nah, that's the thing. while a vinyl CAN fit up 29 minutes on one side under some extreme circumstances, it's far from ideal. the longer a side is, the more the audio quality suffers due to cut bass frequencies and lower volumes, as there is only so much groove space to dedicate to a full listening experience. while it's realistic that 'shine on' could probably fit on one side, the dip in sound quality makes for a tremendously good reason to break it up. one can assume, at that point in time, that floyd and their crew were quite good in the studio, so it seems foolish to cram a magnum opus on one side of a record only to have it sound so trebely and thin.

see also "to be played at maximum volume'--- not a saying coined for kicks. it meant that the lp side was pushing the limits and volume was cut to compensate for the longer running time.



edit: JINX!