Rockissue

Albums and What-Not: The Extended Play, the Mini-Album

Many of us listeners tend to think of the recorded work of post-1964 Rock acts as a series of albums; possibly, we are also inclined to rank each album in quality, one lower than the other all the way down to regrettable reunion efforts. Even apparent exceptions: artists who pointedly released non-L. P. singles, most of all certain British artists from the mid-Sixties through the Eighties, nonetheless end up with compilations of those singles (say, the Smiths' Louder than Bombs) being the subject of attention, instead of the multiple individual singles. Or the singles are added to the "deluxe" reissues of albums. Even when this is done appropriately—that is, the singles included are those released around the same time as the album, perhaps even recorded at the same sessions—the singles are subsumed under the album.

Another major exception, however, perhaps more fully counters this album-centric perspective: the greater emphasis placed on the Extended Play single (E. P.) in Punk, Hardcore, and Indie music, especially in the late Seventies and early Eighties. Granted, some acts merely never graduated, so to speak, from singles and E. P.s to albums; in which case they are hardly different from countless music artists who never released more than a few singles. After all, since vinyl L. P.s and 45s displaced shellac 78s in the early Fifties, giving artists and labels more options in releasing music, new acts have tended to start with singles, requiring less content obviously and costing less to produce. Then E. P.s served as the stepping stone on the way to albums. In some cases, E. P.s were samplers of albums or compilations of recently-released singles, both products targeted at consumers who did not want to pay the price of a full-length album. And even then, the format was more prevalent in Britain than the States.

However, with Punk, Hardcore, and Indie (and at times Metal) bands, E. P.s became more important. In part, the relative lack of funds explains this tendency, but so did the goal of avoiding the norms of the record industry; and being creative when faced with the challenge of turning artistic work into commercial products; not to mention, genuine affection for the smallness, and thus craft-like qualities, of the format, allowing for personalization of a commodified product. Furthermore, with Hardcore Punk specifically, shorter songs meant that an E. P. could offer much of the band's current repertoire. At times, this has even lead to 12-inch 45s being misleadingly labeled as albums: the Minutemen's The Punch Line for example. This album gets this designation because it includes 18 tracks, but those tracks are short; the "album" is only about 15 minutes long.

Extended plays by Punk and Hardcore artists, at least early on, tended to be 7-inch 45s, with two or more songs per side instead of one. But 12-inch 45s, the higher-quality E. P. format originally associated with Disco, became more common as the years went by and resources and ambitions grew. (More rarely, on the other side of the sonic-fidelity spectrum, there were 7-inch records played at 33-and-one-third.) Any list of E. P.s from the post-Punk/ post-Hardcore years not only provides a great starting point for listening to the artists in question, but, again, in some cases names their major, lasting contributions to the art of recorded sound. These releases provide a glimpse of the days when the music that fell under the genre names Punk, Indie, College, and Alternative Rock seemed to emanate from a halcyon "small world" of independent labels serving as marks of quality; local scenes with a definite sense of their own history and style; and artists eschewing what they considered to be artistically-enervating standards of professionalization, hoping in some cases to remain independent of larger labels and mainstream culture. This world is described in books like Steven Blush's American Hardcore and Michael Azerrad's Our Band Could Be Your Life.

The list below includes E. P.s by prominent acts of the Punk-Indie era. Only those that clearly seem to be more than a single are listed. Granted, versions of a single that feature more than one B-side track were becoming more common during these years as well, leading eventually to the Nineties trend of multiple C. D. versions of a single. Either way, the distinction at work here is between a E. P., having an identity separate from an album, and a single, often featuring a song drawn from an album (or if a non-L. P. single, then generally identified only by its eponymous track). This distinction is messy, because an E. P., like an album, can have a title track. In the end, the artist's and listeners' perception of the record comes into play. When we hear of Black Flag's “Nervous Breakdown’, do we think of the song, ‘Nervous Breakdown’ or the entire E. P. Nervous Breakdown? Sometimes the label itself is decisive; with Nervous Breakdown, the E. P. title is stated separately on the label, whereas with Black Flag's ‘Six Pack’, it is not. In other cases, the labels are too bare-bones to draw such conclusions, or feature artwork instead of track information. The size and rotating speed of the record are noted, as are the number of tracks per side. If the E. P. is on the long side, its length is noted, so that we can begin to delineate betwen the E. P. and the album, or mini-album.

