Double Album

A double album (or double record) is an audio album which spans two units of the primary medium in which it is sold, typically records and compact discs.

A double album is usually, though not always, released as such because the recording is longer than the capacity of the medium. Recording artists often think of double albums as a single piece artistically; however, there are exceptions such as Pink Floyd's Ummagumma (one live album and one studio record packaged together), and OutKast's Speakerboxxx/The Love Below, (effectively two solo albums, one by each member of the duo).

Since the advent of the compact disc, albums are sometimes released with a bonus disc featuring additional material as a supplement to the main album, with live tracks, studio out-takes, cut songs, or older unreleased material. An innovation is the accompaniment of a CD with a DVD of related material, such as video related to the album or DVD-Audio versions of the same recordings. These could be regarded as a new form of double album; some such discs were also released on a two-sided format called DualDisc.

The same principles apply to the triple album, which comprises three units. Packages with more units than three are often packaged as boxed sets.