there's a lot going on over the Internet, and sometimes I need an abridged version to tell me whether or not I'm wasting my time.
