In the record industry, a single is a song usually extracted from an upcoming album to promote the release of said album. Singles are distributed through a number of ways; originally, they were packaged as "single" records with one or two other songs and sold before the release of the album. However, this practice has lessened as the Internet has made music more readily available to the public free of charge. Also, singles are commonly played on the radio, and with the advent of music videos in the 1980s, video versions of singles have become a common way of distributing the song to the public.
"Single" is a pop song written by British singer Natasha Bedingfield, Steve Kipner, Andrew Frampton and Wayne Wilkins for Bedingfield's debut album Unwritten (2004). The song was produced by Kipner, Frampton and Wilkins and received a positive reception from music critics. It was released as the first single in Europe in the second quarter of 2004 and reached the top five in the United Kingdom. In North and Latin America, "Single" was released as Bedingfield's third single in the second quarter of 2006. It performed moderately well on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100, reaching number fifty-seven.