1977

The Avengers - We Are the One
7-inch, 45, two songs on side A, one song on B
The Buzzcocks - Spiral Scratch
7-inch, 45, two songs per side

1978

Big in Japan - From Y to Z and Never Again
7-inch, 45, two songs per side
Cabaret Voltaire - Extended Play
7-inch, 45, two songs per side
The Middle Class - Out of Vogue
7-inch, 45, two songs per side
The Fall - Bingo-Master's Break-Out!
7-inch, 45, two songs on side A, one on side B
Negative Trend - Negative Trend
7-inch, 45, two songs per side
The Tom Robinson Band - Rising Free....
7-inch, 33-and-one-third, two songs per side
The Television Personalities - Where's Bill Grundy Now?
7-inch, 45, two songs per side

1979

Black Flag - Nervous Breakdown
7-inch, 45, one song on side A, three on side B
The Clash - The Cost of Living E.P.
7-inch, 45, two songs per side
The Homosexuals - The Homosexuals EP
12-inch, 45, three songs per side

1980

The Angry Samoans - Inside My Brain
12-inch, 45, two songs on side A, four on side B
Black Flag - Jealous Again
12-inch, 45, two songs side A, three on side B
Ludus - The Visit
12-inch, 45, two songs per side
This Heat - Health and Efficiency
12-inch, 45, one song per side

1981

Agent Orange - Living in Darkness
12-inch 33-and-one-third, four songs per side (nearly 20 minutes long)
Bad Religion - Bad Religion
7-inch, 33-and-one-third, three tracks per side; reissued at times as both a 12-inch and 7-inch 45
The Descendents - Fat E.P.
7-inch, 45, two songs on side A, three on side B
Discharge - Why
12-inch, 45, five songs per side
D. N. A. - A Taste of DNA
12-inch, 33-and-one-third, three songs per side
E. S. G. - ESG
12-inch, 45, three songs per side
Government Issue - Legless Bull E. P.
7-inch, 45, five songs per side
J. F. A. - Blatant Localism EP
7-inch, 45, four songs on side, two on side B
The Meat Puppets - In a Car
7-inch, 45, two songs on side A, three on side B; reissued once as a 10-inch 45
The Minutemen - The Punch Line
12-inch, 45, nine songs per side
Minor Threat - Minor Threat
7-inch, 45, four songs per side
The Misfits - 3 Hits from Hell
7-inch, 45, one song per side, two songs per side
Mission of Burma - Signals, Calls, and Marches
12-inch, 33-and-one-third, three songs per side (nearly 21 minutes long)
T. S. O. L. - T. S. O. L.
12-inch, 45, two songs on side B, three on side B

1982

Big Black - Lungs
12-inch, 45, three songs per side
The Big Boys - Fun, Fun, Fun...
12-inch, 45, three songs per side
D. O. A. - War on 45
12-inch, 45, four songs per side (around 20 minutes long)
The Fastbacks - The Fastbacks Play Five of Their Favorites
12-inch, 45, three songs on side A, two on side B
The March Violets - Religious as Hell
12-inch, 45, two songs per side
Negative Approach - Negative Approach
12-inch, 45, five songs per side
R. E. M. - Chronic Town
12-inch, 33-and-one-third, three songs on side A, two on side B (nearly 21 minutes long)
T. S. O. L. - Weathered Statues
7-inch, 45, also released at 33-and-one-third, two songs per side
U. K. Decay - Rising from the Dread
12-inch, 45, one song on side A, three on side B

1983

Agent Orange - When You Least Expect It...
12-inch, 33-and-one-third, two songs per side
Agnostic Front - United Blood
7-inch, 45, five songs per side; reissued once as a 7-inch 33-and-one-third
The Bangles - The Bangles
12-inch, 33-and-one-third, three songs on side A, two on side B
Big Black - Bulldozer
12-inch, 45, two songs per side
The Birthday Party - The Bad Seed
12-inch, 45, two songs per side
The Birthday Party - Mutiny!
12-inch, 45, two songs per side; French version 33-and-one-third
The Butthole Surfers - The Butthole Surfers
12-inch, 45, three songs on side A, four on side B; U. K. version 33-and-one-third
Fang - Landshark!
12-inch, 45, four songs per side
Hüsker Dü - Metal Circus
12-inch, 45, four songs on side A, three on side A; reissued at times as a 10-inch 45
Minor Threat - Out of Step
12-inch, alternately pressed at 33-and-one-third and 45, four songs on side A, five on side B (21-and-one-half minutes long)
The Minutemen - Buzz or Howl under the Influence of Heat
12-inch, 45, five song on side A, three on side B
Naked Raygun - Basement Screams
12-inch, 45, three songs on side A, four songs on side B (final track—an alternate version of the first track—excluded on L. P. reissues that feature the E. P. on side A and demos on side B)
The Scientists - Blood Red River
12-inch, 33-and-one-third, three songs on side A, three on side B (about 19 minutes long)

