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Album Length

post #1 of 33
7/16/08 at 11:34am
Thread Starter 
I've gone back and forth on this. I really do like albums that throw everything in there, and go all sorts of different places. The White Album is my favorite album ever, mostly because it feels more like a mixtape than a single cohesive work of art. The same goes for a lot of They Might Be Giants albums. Guided By Voices' Bee Thousand feels even MORE like a mixtape because it's so lo-fi it feels like it was dubbed onto a cassette. I'm very interested in pastiche, in all it's forms. Because, since formats changed to CD's and MP3's, albums are simply a collection of songs. You may listen to the album as one whole thing at the beginning, but eventually you'll break it up into individual songs you like, you'll skip songs you don't like. To pretend that the concept of an "album" has as much integrity as it did when things were on vinyl would be to ignore how the way people listen to music has changed.

But at the same time, my second and third favorite albums ever are Born to Run and In The Aeroplane Over the Sea. Both clock in at under 40 minutes, both are very cohesive and feel like they came from a single vision, which I'm also interested in. Albums like The National's Boxer are even more sonically cohesive, to the point where I don't even really consider the songs to be stand alone pieces of music. No songs from Boxer really work as well for me on their own, it sort of lurches and builds up it's own steam as an album. Bat Out of Hell, OK Computer, Funeral, All Hail West Texas!, Nebraska, Enter the 36 Chambers, all very cohesive albums that don't overstay their welcome.

So the question is, which do you prefer?
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post #2 of 33
7/16/08 at 11:36am
My ideal has always been around 45-50 minutes, whether it's a song album or film score. Very rarely will 60 mins or longer hold my interest.
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post #3 of 33
7/16/08 at 11:46am
I remember plenty of people complaining about paying twenty bucks for a CD that had eight songs on it back when the format was first catching on. So artists started adding more songs, which led to some material that may never have been included previously showing up on CDs. The freedom of the longer format removed the need to tighten up the song list.
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post #4 of 33
7/16/08 at 11:54am
People don't listen to whole albums as cohesive pieces of art because they've gotten too goddamn long. Track #24 is never essential. Never.
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post #5 of 33
7/16/08 at 12:11pm
As someone who still almost almost always downloads the whole album rather than individual tracks, I still feel that 45 minutes is the perfect album length. Obviously, something more sprawling like Sigur Ros our Scott Walker requires a more expansive experience and therefore a longer attention span.

Of course, some albums aren't intended to be absorbed in one sitting. I know I'm in the minority, but all I need from the Magnetic Fields is 23 Love Songs (or however many are on the disc with "Book of Love" on it). There are great songs on the other discs, I know, and it was a brilliant experiment, but two more discs of the same content clutters the experience up for me.

And the less said about the hip-hop skit, the better.
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post #6 of 33
7/16/08 at 12:31pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Phil View Post
People don't listen to whole albums as cohesive pieces of art because they've gotten too goddamn long. Track #24 is never essential. Never.
There are some exceptions, like Sufjan Stevens' Illinois, Magnetic Fields' 69 Love Songs (definitely along the lines of the mixtape-style long albums Patrick mentioned), Husker Du's Zen Arcade, and the Minutemen's Double Nickels on the Dime in which the scope is sort of the point, less-than-stellar songs and short experiments included (and the latter two albums are from 1984).

But, generally speaking, I agree with you. A lot of the bands who come out with long albums clearly didn't go into the studio with two dozen great ideas with the intent of putting out a cohesive double album. They just have a ton of songs and don't have the heart to cut the weak stuff or a consensus on what even constitutes the weak stuff. This might seem like a boon to dedicated fans, but it's a drawback for the casual fan or general audience.

On the other hand, the new Drive-By Truckers album is an interesting case in point. It's 19 tracks, and most fans tend to agree that, while it's good, there are at least one or two songs that could have been cut. But few agree about which songs these might be, and most are just happy that they released all of them, and we can pick the stuff we like and the stuff we don't. It's oddly scattershot, considering it's the product of a band that, in the past, has been very meticulous in determining the ideal context for each song (taking after Springsteen, who's the king of this - he had so much good material in the 70s and early 80s that he could have released twice as many albums as he did, if he could just put them together in a satisfying way).
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post #7 of 33
7/16/08 at 12:38pm
And, for the record, there have been both kinds of albums (a bunch of great songs and a bunch of songs that sound great together) since the mid/late-60s.

