I’m on vacation so of course I am thinking about how music is expressed on different formats, like this new Chris Stapleton record I got for Christmas. Note that it only has three tracks on side A and the center is blank - the album came on 2xLPs, like a lot of new vinyl.

My oldest records, like our beloved 1974 copy of Sticky Fingers (with real zipper sleeve!) are packed tight to the center. What’s going on?

The inside of a record spins slower than the outside, so the inner grooves are packed tighter, with more distortion and limited dynamic range. Physical formats have all kinds of weirdness like this that shape music itself.

But when vinyl was the only music format, no one wanted to flip records all the time. So everyone made use of the whole side, and artists and engineers would order albums to have the quieter songs on the inner grooves.

But now that streaming exists, no one’s thinking about album track order that way. And vinyl is selling well, but in relatively small numbers, and as much for the physical experience of handling the records. And no one wants to compromise inner groove sound quality.