Oh, and just to go into it a little more deeply. This is because there was a format war going on between record companies. Some of the record companies were selling 12 inch vinyls already but one record company, I forget which, was insisting on selling is proprietary 45 inch vinyl. This was the record company that sold five record sets in “albums“. That company was literally the Sony Betamax of its time. LOL! I think it may have been RCA.
Thanks for this history. Fascinating.