Revolver is a bunch of great songs, Sgt. Pepper is a bunch of songs that sound great together.

Who's Next is a bunch of great songs (despite Townshend's original intent), Quadrophenia is a bunch of songs that sound great together.

Tim is a bunch of great songs, Let It Be is a bunch of songs that sound great together.

The concept of an album as merely a collection of great songs isn't as new as some make it out to be. Some great albums of the past are nothing more than an artist being on a creative roll, with no grand, unifying scheme necessary.
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post #8 of 33
7/16/08 at 12:43pm
Since CD's became huge, bands started to drop double albums like so many hotcakes. Never mind the fact that the regular LP couldn't be longer than about 45 mins and most CD's were longer than that anyway. Look at most double CD's and they're at least longer than 50mins per disc, so we're thinking about about at least 100 mins of music. The Clash's London Calling (possibly the best double album ever) is only 65 mins long. Granted, that's coming from a punk band, but even the White Album is still under 95 mins. Compare that with bloated hit and mostly miss messes like Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness and (worse) Stadium Arcadium, which are both over 120 mins. long. And barely good enough to be a single release, let alone a double album.

A double album used to mean something. It used to be huge, it used to be a throw down in the face of pop music sensibilities, a stab at legitimacy, an event, a big deal. But too often bands release overstuffed fluff and make their releases way too long and the mystique of the double album doesn't matter anymore. Everybody does it so nobody gives a shit.

So if your album is over 45 minutes, it better be damn fucking good. And nobody should need another CD unless you're making one of the best albums ever. I think Sufjan Steven's Illinois is one of the best albums of the past ten years, and it squeaks in under 75 minutes. If he can make a beautiful, personal concept album about everything Illinois (from John Wayne Gacy to Casimir Pulaski) and fit it all on a single platter, then other artists should start learning some economy and start trimming some fat.
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post #9 of 33
7/16/08 at 2:18pm
Wire's Pink Flag is thirty-five minutes long, yet contains twenty-two songs...without sounding choppy. It has the best pace of any album I've heard.

Concept records I find unbearable...overly long, with the actual music taking a hit to tell a story that can't be told well in the format of rock music anyway. If Tommy was a novel, would you read it?

Forever Breathes the Lonely Word by Felt is one of my favorites...not a wasted moment on it. Every song flows into the others.
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post #10 of 33
7/16/08 at 2:27pm
My problem isn't so much with album length as it is with song length. There comes a point where you HAVE to edit down the 15 minute instrumental solo so that it services the song, not your skills on the guitar/keyboards.

Dream Theater, one of my absolute favorite bands, is guilty of this on many songs. When I see them play live, I can watch them jam on stage forever. When I hear certain studio tracks, I can't help thinking that the instrumental was taken a bit too far. It can become tedious, which is never good.
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post #11 of 33
7/16/08 at 4:20pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by dreary louse View Post
Wire's Pink Flag is thirty-five minutes long, yet contains twenty-two songs...without sounding choppy. It has the best pace of any album I've heard.
I love Pink Flag and it's one of my favorite records ever, in the top five for sure. But I also love Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here, which contains six songs, two of which are over ten minutes. Granted, the entire album is only 45 minutes long, but I don't think there's a certain formula to the whole thing. It depends on the band and the music.
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post #12 of 33
7/16/08 at 5:24pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by dreary louse View Post
Concept records I find unbearable...overly long, with the actual music taking a hit to tell a story that can't be told well in the format of rock music anyway. If Tommy was a novel, would you read it?
No, and if it were a snack cake, I might not eat it. I don't see what that has to do with anything.
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post #13 of 33
7/16/08 at 5:52pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by dreary louse View Post
Concept records I find unbearable...overly long, with the actual music taking a hit to tell a story that can't be told well in the format of rock music anyway. If Tommy was a novel, would you read it?
If the prose in the novel was as good as the songwriting and musicianship on the album, hell yeah.
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post #14 of 33
7/16/08 at 6:11pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by dreary louse View Post
Concept records I find unbearable...overly long, with the actual music taking a hit to tell a story that can't be told well in the format of rock music anyway.
Listen to Red Sparowes' album Every Red Heart Shines Toward the Red Sun and get back to me.
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post #15 of 33
7/16/08 at 6:44pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by avoideverything View Post
Listen to Red Sparowes' album Every Red Heart Shines Toward the Red Sun and get back to me.
I'll admit to having to look that one up - it looks like it's completely instrumental, which means it's only conceptual from a listener's standpoint if you have the benefit of knowing that it's conceptual.

