Columbia Records

=== The LP record (1948–1959) ===
Columbia's president Edward Wallerstein was instrumental in steering Paley towards the ARC purchase. He set his talents to his goal of hearing an entire movement of a symphony on one side of an album. Ward Botsford writing for the Twenty-Fifth Anniversary Issue of ''High Fidelity Magazine'' relates: "He was no inventor—he was simply a man who seized an idea whose time was ripe and begged, ordered, and cajoled a thousand men into bringing into being the now accepted medium of the record business." Despite Wallerstein's stormy tenure, in June 1948, Columbia introduced the Long Playing "microgroove" [[LP record]] format (sometimes written "Lp" in early advertisements), which rotated at 33⅓ [[revolutions per minute]], to be the standard for the gramophone record for forty years. CBS research director Dr. [[Peter Carl Goldmark|Peter Goldmark]] played a managerial role in the collaborative effort, but Wallerstein credits engineer [[William Savory]] with the technical prowess that brought the long-playing disc to the public.<ref name="catalog1949">{{cite book|title=Columbia Record Catalog 1949|publisher=Columbia Records Inc.|pages=1–20}}</ref>

By the early 1940s, Columbia had been experimenting with higher fidelity recordings, as well as longer masters, which paved the way for the successful release of the LPs in 1948. One such record that helped set a new standard for music listeners was the 10" LP reissue of ''[[The Voice of Frank Sinatra]]'', originally released on March 4, 1946, as an album of four 78 rpm records, which was the first pop album issued in the new LP format. [[Sinatra]] was arguably Columbia's hottest commodity and his artistic vision combined with the direction Columbia were taking the medium of music, both popular and classic, were well suited. ''The Voice of Frank Sinatra'' was also considered to be the first genuine ''[[concept album]]''. Since the term "LP" has come to refer to the 12-inch {{frac|33|1|3}} rpm vinyl disk, the first LP is the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto in E minor played by Nathan Milstein with Bruno Walter conducting the New York Philharmonic (then called the Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra of New York), Columbia ML 4001, found in the Columbia Record Catalog for 1949, published in July 1948. The other "LP's" listed in the catalog were in the 10 inch format starting with ML 2001 for the light classics, CL 6001 for popular songs and JL 8001 for children's records.<ref name="catalog1949"/> The [[Library of Congress]] in Washington DC now holds the Columbia Records Paperwork Archive which shows the Label order for ML 4001 being written on March 1, 1948. One can infer that Columbia was pressing the first LPs for distribution to their dealers for at least 3 months prior to the introduction of the LP on [[June 21]],<ref name="LoC">[https://blogs.loc.gov/now-see-hear/2019/04/inside-the-archival-box-the-first-long-playing-disc/ ''The First Long-Playing Disc''] Library of Congress (Congress.gov) (accessdate 21 June 2021)</ref> [[1948 in music|1948]].<ref>Library of Congress Columbia Records Paperwork Box 121</ref> The catalog numbering system has had minor changes ever since.

Columbia's LPs were particularly well-suited to classical music's longer pieces, so some of the early albums featured such artists as [[Eugene Ormandy]] and the [[Philadelphia Orchestra]], [[Bruno Walter]] and the [[New York Philharmonic Orchestra]], and [[Sir Thomas Beecham]] and the [[Royal Philharmonic Orchestra]]. The success of these recordings persuaded [[Capitol Records]] to begin releasing LPs in 1949. Even before the LP record was officially demonstrated, Columbia offered to share the new speed with rival RCA Victor, who initially rejected it and soon introduced their new competitive 45 RPM record. When it became clear that the LP was the preferred format for classical recordings, RCA Victor announced that the company would begin releasing its own LPs in January 1950. This was quickly followed by the other major American labels. [[Decca Records]] in the U.K. was the first to release LPs in Europe, beginning in 1949. EMI would not fully adopt the LP format until 1955.

An "original cast recording" of [[Rodgers & Hammerstein]]'s ''[[South Pacific (musical)|South Pacific]]'' with [[Ezio Pinza]] and [[Mary Martin]] was recorded in 1949. Both conventional metal masters and tape were used in the sessions in New York City. For some reason, the taped version was not used until Sony released it as part of a set of CDs devoted to Columbia's Broadway albums.<ref>Sony liner notes</ref>  Over the years, Columbia joined Decca and RCA Victor in specializing in albums devoted to Broadway musicals with members of the original casts. In the 1950s, Columbia also began releasing LPs drawn from the soundtracks of popular films.

Many album covers put together by Columbia and the other major labels were put together using one piece of cardboard (folded in half) and two paper "slicks", one for the front and one for the back. The front slick bent around the top, bottom, and left sides (the right side is open for the record to be inserted into the cover) and glued the two halves of cardboard together at the top and bottom. The back slick is pasted over the edges of the pasted-on front slick to make it appear that the album cover is one continuous piece.

Columbia discovered that printing two front cover slicks, one for mono and one for stereo, was inefficient and therefore needlessly costly. Starting in the summer of 1959 with some of the albums released in August, they went to the "paste-over" front slick, which had the stereo information printed on the top and the mono information printed on the bottom. For stereo issues, they moved the front slick down so the stereo information was showing at the top, and the mono information was bent around the bottom to the back and "pasted over" by the back slick. Conversely, for a mono album, they moved the slick up so the mono information showed at the bottom, and the stereo information was pasted over.