From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Type of packaging for music albums
Gatefold issue of rock band
Queen
's
Made in Heaven
CD
A
gatefold cover
or
gatefold LP
is a form of packaging for
LP records
that became popular in the mid-1960s. A gatefold cover, when folded, is the same size as a standard LP cover (i.e., a 12½ inch, or 32.7 centimetre square). The larger gatefold cover provided a means of including artwork,
liner notes
, and/or song lyrics, which would otherwise not have fit on a standard record cover. It became famous as an extension of
progressive rock
, as the expansive, transient gatefolds by artists such as
Roger Dean
,
H. R. Giger
, or
Hipgnosis
became associated with
concept albums
.
Gatefold sleeves were also frequently used when an album contained more than one record, with Bob Dylan's 1966
double album
,
Blonde on Blonde
being an early example of a multi-LP album to be released in a gatefold. Typically, double albums would feature one disc in each half of the cover, with larger albums either placing multiple LPs in one or both sleeves or using larger gatefolds. While some multi-LP releases (particularly those issued during the vinyl record's market dormancy from 1988 to 2007) would either package the discs in a simple sleeve or sandwich the records between two cards and shrink wrap, the prominence of gatefold for multi-LP albums led it to become the most common form of packaging for them.
An example of an LP gatefold from a vinyl copy of
the Beatles' 1968 self-titled release
. (The four portraits of the band members on the right have been blurred out for copyright reasons.)
Starting in the early 1950s,
RCA
used gatefold packaging for some of their deluxe 45 RPM
single
releases, such as
Nat King Cole
's eight-song "
Unforgettable
"
EP
, with two 45s, released in 1952. Gatefold packaging for
LPs
was popularized in the late 1950s by band leader and
stereophonic
studio recording pioneer
Enoch Light
so he could fit liner notes he had written describing the sounds in each song on the album sleeve. Disagreement exists as to the identity of the first gatefold LP packaging used with a traditional 33⅓ LP.
[1]
The LP gatefold has also been adapted to package
CDs
without a
jewelcase
.
Original use of the term
[
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]
The left and right panel of a gate-folded sheet open like a double gate.
In the printing industry, the term
gate fold
or
gatefold
means a document folding method that uses two parallel folds to create six panels; the left and right panels are half the width of the center panels and fold inward to meet in the middle without overlapping.
[2]
: 353
[3]
[4]
See also
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References
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