That's certainly valid (as are thematic concept albums like Illinois, 69 Love Songs, Sgt. Pepper, etc.), but I'm not sure it's what drearylouse was criticizing, which would probably more accurately be termed "rock opera" (though that term is kind of inaccurate for other reasons) and I'll defend just as vigorously for the sake of Quadrophenia, Tommy, Zen Arcade, Berlin, and the Wall.
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post #16 of 33
7/16/08 at 7:33pm
I've liked Mastodon's concept albums a lot, their next one is suppose to be about Rasputin. How they're going to fit the theme of air into that concept will be interesting.
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post #17 of 33
7/16/08 at 7:38pm
I definitely prefer the cohesive album, if only because it comes along less frequently. Probably also has something to do with the fact that I came of age listening mostly to AOR. I find something really pleasant in putting on an entire album when it works well and I've got time to hear the whole thing through.

Conversely I'll sometimes actually skip individual songs from something like "Separation Sunday" if they pop up when I have the ipod in shuffle-all mode, I'd rather wait and hear them in context.

This thread has actually given me a new way of thinking about my favorite albums - they have great individual songs AND sound great as a front-to-back album.
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post #18 of 33
7/16/08 at 8:21pm
For a great long album I absolutely adore the criminally underrated REM album New Adventures In Hi-Fi. I know some people(I think it was DaveB) said it could drop a few tracks but but Ive fallen in love with all of them including the instrumental which I usualy dont like unless its intrumental on Out Of TIme.
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post #19 of 33
7/17/08 at 10:54am
Being over 40, I grew up with vinyl. And in those days when I looked at an album it was as a cohesive work of art, not just a collection of songs. There was a dynamic to the album, an ebb and flow, great deep tracks mixed in with the hit singles. And much pleasure in listening to the albums in their entirety. As I write this, the local classic rock radio station in Chicago is having one of their "album sides Thursdays". And it's a treat to hear a block of music like this, off the original vinyl. Right now it's side one of Dylan's Blood on the Tracks.

An album is art and it should be as long as it needs to be. It doesn't need to be 45 minutes to fill vinyl or 60 minutes to fill a casette or 80 minutes to fill a CD. Richard said it early on, as the capacity of music media increased, that became the reason that albums got longer - they didn't get longer because suddenly all artists had more to say.
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post #20 of 33
7/17/08 at 11:07am
The concept of sides really forced an artist to think about track order. Did you want to build and end Side 1 with a bang, then take it down a bit at the start of Side 2? Or did you want Side 1 to ease into things, then kick into high gear on Side 2? Now, the thought just seems to be "Let's put all the singles up front and the filler in the back."
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post #21 of 33
7/17/08 at 11:10am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by rabigjb View Post
As I write this, the local classic rock radio station in Chicago is having one of their "album sides Thursdays". And it's a treat to hear a block of music like this, off the original vinyl. Right now it's side one of Dylan's Blood on the Tracks.
97.1 FM...The Driiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiive

The most pretentious radio station ever. If they didn't play good tunes, it'd be unbearable.
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post #22 of 33
7/17/08 at 11:18am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Patrick Ripoll View Post
97.1 FM...The Driiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiive

The most pretentious radio station ever. If they didn't play good tunes, it'd be unbearable.
There's a classic rock station I listen to out of Tampa that refers to itself as "The Bone". I have no idea what possible relevance this has, but they sure are serious about it.
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post #23 of 33
7/17/08 at 11:22am
Thread Starter 
The Drive's ads consist of a man whispering purple prose about The Doobie Brothers and how this is "the music that shaped our lives, the greatest music in the world". All whispered, no background music, just the sound effect of car driving by on the Highway.

