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A-side and B-side

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B-Sides directs here, for the 2002 Marvel Comics limited series, see Craptacular B-Sides

In recorded music, the terms A-side and B-side refer to the two sides of 7 inch vinyl records on which singles were released beginning in the 1950s. The terms have come to refer to the types of song conventionally placed on each side of the record, with the A-side being the featured song (the one that the record producer hopes will receive radio airplay and become a "hit"), while the B-side, or "flipside," is secondary (often a song that does not appear on a band's LP.).

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[edit] History

In the era of 78 rpm shellac records, A-sides and B-sides existed, but for the most part, radio stations would play a song on either side of the record. The "side" did not convey anything about the content of the record.

The terms came into popular use with the advent of 45 rpm vinyl records in the early 1950s. At first, most record labels would randomly assign which song would be an A-side and which would be a B-side. (All phonograph records have specific identifiers for each side in addition to the catalog number for the record itself; the "A" side would typically be assigned a sequentially lower number.) Because of this random assignation, many artists had so-called "double-sided hits", where both songs on a record made one of the national sales charts (in Billboard, Cashbox or other magazines), or would be featured on jukeboxes in public places.

As time wore on, however, the convention for assigning songs to sides of the record changed. Generally, the song on the A-side was the song that the record company wanted radio stations to play. By the early 1990s, double-sided hits had become rare. Album sales had increased, and B-sides had become the side of the record where non-album, non-radio-friendly, instrumental versions or simply inferior recordings were placed.

With the advent of cassette and compact disc singles in the late 1980s, the A-side/B-side differentiation became much less meaningful. At first, cassette singles would often have one song on each side of the cassette, matching the arrangement of vinyl records, but eventually, cassette maxi-singles, containing more than two songs, became more popular. With the decline of cassette singles in the 1990s, the A-side/B-side dichotomy became virtually extinct, as the remaining dominant medium, the compact disc, lacks an equivalent physical distinction. However, the term "B-side" is still used to refer to the "bonus" tracks or "coupling" tracks on a CD single.

With the advent of legal methods of downloading music via the Internet, sales of CD singles and other physical media have declined, and the term "B-side" is now less commonly used. Songs that were not part of an artist's collection of albums are made available through the same downloadable catalogs as tracks from their albums, and are usually referred to as "unreleased," "non-album," "rare," or "exclusive" tracks, the latter in the case of a song being available solely from a certain provider of music.

Some record labels used the terms "Side 1" and "Side 2" for singles, instead of A-side and B-side.

[edit] Significance

B-side songs are released on the same record as a single to provide extra "value for money". There are several types of material commonly released in this way:

  • a different (e.g., instrumental, a capella, live, acoustic, remixed version or in another language/text) version of the A-side.
  • another song from the same album, which the record company does not want to release on its own.
  • a song not considered good enough for the album.
  • a song that was stylistically unsuitable for the album.
  • a song that had not yet been completed at the time of the album's release.

Since both sides of a single received equal royalties, some composers deliberately arranged for their songs to be used as the B-sides of singles by popular artists, thereby making a fortune literally off the back of the A-side. This became known as the "flipside racket".

On a few occasions, the B-side became the more popular song. This was usually because a DJ preferred the B-side to its A-side and played it instead. Then the B-side would in a sense become the A-side, by virtue of being the preferred side. Examples:

Even more rarely, both sides of the single would become hits. This feat was done repeatedly by some artists. Examples:

The song "How Soon Is Now?" by The Smiths started out as the extra track on the 12" of "William, It Was Really Nothing" but later gained a separate release as an A-side in its own right, as did Oasis' "Acquiesce," which originally appeared as a B-side to "Some Might Say" in 1995, but gained subsequent release in 2006 as part of an EP to promote their forthcoming best-of album, Stop the Clocks. Feeder in 2001 and 2005 had the B-sides "Just a Day" from "Seven Days In The Sun", and "Shatter" from "Tumble and Fall" released as A-sides after fan petitions and official website and fansite message board hype, and both charted at #12 and #11 in the UK charts respectively.

The flip side of a single does not necessarily contain B-side material. A single containing two songs of normal quality is referred to as a "double A-side". The aforementioned Feeder single "Shatter" was double A-sided with "Tender", a track from their #2 album "Pushing The Senses". In rare occasions there are even triple A-side singles, such as "What Becomes of the Broken Hearted" / "You'll Never Walk Alone" / "Saturday Night at the Movies", the 1996 triple A-side #1 UK single by Robson and Jerome.

