How to cite an audio recording

Bluebook (22d ed.) citation format · B18 / R18.8.1 · Internet & electronic

Example

Mitski, Be the Cowboy (CD, Dead Oceans Aug. 17, 2018).

More examples

Each of these is checked against the rules on every change to the tool.

Gang of Youths, Achilles Come Down, on Go Farther In Lightness (CD, Sony Aug. 18, 2017).
Electric Light Orchestra, Can’t Get It out of My Head, on Can’t Get It out of My Head [Single] (Vinyl Record, Warner Bros. Recs. Jan. 1975).

What the citation needs

Required

None.

When they apply

Artist / creator — The artist / creator, as it appears on the source.
Title — The title as it appears on the source. R8(a): capitalize every word except articles, conjunctions and prepositions of four or fewer letters, unless they begin the title or follow a colon.
Album — The album, as it appears on the source.
Time stamp — The point in a recording or post you are citing.
Label — The label, as it appears on the source.
Medium — The medium the work appears in.
Date — The date the rule for this source calls for, with the month abbreviated per T12 (“Nov. 24, 1978”).
On file with — Where a reader can get an unpublished or hard-to-find source: what follows “on file with” — “author”, or the library or journal holding it (R17.1).

In a brief and in a law review

The Bluebook sets citations two ways: the Bluepages for court documents and legal memoranda, the Whitepages for law review footnotes. Here is the first example above as each one prints it, in its typeface.

Court documents (Bluepages)

Mitski, Be the Cowboy (CD, Dead Oceans Aug. 17, 2018).

Law review footnotes (Whitepages)

Mitski, Be the Cowboy (CD, Dead Oceans Aug. 17, 2018).

The words are the same in both; only the typeface changes.

Common mistakes

Each of these is a citation the checker refuses, with what it says is wrong and the corrected form.

Wrong

Mitski, Be the Cowboy (CD, Dead Oceans August 17, 2018).

Why

Abbreviate the month: “August” should be “Aug.” (T12).

Right

Mitski, Be the Cowboy (CD, Dead Oceans Aug. 17, 2018).

Governing rules

B18 / R18.8.1

18 — the internet, electronic media & other nonprint resources.
18.8.1 — audio recordings on physical media.

Build this citation with the generator, check one you have already written, or paste a whole list of footnotes to check them in order.

Related source types

Internet & electronic: