I was thinking about buying the new Sepultura album on vinyl, but I'm probably not going to based on how they made it.
They stretched out 45 minutes of music over 4 sides, three sides being actual music and the fourth side being an 'etching', which I think is really dumb. If you can fit all the music neatly onto one disc, just put it on one disc. Otherwise I feel like it's a waste of vinyl and packaging, and I'm kind of annoyed by how many albums I own that are double LPs with only 12 minutes a side.
Does this bother anyone else?
It does bother me when the artist/label don't maximize playing time per side.
However, there can be benefits. If the sides are shorter because it's being cut at 45 instead of 33 RPM, you get a sound quality upgrade, but a shorter runtime. If the album is short anyway, may as well.
The worst is when it has to be a double but just barely, so you end up with like 13 minutes on each side. It allows sound quality to stay up but you're flipping almost twice as often.
Then again, an overstuffed single LP is probably the worst of all (assuming it's pressed in stereo). Mastodon are bad for this. So is Atom Heart Mother, for those counting – the 2016 reissue definitely should have done ATM side 1, Fat Old Sun/Alan's side 2, then a 7" for the remaining two songs. You simply can't make a 28-minute side sound good and be at the right volume.