The rate at which most Nigerian musicians, save for a few, are releasing Extended Plays (EP) nowadays, instead of actual albums, has raised questions among industry stakeholders who are asking, “Are albums still relevant or not for our musicians?”
An EP is a body of work that contains more than one track, however, not long enough to be considered an album due to its shorter length. An EP usually spans for less than 30 minutes, while album is longer.
While most fans are still confused about the idea behind an EP or album, a music artiste, Kellylivinglarge, in a chat with Tribune Online recently, clarified this saying, “When an artiste releases an EP, it either means such artiste has more songs he would like his fans to listen to, to set a particular mood or the artiste is trying out fresh sounds, maybe a new genre of music and he would like to know how his fans would react to it.
“In a nutshell, I’ll say an EP is for best for test running a new style or a means of releasing older songs that have been in artistes catalogue for a while. However, an album is a more serious project that requires more input than an EP.”
When asked if album releases may be going into extinction for most atlrtistes, the rapper who doubles as a singer said, “Only an unserious musician would say he’ll release EPs and not drop an album. Album releases can never die because it is one of the standard ways of measuring an artiste’s quality worldwide.
The industry notes EPs now that it is more acceptable in Nigeria, but people care more about an album. The question is often ‘how many albums have you released in your entire career, not how many EPs? EPs came with the wave of the new generation artistes. Who knows what the next generation would bring to the table? So, it is wrong to rate an EP over album because they serve different purposes.”
Kellylivinglarge concluded his analysis of EPs and albums by pointing out that he is also planning on releasing an album, but he is not ruling out an EP also.