Frustrated with short sided double LPs?

TellMeWhy

Active Member
Hi everyone. So here is my pet hate- double LP's that have short (10-12 min) listening sides. Don't you just hate having to get up and turn the disc over, just when you've managed to snuggle down and relax.

But as Sod's Law dictates most of my favourite LP's (often made during the CD era) are indeed doubles. So I was wondering what you thought of a vinyl specific rerelease label that only did single, full length LP's, cutting the odd "weaker" track out in order to fit the album on.

Does that sound sacrilegious? Or is it a bright idea for an audiophile rerelease label? Would artists and labels ever give permission for their "completed works" to be "abridged'?

Wouldn't you just love wonderful hifi records like Beck's Sea Change, Radiohead Kid A, War on Drugs Lost in the Dream etc if they fitted onto one lovely side? One record to produce and purchase, one record to clean. IGD might be a concern, but keen vinyl heads tend to have cartridges that track properly anyway.

Opinions?
 
There is X# of square inches of surface area on a vinyl record, and X amount of information that has to be encoded (cut) into that surface area. Same for CDs and DVDs--there is a "fixed" amount of storage space available. Vinyl is a little more flexible in that you can "cram" stuff on by decreasing area between grooves, but digital is "fixed"--only so much data at a specific bit-rate fits. I have many 12" 45rpm singles and albums that were originally a single album, but re-issued as doubles--the groove spacing is different, and some are done as multiple 45rpm records, rather than a single LP.
 
I'd be more likely to buy a reissue where the album was fit nicely on three sides without abridgement, and some extra songs such as b-sides collected on the 4th side. I think I've got a few like that around.
 
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Fitting to three sides out of four instead of spacing out to all four sides seems like a better option. Can't think of a single track I'd remove from Sea Change or Kid A! That would be sacrelidge. I have a few 90's and 2000's records with blank 4th sides (Pavement's Wowee Zowee for example) or artwork-etched 4th sides (Neon Bible comes to mind).
 
Hi everyone. So here is my pet hate- double LP's that have short (10-12 min) listening sides. Don't you just hate having to get up and turn the disc over, just when you've managed to snuggle down and relax.

I guess people didn't notice short LP sides so much when changer turntables were common and you could stack records. Yours is one of the prices you pay for a manual reloader, apparently.
 
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Fitting to three sides out of four instead of spacing out to all four sides seems like a better option. Can't think of a single track I'd remove from Sea Change or Kid A! That would be sacrelidge. I have a few 90's and 2000's records with blank 4th sides (Pavement's Wowee Zowee for example) or artwork-etched 4th sides (Neon Bible comes to mind).
Hah! Yes I agree with that :) Super Furry Animals - Phantom Power for example. But also I remember LP albums that had one less track than their CD equivalents so they fitted on 1 disc. Seems like today that thought is out the window...
 
I guess people didn't notice short LP sides so much when changer turntables were common and you could stack records. Yours is one of the prices you pay for a manual reloader, apparently.

Short LP sides were not so much of a problem back in the record-changer-pre-CD days. With record sides holding around 20-25 minutes, nearly all albums were made to fit an even number of sides. It was the advent of CDs with a 72ish minute limit that led to a good number of CD-era albums of the 3 LP side length. There was a time in the mid-80s when a few LP albums came out with 3 sides of music (Joe Jackson's Big World, for example) where others spread too little music across 4 sides, such as Sting's ...Nothing Like The Sun with three songs per side. Then the LP pressings became rare, and 60 minute albums became even more common.
 
Short LP sides were not so much of a problem back in the record-changer-pre-CD days. With record sides holding around 20-25 minutes, nearly all albums were made to fit an even number of sides. It was the advent of CDs with a 72ish minute limit that led to a good number of CD-era albums of the 3 LP side length. There was a time in the mid-80s when a few LP albums came out with 3 sides of music (Joe Jackson's Big World, for example) where others spread too little music across 4 sides, such as Sting's ...Nothing Like The Sun with three songs per side. Then the LP pressings became rare, and 60 minute albums became even more common.
I'm drawing on my experiences from when my sister was a teenager, in the early-to-mid 1960's. I still have some of her LP's.
 
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Hah! Yes I agree with that :) Super Furry Animals - Phantom Power for example. But also I remember LP albums that had one less track than their CD equivalents so they fitted on 1 disc. Seems like today that thought is out the window...

Early CD copies of Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me by The Cure and 1999 by Prince (both double LPs) each cut a song to fit on a single CD. After longer CD lengths became possible, they were repressed to include the missing songs.
 
Before CD's came along most albums fitted onto one LP, right? This, also only IMHO, was an ideal length for most albums. Now many people are starting to buy vinyl again, maybe we'll see a return to shorter, single vinyl length releases...
BTW one of my favourite records is "It's a Shame About Ray" by Lemonheads, single LP but super short (about 15 mins per side)....
 
CDs rule. Plus now I listen to double albums without skipping a side. Come on now admit that you never played side 4 of Exile On Main St. back in the day.;). I would play side one and two, Happy from side 3, skip to Let It Loose, and maybe play All Down The Line before taking it off the record player.
 
Buy a table with a changer on it. Use it only on the days that you feel lazy.

This is what R2R decks are for--I still have two of them and they handle 10.5" reels at 3.75 and 7.5 IPS. I "archive" vinyl to tape, or just record mix tapes and you have hours of uninterrupted music--they are TEAC X1000r's so they auto-reverse as well.
 
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