Potentially stupid question about Billy Idol's albums.

[JessyK]

This may seem like a stupid question, but I have a LP record of "Rebel Yell", and noticed that the label has a large 3 and 4
printed on the A and B sides. I didn't think much of this until later on, when I bought a cassette of "Whiplash Smile" (his next
album) and it had a 5 and a 6 printed on the case insert instead of the usual Side 1 and 2 or A and B. Has anyone else noticed
this? Is this something that was once regularly done on records and cassettes? And does anyone know if this continued on
Idol's "Charmed Life" or "Cyberpunk"?

[bazooka]

Looks like the answer is in the third, fourth, sixth and ninth posts to this thread on another forum.

[JessyK]

Thanks for finding that for me! Although no one there seems to really know why this is either.

I suppose a better question is to ask you various Songfacts members, does anyone have "Charmed Life" on CD, LP, or cassette? Does it have a 7 and 8 on it somewhere? Does anyone have a "Cyberpunk" with a 9 and a 10 on it? And does anyone know of any other artist who did this?

[bazooka]

Not quite the same thing, but a two-record LP set that I think was interesting is Canned Heat's Living the Blues. 

Record 1 = Sides 1 and 4;  Record 2 = Sides 2 and 3.  The purpose was "Refried Boogie (Part I)" and "Refried Boogie (Part II). Each part is 20 minutes plus. If you had one of those old old school vinyl record changers that would drop one on top of another, you were able to listen to all of the epic "Refried Boogie" without having to turn a record over.