1984

The Fastbacks - Every Day Is Saturday
12-inch, 45, four songs per side
Scratch Acid - Scratch Acid
12-inch, 45, four songs per side (nearly 22 minutes long)
U-Men - U-Men
12-inch, 45, two songs per side

1985

Big Black - Racer-X
12-inch, 45, three songs per side
The Butthole Surfers - Cream Corn from the Socket of Davis
12-inch, 45, two songs per side
Alex Chilton - Feudalists Tarts
12-inch, 33-and-one-third, two songs on side A, four on side B (22 minutes long)
The Membranes - Death to Trad Rock
12-inch, 45, two songs per side
Squirrel Bait - Squirrel Bait
12-inch, 33-and-one-third, four songs per side (about 18 minutes long)
U-Men - Stop Spinning
12-inch, 33-and-one-third, three songs per side (about 21 mintues long)

1986

Pussy Galore - Groovy Hate Fuck
12-inch, 45, four songs on side A, three on side B (about 20 minutes long)

1987

Soundgarden - Screaming Life EP
12-inch, 45, three songs per side (about 22 minutes long)
Throwing Muses - Chains Changed
12-inch, 45, two songs per side

1988

Operation Ivy - Hectic E.P.
7-inch, 45, three songs per side (reissued as 12-inch, 45)
Snapper - Snapper
12-inch, 45, two songs per side

Of these acts, those whose primary contribution came in the form of these singles and E. P.s included the Middle Class (who released only one full-length), Negative Trend (whose overall discography is brief), the Angry Samoans (who also released a highly-regarded album), Squirrel Bait (who released a full-length then splintered into other bands), Minor Threat (whose Complete Discography famously fits onto a single C. D.), Negative Approach (who released only one full-length), the Pin Group (who did not make an L. P.), Snapper (who would go on to release two albums, arguably inferior to their debut E. P.), and the Scientists (their E. P.s also being superior, and having overall a confusing discography). The March Violets did not tread into album territory until their reunion decades later.

These E. P.s, when considered collectively, comprise a central part of the story of Rock in the Punk era, challenging any album-centric perspective. But we purposely have not yet listed those groups who avoided albums to a greater extent: New Zealand bands like the Clean and the Tall Dwarfs who often released music on the Flying Nun label, which can be said to be the great proponent of the Extended Play format, even putting out a split double 12-inch E. P., Dunedin Double, released on Flying Nun featuring the Chills, Sneaky Feelings, the Stones, and the Verlaines.

The Clean only released their beloved Compilation in the early phase of their career, waiting until 1990 for a full-length of all-new material. But the Tall Dwarfs were the most E. P.-centric. Six E. P.s during the Eighties comprise nearly all of their early work; they also released That's the Short & Long of it, an E. P.-L. P. combo: one side rotating at 33-and-one-third, the other at 45. Throwing Muses would do this too for The Fat Skier, but that is more of a curio combination of an E. P. (six new tracks all pushed onto the 33-and-one-third A side) and a single (a new version of ‘Soul Soldier’ from the band's debut album on the 45 B side). Both of these reocrds are long enough to be considered albums, especially That's the Short & Long of it, at 37 minutes.

Some New Zealand E. P.s...

