I'm kinda interested in this part of the music industries. Actually, I wonder what is the exact difference between singles and EPs?
I asked this question in myself first when I bought Hotride EP in '05, but then I was not so curious about it at all. Now I just wonder it.
Read this stuff, I found on wikipedia:




So actually, all the Prodigy singles could be called EPs, couldn't they? All of them contains more than 10 minutes of music, and it says singles has up to ten minutes. So what is this?
Why Hotride meant to be an EP? It contains kinda stuffs (IMO) that all other prodigy singles do. B-Side stuff (Who U Foolin), a remix for the featured song (El Batori Remix) and another remix for a previous single, Girls, and the song itself of course.
So can anyone tell me about it a bit more?
I especially wanna know why do we say "singles" for all their stuffs if all of them contains more than 10 minutes of music, while this wiki stuff says that singles are up to 10 mins of music.

I think that applies to vinyl more than CDs. Originally 7" records only had enough room for a maximum of about 5-6 minutes on each side (the 10 minute limit). EP is short for Extended Play; 10" 45rpm records that could fit up to about 14 minutes on each side. A 12" album has enough room for about 25 minutes on each side at 33 rpm and 18 minutes at 45rpm.

For CDs, as songs are generally longer now than they used to be (up to 5 minutes for your average pop song versus 3 minutes back in the 50's), maybe they relaxed the rules, bringing in the 4 track limit instead?

As for the UK releases of Prodigy singles, all of them up to Hotride except EITP had only 4 tracks. (Reissued it as a 4 track without Rip Up The Sound System).

These rules you are mentioning came around 2002, I believe! So the digital mp3 releases could compete with the cd single, or something like that.

There where a whole different set of rules before that, in the 90's! So we probably won't see the 'Hotride EP' type of release that much anymore!
But it would be nice, I miss the days with 4 track singles with 2-3 killer b-sides!

I don't think El batori Mix meant to be a B-Side but a remix for the featured song.



Well, it's funny, but my copy has a label on it, says The Prodigy Hotride EP