Its a concept album that celebrates the last 60 years of music history. Understandably a lot happened in those decades and cramming all that onto a single LP would lead spirit of the beehive style insanity. I think a double LP makes tons of sense here, the album is only 2 hours long so not like the length is absolutely insane. Obviously its not the tightest, but I think that lets the influences shine even more.

Music critics also love concept albums, I think because they spend all day listening to music so something unique is especially intriguing to them.