If you’ve joined the growing number of music fans collecting vinyl records, you might’ve noticed something odd: your favorite albums sound a bit different—or feel incomplete. You’re not imagining things. As reported by NPR, it’s becoming increasingly common for physical album releases, especially vinyl LPs, to feature fewer songs than their digital streaming versions.
Recent high-profile examples include Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter, which is missing five tracks on vinyl, and Lil Wayne’s Tha Carter VI, where the vinyl version includes just six of the 19 songs available online. This trend comes as vinyl continues its massive resurgence in the U.S., with sales climbing for the 18th consecutive year and reaching $1.4 billion in 2024—the highest inflation-adjusted revenue for vinyl since 1988.
So why the missing music?
Part of the reason is technical. Vinyl records can only hold about 22 to 25 minutes of music per side, which limits how much content can be included. Cam Sarrett of United Record Pressing in Nashville explains: “The format has its limitations. Which is either a bothersome thing or a beautiful thing, depending on how you look at it.”
Another issue is timing. Often, vinyl production has to begin before an artist has finalized the tracklist. Billy Fields, a vinyl strategist at Warner Music Group, puts it this way: “We’re all trying to eat the cake before it’s baked.”
There may also be a strategic angle. Billboard requires only four tracks for a release to count as an album, meaning artists can sell shorter physical versions—on vinyl or CD—and still rack up full album sales. This boosts chart performance without having to squeeze in the full tracklist.
The BBC adds that the simplest explanation might be the most accurate: the missing songs just aren’t finished in time for the vinyl production schedule.
Whatever the reason, it’s left some fans disappointed. Alexis Collins, a Lil Wayne fan who bought the vinyl edition of Tha Carter VI, told NPR: “The vinyl itself has a nice sound to it, but I don’t believe it has the best songs from the album on it.”