(1968), colloquially known as The White Album'', one of the best-selling double albums of all time
1948 to the early 1970s: long-play records The introduction of the long-play or
LP record in 1948 allowed longer tracks or a greater number of tracks per record, with approximately 22 minutes of music per side, for a total of 44 minutes. Despite this, recordings of entire classical or operatic pieces were often too long for one LP disc, thus albums of two or more discs were made. As they were costly to make and sell, double albums and multi-record releases were largely limited to long works such as classical music and, later, to live recordings and compilations. One of the first live double albums, and one of the earliest double albums featuring non-classical music, was
The Famous 1938 Carnegie Hall Jazz Concert by
Benny Goodman, a concert recording released in 1950 on
Columbia Records.
Studio recordings of operas have been released as double, triple, quadruple and quintuple albums since the 1950s. As record costs reduced over time and greater thought was given to the album as an artistic piece, double albums became more common. One of the first examples consisting of new studio recordings is 1956's
Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Cole Porter Song Book.
Bob Dylan's
Blonde on Blonde, released on June 20, 1966, is widely mislabeled as the first double album. It was followed just a week later by
the Mothers of Invention's
Freak Out!, the first debut double album, which was released on June 27, 1966. In the years following, original double albums from pop and rock artists became more common, and were often released at the height of the artists' careers. Notable examples include
Jimi Hendrix's
Electric Ladyland from October 1968,
The Beatles'
eponymous 1968 album,
Elton John's
Goodbye Yellow Brick Road from 1973,
Led Zeppelin's
Physical Graffiti from 1975, and
Stevie Wonder's
Songs in the Key of Life from 1976. Additionally, the rise of
progressive rock at the time, which often involves complex and long tracks akin to classical music, and
concept albums often made a second disc necessary. Notable examples include
Yes's 4-track
Tales From Topographic Oceans from 1973 and
Genesis's
The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway from 1974. The best-selling double album of all time is
Pink Floyd's
The Wall, from 1979 with over 30 million copies (60 million units) sold worldwide.
Late 1970s–1990s: compact cassette tapes and CDs In the latter half of the 1970s, as technology advanced, the
Philips corporation's
compact cassette tape began to supersede LPs as the dominant pre-recorded music format. The tapes allowed for a much longer 30 to 45 minutes per side, for a total of 60 to 90 minutes total, doubling the length available for music storage. In 1982, Philips introduced the
compact disc, with a continuous length of 74 minutes (later developed to have 80 minutes). Artists could put far more on one unit, rarely exceeding the runtime available on a cassette tape or CD, and double albums became uncommon. The extra space also allowed many earlier double albums to be reissued on a single disc:
Blonde on Blonde, for instance, was reissued on a single cassette and a single CD. Despite the greater length, there were some issues with the length and track order of albums, both reissues and new releases.
The Beatles, originally released as a double LP, remained split across two units for both its cassette and CD reissues, with the tracks in a different order on the pair of cassettes to ensure equal tape length. Meanwhile, 1988's ''
He's the DJ, I'm the Rapper'' by
DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince was released on both vinyl and cassette. At 85 minutes, the vinyl record was released as a double album, making it the first double vinyl LP release by
hip hop artists, while its single CD release was truncated by 13 minutes. Other albums originally issued as double LPs, such as
Fleetwood Mac's
Tusk (1979),
Prince's
1999 (1982), and
The Minutemen's
Double Nickels on the Dime (1984) were likewise shortened for their 74-minute CD release, though the former two were later reissued in their entirety when 80-minute CDs were available. While not as common since the advent of these formats, particularly for studio albums, double albums continued to be released, particularly for live recordings, classical music, soundtracks, compilations, reissues of double-LP albums that still exceeded the 80-minute CD limit, and a number of popular studio albums were released as double albums on these formats at this time, such as
the Smashing Pumpkins'
Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness (1995) and
Michael Jackson's
HIStory: Past, Present and Future, Book I (1995) which sold over 20 million copies (40 million units) worldwide. The following year,
Tupac Shakur became the first rapper to sell a double album globally with
All Eyez on Me, becoming his best selling album by the time he died in 1996. ==Sequencing==