1981

The Clean - Boodle Boodle Boodle
12-inch, 45, three songs on side A, two on side B
The Tall Dwarfs - Three Songs
12-inch, 45, one song on side A, two on side B

1982

The Pin Group - The Pin Group Go to Town
12-inch, 45, three songs on side A, two on side B
The Tall Dwarfs - Louis Likes His Daily Dip
12-inch, 45, four songs on side A, three on side B

1983

The Tall Dwarfs - Canned Music
12-inch, 45, 4 songs on side A, three on side B; reissued once at 33-and-one-third

1984

The Bats - By Night
12-inch, 45, three songs per side
The Tall Dwarfs - Slugbuckethairybreathmonster
12-inch, 45, three songs on side A, two on side B

1985

The Bats - And Here Is 'Music for the Fireside'
12-inch, 45, four songs on side A, three on side B (about 21 minutes long)
The Chills - The "Lost" E.P.
12-inch, 45, four songs on side A, two on side B

1986

The Bats - Made Up in Blue
12-inch, 45, one song on side A, two on side B
The Tall Dwarfs - Throw a Sickie
12-inch, 45, four songs on side A, five on side B (about 21 minutes long)

1987

The Tall Dwarfs - Dogma
12-inch, 33-and-one third (New Zealand version), 45 (European version), three songs per side

The Tall Dwarfs' Dogma, despite being less than 20 minutes, was pressed at 33-and-one-third R. P. M. It is one of several E. P.s we have noted that were pressed at 33-and-one-third though they could have easily been pressed at 45 (and thus had better sund quality). Apparently, this tendency was commoner in the States than Britain and was perhaps intended to help market the album to those who did not want to bother changing their turntable speed. This factor helps explain why a record clearly of "E. P." length, like Agent Orange's Living in Darkness, is often called an album. After all, it was pressed at 33-and-one-third! But the rotation speed alone cannot make a record an album; because then a 5-minute single could be pressed at 33-and-one third and declared a full-length album. Still, we must accept that the line betweeen the album and the E. P. has often been arbitrary. As discussed in ‘The Multi-Format Splendor of Stereolab’, Stereolab would in later years take this blurry line and make it void, at least in their wondrous self-contained world, by releasing several non-albums playing at 33-and-one-third R. P. M., as well as singles, E. P.s, and mini-albums with the two sides playing at different speeds. Having said that, a Hardcore Punk band, Dirty Rotten Imbeciles, had already rendered it void years ago by issuing their debut E. P., Dirty Rotten EP, in 1983 as a 7-inch, 33-and-one-third record, then as a 12-inch later that same year, retitled of course: Dirty Rotten LP. Why? Why not?

One of the most prolific producers of E. P.s, the Cocteau Twins, are not included in the main list above, simply to keep it from being too long. For them, E. P.s came more frequently than albums, even if, in the estimation of most, they were not superior to the albums. At first, they did not seem terribly E. P.-focused. Lullabies followed their debut album in 1982; in late 1983, Sunburst and Snowblind came right after their second album, Head over Heals, and one of its four songs is from the album; The Spangle Maker came early the next year, but could also be considered a single release of ‘Pearly-Dewdrops' Drops’; it was follwed by their landmark album Treasure later that year. So far, as regular as their E. P. releases were, they did not counter the dominance of the full-length album. But E. P.s became more central to their work with the three released in 1985: Aikea-Guinea, Tiny Dynamine, and Echoes in a Shallow Bay, the latter two being released the same month and later paired to make an album. Then Love's Easy Tears came in 1986 as a follow-up to that year's album, Victorialand. After becoming more of a mainstream band with their U. S. releases coming out on Capitol Records, extended plays full of original material fell to the wayside. (Discharge, another British act, though quite different musically, were also prolific E. P. producers. Only the longest, Why, is listed above.)

