Jukebox Heroes

Continuing our ongoing survey of unusual formats, Simon Wright looks at the rise and fall of jukebox EPs and 'Little LPs'

- By Simon Wright

The Stones did it, The Beatles did it, The Yardbirds did it, and The Kinks did it, while Small Faces did it, but only in France. What they did was release EPs, or Extended Play 7" vinyl discs, the size of a standard single but, typically, with four tracks playing at 45rpm.

Many EPS boasted tracks that were unavailable elsewhere, as well as often cool picture sleeves, and many are now highly sought-after. Check out recent prices for Five Yardbirds or Kwyet Kinks as examples. The heyday of the vinyl EP was 196367, though there were sporadic attempts to resurrect the format during the 70s pub-rock and punk heydays, resulting in classic releases like The Count Bishops' Speedball and Eddie & The Hot Rods Live At The Marquee. I'd assumed that the US was immune to the appeal of the Extended Play format, but two recent additions to my collection proved me wrong, namely, a six-track edited version of Todd Rundgren's Something/ Anything? 2LP, and the four best tracks lifted from The J Geils Band's Bloodshot. Both releases, housed in picture sleeves, are a miniature version of their parent LPs' sleeves, and both were issued by Little LPs Unlimited.

As the Both Sides Now Stereo Newsletter (BSN) explains, the term "Little LP" was applied first to six releases from the catalogue of the Cadence label.

Each contained six tracks, with a maximum playing time of about eight minutes per 33 1/3 rpm side.

All six were issued in October 1961, and flopped.

Despite that, Mercury put out 10 titles the following month, with a similar lack of success.