Studio Album
An album composed primarily of recordings made for the album project and completed through a controlled production workflow, distinguished from live albums, compilations, and other content-source types.
Explanation
A Studio Album is an album composed primarily of recordings made for that album project and shaped through recording, editing, mixing, and mastering. The term distinguishes such releases from live albums, broadcast recording compilations, and assemblies of previously released works; it does not require that every sound be captured in the same commercial recording studio.
Modern production may span multiple studios, home setups, and remote collaboration environments, with some instruments recorded on location and other parts overdubbed later. As long as the finished product is organized around controlled, formal studio recordings as its main body and presented as a new album project, it can still be classified as a Studio Album. By contrast, an album recorded at a concert and then edited, mixed, and corrected still derives its content mainly from live performance. "Studio" also does not mean the absence of live feel or single-take performance. Full-band simultaneous recording, improvised sessions, studio-live recordings with audience presence, splicing multiple takes, and extensive electronic production can all appear. Classification focuses on the production context of the recording project, not on whether applause, reverb, or post-processing is audible.
Studio albums usually contain newly released material, but that is not an absolute requirement. Artists may re-record older works, produce cover albums, or reconstruct stage material in the studio; as long as these recordings are newly produced for the project, they can still be Studio Albums. A greatest-hits set made entirely from studio recordings is usually still classified as a Compilation because its primary purpose is to gather previously issued material.
The same studio album may have multiple release versions and may include bonus live discs, demos, or video. Added content does not automatically change the main album type; if a reissue elevates material from different sources to equal status, corresponding secondary attributes can be recorded alongside it.