The full-length LP is the privileged son of rock and roll: “serious” bands make “serious” albums for “serious” listeners, and “serious” listeners deride singles as kids’ stuff. But the single is where the power is, and the Platonic ideal of the single is not the 7” but the EP. (Good thing, too, since the 7” is now exclusively made by and for fanatics -- its power to mesmerize the masses or even to grip the attention of a loosely-knit band of acolytes has all but disappeared.) A band’s greatness or lack thereof rests finally on its ability to make EPs that you feel compelled to buy them even though you know the profit margin on them is patently obscene. The Smiths made great EPs whose brief running times (averaging two songs per 12”) accurately indicated the songwriters’ incredible arrogance; Cabaret Voltaire took the EP form to almost unimaginable heights of sophistication, attaining a brilliant but ultimately unsustainable tension with the “Fools Game/Eddie’s Out” EP around 1983. The Sisters of Mercy were a great band until they stopped making exclusively EPs and made the bloated First and Last and Always album. We will not get into Floodland or Vision Thing. There are nothing but tears for us there.

 
     
     
 

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-LPTJ-
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