A sign in a music store long ago advertised CDs at one price and “albums” at a much lower price. I was tempted to demand CDs at the album price, but I was never a troublemaker.
When 12-inch long-play phonograph records dominated the recorded music market, the word “album” was used as a synonym for “record,” but it’s an imprecise usage. A record is an album, but “album” can mean more than just “record,” which is why “album” and “record” are not synonyms. A look at the origin of “album” as a description of recorded music explains its eventual synonymy.
My older dictionaries say that an album, among other definitions, is a collection of records in a book-like holder with a stiff cover. I have a few of those, two of which are pictured here. I read that similar containers holding 45s were also called albums.
Newer dictionaries define an album when it relates to music as a cardboard container for a record, which is a jacket, not an album; and “one or more recordings (as on tape or disc) produced as a single unit” (Merriam-Webster), the true definition of a music album.
