Eleven Essential Extended Plays

[For the purposes of this article, an extended play is a musical recording with at least three non-album tracks, fewer than ten total tracks, and a running time under thirty minutes. By this definition, some recordings marketed as LPs or singles would qualify as EPs and therefore be eligible for my geeky list; conversely some recordings marketed as EPs would be ineligible; while that might seem a bit confusing, I assure you my definition is more sensible than the record industry's, which asserts that Weezer's (terrible) ten song, twenty-eight-minute Green Album constitutes a full-fledged LP, while Modest Mouse's (awesome) eleven song, seventy-two-minute Interstate 8 merits the diminutive EP designation.]Generally speaking, the extended play format doesn't make a whole lot of sense:

From a record company's perspective, a CD with 10-20 minutes of music costs just as much to manufacture as one with 30-40 minutes, only the retail price is going to be lower because it's an EP as opposed to a full-length album; it's also not going to sell anywhere close to as many copies because far less money goes into commercial promotion and, for the most part, only hardcore fans will buy the thing.

From the greedy rockstar's perspective, 4-8 songs could easily be padded with some filler-a fifteen-minute dirge with a long, boring guitar solo maybe-and released as a more lucrative LP.

From the (theoretical) perspective of the artist who cares about his fans or the integrity of his work, the question arises: why not hold off and release the songs on a fully realized album so your fans don't have to pay $7-$10 for the EP and then another $12-$15-or if their fans shop at Sam Goodie, maybe more like $25-for the next album?

And from the consumer's perspective, EPs are a lot of money for very little music, and music that's very seldom worthwhile at that.

Nevertheless, a handful of EPs rise above the cynical nature of their medium to achieve something truly special: more than offering a song for an artist anthology mix-tape, these EPs offer two, and sometimes THREE songs worthy of inclusion on artist anthology mix-tapes. Without further ado, here are my top eleven EPs of all time:

11. Radiohead: Airbag/How Am I Driving?

In 1993, Radiohead crawled out of some Oxfordshire dungeon to achieve sudden ubiquity with the bathetic "Creep," only to be summarily dismissed as one-hit-wonders. In 1994, Radiohead made their first move towards critical respectability with the My Iron Lung EP, and three years later, they were the world's only mega-popular rock band that didn't suck profusely. How did they do it? Cockney witchery of some sort? Probably.

"Pearly" comes across like a frenzied "Climbing up the Walls," and the soporific "Melatonin" may be the most underrated song in the band's oeuvre.

10. Spoon: Soft Effects

9. R.E.M.: Chronic Town
It might be hard to imagine today, but for a brief period in the early 1980s, R.E.M. was pretty much America's best rock 'n' roll band: Michael Stipe had hair, mumbled melodically about god knows what, and the band had a unique sound and an unshakable sense of purpose. Then Michael Stipe started singing clearly about politics and the human condition, the band's audience grew exponentially, the quality of their music declined precipitously, and finally Stipe was bald. Oh well. There's always 1981-1986.

R.E.M. helped invent college radio with jangly anthems like "Gardening at Night" and cutesy Gang of Four rip-offs like "1,000,000." And dammit, The Wave, they didn't do it so that a quarter century later people would have to listen to Gavin Rossdale!

8. The Clash: The Cost of Living

7. The Beatles: The Magical Mystery Tour
If you're wondering why this is on here, it was initially released as a double EP in the U.K.: it was combined with the "Strawberry Fields"/"Penny Lane" double-A-side and "Hello Goodbye," "Baby, You're A Rich Man," and "All You Need is Love" for the American LP release.

6. Pixies: Come On Pilgrim

5. Belle & Sebastian: Dog on Wheels
It was really tough choosing a favorite Belle & Sebastian EP. On the one hand, there's Lazy Line Painter Jane, the title track to which is probably the band's best ever song. On the other hand, there's 3.. 6.. 9 Seconds of Light, which boasts the excellent "Century of Fakers" and greater consistency overall (though nothing as inhumanly catchy as "Jane"). From top to bottom Dog on Wheels is undoubtedly the strongest stand-alone work, but I was hesitant to choose it for the simple fact that "The State I Am In" also appears in more polished form on the group's classic debut LP Tigermilk. I couldn't bring the issue to a satisfactory conclusion, so I chose Dog on Wheels randomly: they're all essential.

In 2005, The List voted Belle & Sebastian Scotland's all-time greatest band. Take that! Simple Minds?

4. Archers of Loaf: Vs. the Greatest of All Time

3. Superchunk: The Freed Seed
I can cite five examples of cover versions of great songs that actually surpass the originals: Hendrix's electric "All Along the Watchtower"; The Byrds' melodic take on "You Ain't Goin' Nowhere"; the Dead Kennedys' brilliant re-working of Bobby Fuller's "I Fought the Law"; Jeff Buckley's soulful reading of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah"; and Superchunk's blistering fuzz-pop metamorphosis of Sebadoh's "Brand New Love," contained here. It's a marked improvement on one of the best songs of the 90s, and it still might not even be the best song on the EP; "Seed Toss" is killer.

2. Pavement: Watery, Domestic

1. The Clean: Boodle Boodle Boodle
The greatest release by New Zealand's all-time greatest rock band. "Thumbs Off" is one of the top three or four achievements of western civilization.