Thursday, July 06, 2023

Two sides to every story?

As a hard-copy fetishist who still clings to a deeply unfashionable belief in playing albums in their entirety, in the order intended by the artist, I was slightly embarrassed to realise only recently that two of the albums I've been blasting in the car - Fuzz's III and Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs' Land Of Sleeper - have obviously been specifically designed for the double-sided vinyl format.

Suddenly, the structure and track sequencing made perfect sense. Both have eight songs that split neatly into two halves, with each side kicking off with a rager ('Returning' and 'Mirror' on III, 'Ultimate Hammer' and 'Mr Medicine' on Land Of Sleeper) and ending with a sprawling monster ('Time Collapse' and 'End Returning' on III, 'The Weatherman' and 'Ball Lightning' on Land Of Sleeper).

In my defence, my format of choice is CD rather than vinyl - but even still, this does make me wonder how many other modern albums have been deliberately sequenced with a Side A and a Side B in mind, and how many times this has totally passed me by. Has the vinyl revival had a significant impact on the way tracklistings are put together?

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