Audiobooks: Album or Other?

A search is always going to be able to find exceptions.

Audiobooks are an entity as a whole. It was accepted that these are not “albums” in the classic sense and to mark them as “other”.

Especially as in some cases you have groups who release musical albums and also audiobook\audio-dramas.

This does not mean you can’t have a single that is a spin-off from this. If that single was released to the single charts for some reason.

Not sure why you use Discogs links as they have different guidelines. But even there it is not an album.

:person_shrugging:

Looking through this thread I see zero reasoning for why an audiobook is not an album. The issue was clearly never resolved as the guide lines make no comment on the matter either way.

All I’ve done is cite examples of audiobooks which could qualify as singles, but a handful of examples is pretty potent when there is no reason given for why they are not albums.

there are a few examples I can find of audiobooks being released chapter-by-chapter on YouTube (likely also SoundCloud, but I don’t know of any offhand), like this recording of Fallout Equestria (full playlist here)


for what it’s worth, I see no issue with either using Album or no primary type, but I don’t often edit in this space

I guess I just see Other as being a valuable category in its own right. Like, if we are talking about the Big Mouth Billy Bass, or music ripped from a video game cartridge, or a shifting archival release, then I understand those clearly as being “Other”.

Audiobooks are already distinguished as secondary release types, but they are not categorically different from what I would expect an album release to be. It’s not a talking book, it’s a bunch of tapes, discs or digital files.

I think it is pure semantics, which is why it can be difficult to discuss.

All I can say is that for me “album” is a term I associate only with music.

e.g. If someone said to me “I am going to go listen to the new Stephen King album/EP/single”, I would be confused and need clarification.

Of course other people may interpret those terms differently.

1 Like