Vinyl LPs played the role of “state of the art” for decades, and I’m reminded that time ended not so long ago. I came across this quaint note last night on the Elvis Costello album Get Happy!:

Hi!

You’ll have noticed that there are ten (?) tracks on each side of this, Elvis’ new L.P., making it a real “long player”!

Elvis and I talked long and hard about the wisdom of taking this unusual step and are proud that we can now reassure hi-fi enthusiasts and/or people who never bought a record made before 1967 that with the inclusion of this extra music time they willl find no loss of sound quality due to “groove cramming” as the record nears the end of each face (i.e. the hole in the middle).

Now get happy.

Your friend,

Nick Lowe

Producer

We’ve used space-age polymers and other NASA technology to cram those grooves. Those peaks and troughs in the songs, we got ‘em covered.

The year? 1980. In 25 years, we’ve gone from cramming grooves to practically unlimited groove capacity. Rock on, brother.