Ongoing History Daily: The first two-sided record

September 14, 2023 Alan Cross 0 Comments 0 min read

This is for people who are still into vinyl. Here’s the question: what was the first record to have music on both sides?

For the answer, we must go back to 1904, just a few years after Emile Berliner introduced the idea of playing back music from a flat spinning disc.The first discs only had music on one side. But then a German label called Odeon came up with a marketing scheme: two songs for the price of one. Finish playing the record on one side, then flip it over and play another song.

Within a year, Odeon had 7,000 two-sided records for sale forcing all the other labels to ship records with an “A” side and a “B” side, although some companies held out with single-sided discs until the 1920s.

Alan Cross

is an internationally known broadcaster, interviewer, writer, consultant, blogger and speaker. In his 40+ years in the music business, Alan has interviewed the biggest names in rock, from David Bowie and U2 to Pearl Jam and the Foo Fighters. He’s also known as a musicologist and documentarian through programs like The Ongoing History of New Music.

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