A-side and B-side
the two sides of 78, 45, and 33 1/3 rpm phonograph records and cassette tapes
The A-side and B-side are the two sides of vinyl records and cassettes, and the terms have often been printed on the labels of two-sided music recordings, which in purely technical terms of recording and playback do not favor any side over the other. The A-side of a single usually features a recording that its artist, producer, or record company intends to be the initial focus of promotional efforts and radio airplay, with the aim of it becoming a hit record. The B-side (or "flip-side") is a secondary recording that typically receives less attention, although some B-sides have been as successful as, or more so than, their A-sides.
History
Conventions shifted in the early 1960s, at which point record companies started assigning the song they wanted radio stations to play to side A, as 45 rpm single records ("45s") dominated most markets in terms of cash sales in comparison to albums, which did not fare as well financially. Throughout the decade the industry would slowly shift to an album-driven paradigm for releasing new music; it was not until 1968 that the total production of albums on a unit basis finally surpassed that of singles in the United Kingdom.
Today, with the vast majority of music released and accessed without any physical carrier and predominantly as separate works, the traditional A-side/B-side distinction is obsolete. Nonetheless, some contemporary artists have added on a second track to a single-track release as a metaphorical "B-side" or "bonus track", which can serve as an aesthetic choice as well as a promotional tool.
Double A-side
A double A-side, AA-side, or dual single is a single where both sides are designated the A-side, with no designated B-side; that is, both sides are prospective hit songs and neither side will be promoted over the other. In 1949, Savoy Records promoted a new pair of singles by one of its artists, Paul Williams' "House Rocker" and "He Knows How to Hucklebuck", as "The New Double Side Hit – Both Sides 'A' Sides". In 1965, Billboard reported that due to a disagreement between EMI and John Lennon about which side of the Beatles' "We Can Work It Out" and "Day Tripper" single should be considered the A-side and receive the plugging, "EMI settled for a double-side promotion campaign—unique in Britain."
In the UK, before the advent of digital downloads, both A-sides were accredited with the same chart position, for the singles chart was compiled entirely from physical sales.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “A-side and B-side” is the two sides of 78, 45, and 33 1/3 rpm phonograph records and cassette tapes. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through A-side, B-side and sides, not as a finished interpretation.
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The phrase “the two sides of 78, 45, and 33 1/3 rpm phonograph records and cassette tapes” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 24, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q215233. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1968, 1949 and 1965.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “A-side and B-side” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.