Albums where Side B is stronger

[Lethean]

I don't own anything with a side a or b, so I'll just go with the 2nd half.  For me, Angra's Temple of Shadows is the first album that came to mind.  First half is great, 2nd is kinda Astonishing (hey, my phone automatically capitalizes that...)

[pg1067]

But in the case of something like SDOIT, that's like putting TGP/BF/Misunderstood against TGD/Disappear/SDOIT, which seems hardly unfair.

Ummm...

Interesting factoid regarding Operation Mindcrime. 

Suite Sister Mary posed a big problem because it made the album lopsided no matter which half you put it on.    For the narrative, it belonged as the end of “act 1”....but the time was just slightly more balanced if you put it at the beginning of side 2.   This was important to consider at the time, because if you wanted to listen to it in the car, you had to make a cassette copy.  (Many of us were only just beginning to get CD players, and almost no one had them in their car.)

But the OFFICIAL release was done both ways, actually.

The cassette had Suite Sister Mary at the end of side 1.   This was the actual artistic intention, as SSM does end “act 1” of the story.  But it created a very annoying LOOOONG gap of silence at the end of side 2. 

But the vinyl release has SSM beginning side 2 because of the limitations of time on an LP.   

I'm somewhat amazed that they could get over 33 minutes of music on one side of a vinyl record.  I remember Maiden making a big deal out of the fact that they had 25+ minutes on each side of Powerslave.

I copied my Mindcrime CD onto a C60 cassette for the car and had to split SSM between the two sides.  I remember meticulously fading out the volume level on side one and then starting the song over and fading in at the start of side two.  Not sure why I didn't just use a C90, but I assume it was because I'd only be able to add portions of some other album and didn't want to do that.