Extended play

EP (extended play) is an English acronym that translated into Spanish means extended play and is used as a name for a musical recording format. The length of an EP is too long to be considered a single, and too short to be considered an album. Albums are divided into three types: Single (simple), EP ("Extended Play », translated into Spanish as 'extended playback'), and LP ('long play', translated into Spanish as 'long play').

Initially, the seven-inch diameter vinyl record recorded at 33 revolutions per minute (RPM) was called an EP. This difference in speed with respect to the single, recorded at 45 RPM, allowed it to have a longer duration (a maximum of 25 minutes, twelve and a half on each side) compared to the duration of the single, whose maximum duration could not exceed 15 minutes. When the vinyls were standardized at 33 RPM, those seven-inch records that had more of one song per side.

Nowadays, with the advent of the compact disc, the distinction between single, EP and LP (album) is arbitrary, based on both artistic and commercial factors. Generally, an EP has a maximum duration of 20 to 25 minutes and it is usually a mini-CD type disk; from that time on, people usually talk about a long-playing record (LP).