I think there are probably several reasons why a record wasn't issued for
The Silver Lining:
1. There was not a huge demand 6 years ago for records when
The Silver Lining came out. Only within the past 2-3 years they have been making a slow comeback.
2. It costs quite a bit to have a record mastered and Sony/Legacy probably didn't think it'd even be worth their time and money to have one mastered (especially for SA who weren't big anymore).
3. Records definitely don't hold as much time as a CD. TSL is almost 52 minutes, the longest of any of their albums (though I doubt they would have included Fearless Leader on there, which would have made it shorter, plus that big gap). The average LP is 20 minutes per side (though the Columbia ones used the 26 minutes per side) due to being longer than 40 minutes. The longer a record is, the more quality gets lost (like a VHS tape, if the tape is recorded at an extended play speed the picture gets more degraded). This was one reason why many older albums were shorter to begin with (or so I read somewhere a while back). I did just come across
this information.
Looking at various sites that specialize in converting CD's to records, it would cost almost $200 just for one copy.
Regardless I wish there was one too, I know I would have bought at least one, already got one for every other album (even
Delayed Reaction).