In reference to this convention, it has occasionally seemed a good joke to issue a "double B-side" single. Examples include "Styrafoam" / "Texas Chainsaw Massacre Boogie" by The Tyla Gang (1976) and a single by Marvin the Paranoid Android in 1981. "Don't Cry Wolf" / "One Way Love" by The Damned was dubbed a "double D-side".

Sometimes a B-side gets a cult following with the buyers of the single in question, and gets talked about almost as much or even more than the A-side. An example of this is the Spitting Image UK #1 from 1986, in which "Arn't You a Nice South African" got talked about by the singles buyers almost as much as the A-side "The Chicken Song".

On some reissued singles the A- and B-sides are by completely different artists, or two songs from different albums that would not normally have been released together. These were sometimes made for jukeboxes, as one record with two popular songs on it would make more money.

[edit] Other types of non-primary sound recording

B-sides are different from unreleased material, outtakes and demos. Unreleased material, for obvious reasons, usually doesn't see the light of day. On rare occasions, particularly for reissues, these songs are in fact placed on albums, often with that description after it. In an extreme case, singer Moby's DVD titled "18 B-Sides and DVD" featured 21 of them.

Outtakes are songs recorded for an album but, either for technical or artistic purposes, not included in the released album. They occasionally appear on reissues of albums, billed as "bonus tracks". Georgia group R.E.M.'s album titled "Dead Letter Office", for example, is collection in some regards a collection of outtakes from their previous albums, although it is primarily comprised of actual b-sides.

Demos are early versions of songs which, like "unreleased material", seldom see the light of day. Demos of songs often have additional or alternative verses. Often more demos than full songs are recorded, as an artist goes back and retools what is already present. Singers Moby, Prince, and Billy Corgan of the group Smashing Pumpkins are rumored to have large personal collections of demos.

On occasion, artists release albums of compiled B-sides and rare tracks, making it easier for fans to listen to new and unheard material from discontinued singles. Nirvana's Incesticide, The Smashing Pumpkins' Pisces Iscariot, Less Than Jake's B Is for B-sides (and indeed Losers, Kings and Things We Don't Understand) and Green Day's Shenanigans are examples, as are the "Switched-On" series of compilations by Stereolab. In 2004, Feeder released Picture Of Perfect Youth, a limited edition album which contained 36 b-sides across two CDs.

[edit] B-side collections

[edit] Albums featuring extensive B-sides

[edit] Double A-side

A double A-side (AA) is a single which has two featured songs, rather than the traditional single with a featured song, the A-side, and an accompanying one on the flip of the record, the B-side. As with many other innovations in the industry, this practice was introduced by The Beatles in 1965 for their single released simultaneously with Rubber Soul, "Day Tripper" backed with (b/w) 'We Can Work It Out," as the band and their label, Parlophone Records, found both songs to be equally marketable, and decided not to relegate one to B-side status.

Although some singles pre-dating the abovementioned record have also been designated double A-sides, such as Elvis Presley's 1956 "Don't Be Cruel" b/w "Hound Dog," this was done in retrospect because both sides became chart hits independently. In fact, "Hound Dog" was the B-side of the single as originally released.

Double A-Sides include:

  • A-Side only in Australia

"Brainstew/Jaded" and "Jinx/Haushinka," both by Green Day, are slightly exceptional cases - the singles were treated more-or-less as one song, rather than as a double-A side. The same was intended to happen with a release in 2005 of "Holiday/Boulevard of Broken Dreams", however, they ended up being released separately.

Contrary to popular belief, the Queen single "We Are The Champions/We Will Rock You" was not a double-A side. "We Will Rock You" was a b-side. "Bohemian Rhapsody" was originally released in 1975 with "I'm In Love With My Car" as the b-side.

[edit] Joke B-Side

The 1988 single "Stutter Rap (No Sleep 'Til Bedtime)" by parody band Morris Minor and the Majors featured a song on the B-side entitled "Another Boring 'B'-side". The subject of the lyrics is about how the band is in the studio simply to record three minutes of music to fill the B-side with as little effort as possible and then get back home.

Similarly parody band Bad News recorded a video b-side to the VHS version of their single Bohemian Rhapsody. The B-side Every Mistake Imaginable features the band discussing the fact that they have to record an extra three minutes of footage for the single to be chart elligible.

John Safran's 1997 single (Not The) Sunscreen Song featured two B-sides entitled Track Two and Track Three, both were simply Safran "saying" the titles of the repective song.de:B-Seite he:איי-סייד ובי-סייד nl:B-kant

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