Record vs. Album

Hi, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is John Cullen from Unionville, Indiana.

Hiya, John. Unionville.

Hello, John.

That’s near Bloomington, right?

It’s just outside of Bloomington, yeah.

What do you do there in Unionville?

I’m a home builder. I build houses, and I’m a full-time parent.

Yeah?

Yeah, and I’ve got two boys that are music fans just like myself.

We all collect stringed instruments and play.

I play in a band, and I have a pretty sizable record collection, which kind of is at the heart of my question for you guys today.

Okay.

All right, let’s hear it.

People increasingly use the abbreviation CD now to refer to what I’ve always called an album or a record, by which I mean loosely a collection of songs.

I’ll give you a real quick example of how I encounter this.

Okay.

My band and I, two years ago, we went into the studio and recorded 12 songs in one long, hectic day, all of which we used to put on a record, which was called Childhood Music, which we released last year.

Now, when we perform in a nightclub or something, I’ll usually say, if you’d like to get a copy of our record, talk to me after the show.

And more than a few times, I’ve had people come up to me afterwards and say,

I don’t have a record player, but do you have any CDs?

Bless their hearts. Maybe I’m overreacting, but it just kind of drives me up a wall.

I guess my question is this. Is this an example where the medium or the method of delivery has become more important than the item itself?

Any thoughts?

What a messy one, though, John. What a whole big mess of stuff there.

Because on the one hand, you say that it’s fine to call your CD a record, but on the other hand, you say it’s not fine to call your album a CD.

Is that what you’re saying?

Kind of, yeah.

I just think maybe this is something that’s unique to music.

I’ve tried to figure out other examples, maybe from newspaper, which is always called a paper, or film, which is a movie.

I don’t think anyone would ever walk up to Robert De Niro and say,

Hey, I saw your new DVD last night.

I really loved it. It was great.

You know what I mean?

Somehow, in music at least, compact discs have become the item itself

rather than the little metal disc on which it’s imprinted.

Let’s just stick to the music for a second and not look for a parallel here somewhere else.

There’s one major factor here that’s at play,

and I think it’s important to keep this in mind as we talk about the rest of it.

This is what’s called a meronym, M-E-R-O-N-Y-M.

And a maronym is a term that actually denotes part of something, but is used to refer to the whole thing.

For example, if we’re going to say Wall Street, and by Wall Street we mean the entire finance industry,

We’re not actually talking about the street anymore.

We’re talking about all of the businesses involved with money in the United States.

Oh, yeah. Very good.

And in this particular case, let’s talk about the album for a second.

If we’re talking about an album, well, the album actually originally referred to the entire collection of the disc plus the paper binding or the cardboard and the inserts and the art and the whole set of things.

It’s kind of a book-shaped thing that you insert discs in and the liner notes.

I see.

Very complex here.

Yeah.

So if CDs out and records out because people get confused when you say record, they think you’re actually trying to push vinyl on them.

Right.

I think you’re safe with album every time.

The album is probably, yeah.

I do.

Whether you’re talking about a CD or old-school vinyl or you’re actually talking about a collection of digital files like Radiohead where you’re selling them online.

One thing that I think would be interesting is to start putting out, put a CD inside an album-sized package, you know, just with a little tiny plate in there to put your CD in.

But you open it up, you get to retain all the room for the artwork and the pictures and the printing.

The lyrics.

And then also you have space for your address so that Greenpeace knows where to send the complaint.

Oh, boy.

We really stirred it up now.

Well, John, thanks for stirring up an interesting chat.

Thank you.

I really enjoy your show, and thanks for letting me be part of it.

Best of luck with the next album.

What’s the name of your band?

I’m John Diener, and my band is called The Enthusiasts.

What a surprise.

Yeah.

Thanks for calling.

Thank you guys very much.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

For all the good that it does pushing through, you may find there is no need to make up your mind.

Wow. Grant, I really like the word album.

There’s so many different combinations of tunes and playlists and CDs and albums and recordings of this and that.

I think album is a good catch-all term.

I do, too.

If you’ve got an opinion on it, give us a call at 1-877-929-WORD or send us an email to words@waywordradio.org.