By the mid-Nineties, the growing number of options for releasing music moves us away from the stark simplicity of many earlier Hardcore and Indie acts' discographies: the pattern of 45 - E. P. - album followed by countless bands starting out in these years, not only acts on smaller labels but even New Wave bands with greater commercial prospects: notably, R. E. M. from their debut 45 ‘Radio Free Europe’ in 1981 to the E. P. Chronic Town in 1982 to the album Murmur in 1983. The post-Punk/ post-Hardcore years corresponded with the proliferation of formats: the cassette becoming briefly the highest-selling form of commercial sound recordings and the Compact Disc gradually taking over. This growing technological abundance began to have its effect, creating in turn discographical plentitude—or excess. Bands, when they were started out, still developing their sound and financially strapped, of course continued to use the basic set-up of non-album formats to establish themselves (singles plus split releases, compilation appearances, and quasi-official demos). However, with the major labels increasingly signing up younger bands (especially post-Nirvana), artists could jump to making albums sooner than they would have—or, perhaps, should have. On the other hand, those more committed to an "underground" or "low-fi" sound, or experimental methods generally, made use of cassette-only releases that served as minor albums—see, for example, Sun City Girls and Smog. Alongside artists working further away from song-based compositions, these comprised the "Cassette Underground," a vast realm populated by the likes of Josef K. Noyce, Hal McGee, Hands To, and If, Bwana. Once—if—artists established themselves on a stable commercial footing, singles and E. P.s could serve as stop-gaps between major albums or opportunities to try out new line-ups and methods; prolific artists liked having a way to release material that would not necessarily entice new listeners but would certainly intrigue their loyal fans, especially completist collectors. Extended plays by Pavement, the Melvins, and Royal Trux show this approach at work, as do a few crucial E. P.s from the Nineties like Sebadoh's Gimmie Indie Rock and Brainiac's Electro-Shock for President.

Since we have found that rotation speed and size do not reliably tell us if a particular release is an E. P. or an album, can we determine a certain length that a release must be in order to qualify as an album? And if so, we must consider the mini-album, a term that seems to have only come into use in the Eighties, always remaining more of a concept than a format. In other words, it could actually be an album, but an album that the artists or label do not want to promote as such. A prominent example is U2's concert album Under a Blood Red Sky, 35 minutes long! On the other hand, the mini-album is actually an E. P., but an E. P. that the artists or label do not want to promote as such. The Pixies' Come On Pilgrim is perhaps the most famous example of this. More than 20 minutes long, it played at 33-and-one-third but, like similar E. P.s noted above, it could just as well have played at 45. The aforementioned Throwing Muses' The Fat Skier, both an E. P. and a single, to add to the confusion is often called a mini-album.

My Bloody Valentine's discography helps delineate between the extended play fand the mini-album, as much as one can. Their early E. P.s are not listed above because it is better to summarize the mess in one place. The "mini-album" This Is Your My Bloody Valentine [1985] is short for an album, at 25 minutes. The next year's Geek! and The New Record by My Bloody Valentine are both E. P.s, 12-inch and 45 R. P. M.. The 1987 "mini-album" Ecstasy is a long E. P., nearly 21 minutes long. Getting into their signature sound (that is, the records one actually wants to listen to), 1988's You Made Me Realise is more of a standard E. P. at 17 minutes long.

Many artists, though, failed to define releases that could have been mini-albums as such. Instead the E. P. designation got used and mis-used so much that the term became meaningless. For artists in House, Techno, and related fields, the album-not-album could truly become an exercise in absurdity, for example Autechre's EP7, which after all these years people still with a straight face do not categorize as an album—in fact, it is a double album, the C. D. consisting of EP7.1 and EP7.2, both L. P.s despite their name. Presumably, they were not called "mini-albums" because of their length, as consumers had become accustomed to an E. P. being of any length whatsoever while the mini-album could not be longer than most albums, because... that would be crazy? Whereas the vinyl version of Aphex Twin's Come to Daddy is a standard E. P., a 12-inch at 45 R. P. M., two tracks per side, the C. D. version doubled its length, except that the eight tracks were split between two discs, as if doing so preserves the sanctity of an E. P. format under assault from the vast amount of sonic space made available by cassettes and C. D.s. Nevermind... later C. D. editions of that record simply presented all eight tracks on a single disc, making for a 33-minute album. Back in the realm of Indie Rock, the Olivia Tremor Control made a "collaborative" album with their pseudonymic act, the Black Swan Network, first made available as an L. P. during a October, 1997, tour and thus referred to informally as the "Tour EP" but strictly speaking a self-titled album, 40 minutes long. Why not a "tour mini-album"? Presumably that just did not roll off the tongue so well.

