The Singles Life

Simultaneous with the rise of the long-playing album was a market boom for “singles.” We’re talking 7 inch vinyl discs (same size as the old 78s), but with a large center hole, that revolved at 45 RPM. These 45s were perfect for distributing hit songs, one per side; a 45 could hold up to about five minutes per side—a little longer than a 78 but with much higher fidelity. (Figure 1.3 shows a typical 45 RPM single.)

Figure 1.3. A 45 RPM single. (Photo by David Salafia via the Creative Commons 2.0 license, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/legalcode.)

These 45 RPM singles first came to prominence in the mid-1950s, and helped fuel (or were fueled by; it’s a bit synergistic) the Top Forty rock ‘n’ roll era. At less than a buck a disc, teenagers could afford to buy several singles a week—and did. With the invasion of the Beatles in 1964, the singles market literally exploded, with the top singles selling in excess of 5 million units each.