Kansas (2)
Vinyl Confessions

Listening notes

Kansas released Vinyl Confessions on the Kirshner label in 1982 under catalog number FZ 38002. The album appears on this standard vinyl format across genres catalogued as Pop Rock, Prog Rock, and Rock — a spread that reflects the range of the ten tracks spread across two sides.

Side A opens with "Play The Game Tonight" at 3:24, followed by "Right Away" at 4:03, "Fair Exchange" at 4:56, "Chasing Shadows" at 3:17, and "Diamonds And Pearls" at 4:47. Side B runs "Face It" at 4:15, "Windows" at 3:29, "Borderline" at 3:57, "Play On" at 3:39, and closes with "Crossfire" at 6:35.

Looking at the track lengths alone, the sequencing reveals something worth noting. Side A carries the longer individual pieces in "Fair Exchange" and "Diamonds And Pearls," giving that side a combined runtime weighted toward its middle and closing tracks. Side B builds toward its conclusion differently, reserving its longest piece for last: "Crossfire" at six and a half minutes is the album's most extended composition by a considerable margin, nearly three minutes longer than anything else on the record.

The genre tags assigned to the release — Pop Rock, Prog Rock, and Rock — sit in the same tension that defined a number of rock acts navigating the early 1980s. Whether those tags accurately reflect the content of each individual track is a question that falls outside what the catalog data can answer.

Collectors and researchers looking to identify this pressing should reference the Kirshner label and catalog number FZ 38002 as the baseline identifiers for this 1982 release.