LP, Long Play
A collection of songs in a particular order by one musician or group. The practice of making albums dates back to the pre-vinyl era, when, at the dawn of recording in the first half of the 20th century, due to imperfect technology and materials, a 12-inch record could hold a maximum of 5 minutes of music per side (nowadays 22 minutes). Therefore, long symphonic concerts were recorded on many discs, and this collection was arranged in a booklet with large paper envelopes in which the records were stored. Because of the similarity of this richly decorated booklet with the photo albums of those times, these collections of records began to be called musical albums. On the front of such releases there was a tracklist and/or instructions in what order to listen to the records. Later, companies began to produce blank album books, where music lovers could store and sign precious discs themselves.
