Nobody knows how to sequence a record any more
The running order used to be an argument. Now it is an algorithm, and you can hear the difference on the third track.
A record has a shape. It starts somewhere, it goes somewhere, and — if the person sequencing it knew what they were doing — the order in which those things happen is doing about a third of the work.
Side one, track three
There is a reason the third track was traditionally the best one. You have the listener’s attention by then, and they have not yet got up to do something else. Everybody who made records for a living knew this.
Streaming does not have a track three. It has a front-loaded first thirty seconds, repeated indefinitely, and a tail nobody reaches.
What we do about it
Play the whole thing, in order, on the radio. It is not a sophisticated intervention but it is the only one available to us.