Both mini-albums and longer E. P.s, though shorter than the old-fashioned standard of 35-40 minutes, would have been considered albums in the Sixties, when L. P.s were often 25-35 minutes long. For example, the Embarrassment's Death Travels West, just under 25 minutes in length. Also in this territory the 10-inch L. P. pops up occasionally, notably the Fall's Slates, just under 24 minutes. Perhaps here we have arrived at an appropriate temporal dividing line. Mudhoney's Superfuzz Bigmuff (notice it is not in the list above) is almost exactly 23 minutes, was released as a L. P. (that is, at 33-and-one-third R. P. M.), and is often considered to be an album—that is, as often as it is considered an E. P. On the other hand, few seem to have a problem with Scratch Acid, around 22 minutes, Out of Step, under 22 minutes, and Signals, Calls, and Marches and Chronic Town, both under 21 minutes, all being considered E. P.s, creating an an arbitrary line at 23-24 minutes. This choice is not without some reason behind it, as two 23-minute sides makes for an L. P. 46 minutes in length, arguably too long in most cases—not to mention the diminished sound quality as the grooves narrow. As hinted above, there are releases under 23 minutes called mini-albums, notably the Pixies' Come On Pilgrim; that is, the artists or labels or whoever wanted the consumer to know it was not a mere E. P. On the other hand, an album-or-not like Hex by Poison Girls, nearly 27 minutes in length, was released as a 12-inch 45. Commonly identified as an E. P., and hardly ever made available except as a 12-inch 45, can we call Hex an album because of our arbitrary 23-minute dividing line?

As has become clear, a mini-album or a longer E. P. could more accurately be called a half-album. If a record barely passes the half-way mark, does it justifiably win status as a full-length? Indeed, considering all together both short albums like Slates, Death Travels West and Superfuzz Bigmuff and long E. P.s like Out of Step, Chronic Town, and Come On Pilgrim that come close to being albums, we cannot but wonder if there is something to the "mini-album" designation. Not the slipshod way it was used by record labels. Rather, a record roughly 16 to 32 minutes long, creating a clear set-up where by singles are up to 16 minutes, and albums are 32 to 48 minutes. But such a rational approach is not to be expected from the largest music conglomerates, who could not even bother setting up their own streaming sites. As noted above, we have long since entered a bizarro world where an E. P. is as long as anyone wants it to be, but if you call a 25-minute record an album you will draw the ire of an anonymous drone at Discogs or Wikipedia .

Meanwhile, our technological splendor persisted into the Aughts, when artists made use of the Compact Disc-Recordable (C. D.-R.) format much like they had cassettes, for example early E. P.s by Joanna Newsom. Indeed, there was a C. D.-R. Underground like there had been a Cassette Underground, especially among those musicians more obscure or fringe, for example Merzbow or the numerous "Free Folk" artists putting out music under the Jewelled Antler banner. Eugene Chadbourne put out homemade C. D.-R.s on his own House of Chadula imprint that were nearly as homely and at times confusing as Sun Ra's self-published Saturn records. In retrospect, recorded music during these years was moving into the amorphous digital space where it now largely resides. Still, the C. D.-R. prospered longer that we may expect, and soon enough there was a revival of the cassette, a handy format, cheap for both producer and consumer, and easily playable on old recording consoles, radios, boomboxes, car stereos, and so on. That said, neither cassettes nor C. D.s are conducive to the single and E. P. formats. Both C. D. singles and "cassingles" were absurdly wasteful, especially the aforementioned British-dominant trend of multiple C. D. versions of the same single (not even the freakiest C. D. freaks is nostalgic for that, I hope). I suppose the rarely-seen 3-inch C. D. format could have become more common in an alternate world, but probably not. Either way, the cheapness of these formats has resulted in plenty of artists and labels being more likely to use them for shorter, minor, and side-project releases.

The online listening space that most of us live in these days could have freed us from formats, or at least loosen expectations regarding how musicians release their work. Radiohead, having already sensationalized online downloading's decimation of the music industry with their 2007 "pay what you want" release of In Rainbows, proclaimed that albums required an excess of planning and production and wanted instead to release E. P.s and singles. Like most of the excited chatter heard during the late Aughts-early Teens about a shiny new era of liberated songs and their Poptimistic listeners, this proclamation was forgotten. Granted, artists of all stripes, ranging from the ubiquitous pop stars, receipients of much hagiographic attention, to bedroom experimentalists with an audience of one, are more likely this century to release music of whatever length or format, as compared to the Nineties standard of 70-minute C. D.s. But the album still reigns supreme, if not in actual listening, which of course is too scattershot (in the age of addictive audiovisual streams bombarding us everywhere we turn) for most listeners to listen to an album in its entirety in one session, then at least in the way that critics conceptualize popular music, a subject addressed in the essay 'Click Crit'.

–Justin J. Kaw, August 2026