While this site is dedicated to ranking the best albums and songs of all-time, those are not the only formats for music! I thought I'd start a topic where we'd share our favorite EPs. Maybe this can even become a poll, although I think we're overloaded at the moment.
Here are my top 10:
1. Eurythmics - Step on the Beast
2. New Order - 1981 - 1982
3. The Cure - The Walk
4. Janelle Monáe - Metropolis: The Chase Suite
5. Annie - All Night
6. Stevie Wonder - A Something's Extra
7. LCD Soundsystem - 45:33
8. Franz Ferdinand - Darts of Pleasure
9. The Strokes - The Modern Age
10. The Human League - Holiday '80
Mine:
1. R.E.M. - Chronic Town
2. Pavement - Watery, Domestic
3. The Verlaines - 10 O'Clock In The Afternoon
4. Belle & Sebastian - Dog On Wheels
5. Belle & Sebastian - I'm Waking Up To Us
6. Belle & Sebastian - Lazy Line Painter Jane
7. Belle & Sebastian - 3..6..9 Seconds Of Light
8. Pale Saints - Barging Into The Presence Of God
9. The Lava Children - Four Spells
10. The Raveonettes - Beauty Dies
11. Bright Eyes - Four Winds
12. The Clientele - That Night, A Forest Grew
13. The Quintet - Jazz At Massey Hall, Vol. 2
14. The Minutemen - Project: Mersh
15. Of Montreal - A Pollinaire Rave
16. Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie - Bird & Diz
17. Deerhunter - Flourescent Grey EP
18. Animal Collective - Fall Be Kind
19. Milt Jackson - Wizard Of The Vibes
20. Bud Powell - The Amazing Bud Powell
Thanks!
This would be a good poll idea. I can't remember ever seeing a list of top EPs outside of a few on RYM.
I personally haven't heard too many EPs, but My Bloody Valentine's run of You Made Me Realize, Glider, and Tremolo is simply incredible. For some reason, I had always ignored EPs, but hearing these made me realize EPs can contain some of an artist's best and most underrated songs. R.E.M.'s Chronic Town is another excellent one.
Sugar - Beaster
Nine Inch Nails - Broken
Minutemen - Buzz or Howl Under the Influence of Heat
Fugazi - 7 Songs
Fugazi - Margin Walker
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Is Is
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Yeah Yeah Yeahs
No Age - Losing Feeling
Arctic Monkeys - Who the Fuck Are Arctic Monkeys?
Melvins - Lysol (aka Melvins)
The Breeders - Safari
Mission of Burma - Signals Calls & Marches
The Replacements - Stink
Archers of Loaf - Vs. The Greatest of All Time
Dinosaur Jr. - Whatever's Cool With Me
And I really like some of the ones already mentioned, REM's, the MBV's, LCD's, Watery Domestic, Project Mersh...
I tried to shy away from EPs with the title track on an album (EPs that are basically giant singles.)
Wilco- More like the Moon
Fleet Foxes- Sun Giant
Bon Iver- Blood Bank
Godspeed You Black Emperor- Yanqui U.X.O.
Sufjan Stevens- All Delighted People
Pink Floyd- The First Three Singles (Kind of a compilation EP, but whatever.)
Is Spiritualized's Lazer Guided Melodies considered an EP? It only technically has 4 soungs? How about the Blue Nile's Hats? That album has one song less than Sufjan Steven's All Delighted People which is considered an EP. I don't really understand the laws of what constitutes as an EP. Maybe under a certain amount of minutes or anything under 9 songs. If that's the case Michael Jackson's Thriller can also be considered an EP.
I see an EP not as less lengthy material, but as a gap between two releases. It's not supposed to be seen as a follow up to a previous LP. Some see it as a time to experiment or a "rehearsal" to what is coming up next. When an EP is the debut of a band i feel it's more about the breakthrough than the official release with all the studio technology and producing that a band can get.
By that standard, Beck's Mutations is an EP - it was aggressively positioned at the time of its 1998 release as a diversion, almost a stopgap to fill time while Beck finished the "official" follow-up to Odelay (which turned out to be Midnite Vultures the following year). The irony, of course, is that as the years go by the "unofficial" album has come to be more highly regarded than the official one (as demonstrated by their AM rankings).
By that standard, Beck's Mutations is an EP - it was aggressively positioned at the time of its 1998 release as a diversion, almost a stopgap to fill time while Beck finished the "official" follow-up to Odelay (which turned out to be Midnite Vultures the following year). The irony, of course, is that as the years go by the "unofficial" album has come to be more highly regarded than the official one (as demonstrated by their AM rankings).
I love that album and much more than Midnite Vultures that i also enjoy.Yeah that happens a lot! The same way that i know some people who thinks that the Pixies's Come On Pilgrim EP is their debut album. But i do believe that it's more stop gap and even experimentation a good amount of times than length - though the exceptions do exist.
It's such a thin line - there are plenty of EPs (and EP-length "albums") on the AM top 3000, including the aforementioned Come on Pilgrim. Sometimes the categorizations are a little absurd - isn't Billy Bragg's Life's a Riot with Spy vs. Spy always referred to an an album, even though it's only 16 minutes long?
Length more than number of songs should be the dividing line between what is and what is not an EP. Lazer Guided Melodies is more than an hour long! But obviously some very short releases are considered albums, so I say it's the intention of the artist that matters, not some arbitrary cut-off.
Fans of Free Energy will know that most of the band was part of Hockey Night, and in my opinion their first release "The Hockey Night EP" is their best work. Actually, it's one of my favorite CDs of all time.
Any idea where I could get this? I can find both of their full-lengths but only reviews of the EP.
My favourite EP (which I don't own and have only seen once, I think, but I've heard the songs over and over again on various formats) would be Dylan's "Four Songs from Renaldo and Clara" - a promotion disc made to push his ill-fated movie of that name, and for many years the only non-bootleg material available from his 1975 Rolling Thunder Revue tour.
Sorry to be predictable, but really, the things he did to songs that year ... !
I'm from MN where Hockey Night is from and it would be almost impossible find around here even. If you just want to hear the music I can upload it somewhere.
Come On Pilgrim, The Cures The Walk, Bird & Diz, Billy Braggs Spy vs. Spy, Chronic Town, Fugazi,s 7 Songs, New Orders 81-82, The Amazing Bud Powell, many titles that are mentioned here were in fact not EP,s but were released as a mini-LP. An EP was originally an extended 7-inch single (EP = Extended Play), with 4 instead of 2 songs.
Of course, with the introduction of the CD the lines got completely blurred. But something like Sufjan Stevens All Delighted People that rambles on for more than an hour I wouldnt call an EP. For me the limit of what still can be considered an EP lies at 20 minutes running time.
That would be awesome.
I've gotta find the CD. I'll post a link here when I upload it. Probably this weekend.