"The Driiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiive"
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post #24 of 33
7/17/08 at 11:29am
That IS pretentious.
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post #25 of 33
7/17/08 at 11:41am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Richard Dickson View Post
The concept of sides really forced an artist to think about track order. Did you want to build and end Side 1 with a bang, then take it down a bit at the start of Side 2? Or did you want Side 1 to ease into things, then kick into high gear on Side 2? Now, the thought just seems to be "Let's put all the singles up front and the filler in the back."
The better artists still pay attention to track order. It's just that they can take more liberties with the flow. The change in tone doesn't have to happen at exactly halfway through the album. Unfortunately, the worst offenders of Overstuffed Album Syndrome (hi, Chili Peppers) tend to be not so great at changing gears.

But, like I said before, there have always been artists who just wrote and wrote and wrote, then put out an album when they had "enough" songs, and there have always been artists who were very consciously "writing an album" or at least withholding songs that they knew didn't fit with the album they were currently working on (especially Springsteen, Dylan, and Young). Some artists did both - Sgt. Pepper and Abbey Road are very tightly organized, and the White Album is a grab-bag.
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post #26 of 33
7/17/08 at 11:44am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Patrick Ripoll View Post
The Drive's ads consist of a man whispering purple prose about The Doobie Brothers and how this is "the music that shaped our lives, the greatest music in the world". All whispered, no background music, just the sound effect of car driving by on the Highway.

"The Driiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiive"
Followed by China Grove 90% of the time. Yup that's the station. I can put up with the attitude, it's the predictable / limited song selection that grows tiresome for me. I like listening to the morning show the best, as it's hosted by the voice of Master Chief.
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post #27 of 33
7/17/08 at 11:47am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Patrick Ripoll View Post
The Drive's ads consist of a man whispering purple prose about The Doobie Brothers and how this is "the music that shaped our lives, the greatest music in the world". All whispered, no background music, just the sound effect of car driving by on the Highway.

"The Driiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiive"
That's even more self-important than most classic rock radio stations, and they all manage pretty high levels of self-importance.

If the Doobie Brothers had any hand whatsoever in shaping your life, you should probably rethink some things.
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post #28 of 33
7/17/08 at 11:49am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Patrick Ripoll View Post
97.1 FM...The Driiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiive

The most pretentious radio station ever. If they didn't play good tunes, it'd be unbearable.
I thought you hated "classic" rock?

Clocking in at around an hour (I think), hard to argue against EXILE ON MAIN STREET. Push comes to shove, probably my favorite album ever.

(I'm a sucker for always buying the longest "deluxe edition" of an album. I want all the bonus tracks & alternate tracks. I have a 3 disc version of VILLAGE GREEN PRESERVATION SOCIETY somewhere-can get lost in that for hours. Also the Deluxe SWEET HEART'S OF THE RODEO has all the previously erased Parsons vocals restored-as a fan i need this!)
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post #29 of 33
7/17/08 at 10:23pm
Exile on Main Street is a good choice. Sticky Fingers also builds and crescendos perfectly for my taste.

Okkervil River's The Stage Names is a recent one that works so well as a unit but also as individual tunes.
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post #30 of 33
7/18/08 at 11:24am
Quote:
Originally Posted by BrianM View Post
Okkervil River's The Stage Names is a recent one that works so well as a unit but also as individual tunes.
Incidentally, this one seems very deliberately built for vinyl, too. It's short, and the mix sounds even better on the record. It was originally planned as a double-LP (the second half, The Stand Ins, comes out in September), but it was a great idea to split it up. It's easier to focus on a small amount of songs, and those on The Stage Names are particularly lyrically and musically rich.

Hopefully, Sheff and company split them up on the basis of subject matter or musical style rather than quality - it would be a shame to follow The Stage Names with an album heavy on b-sides or scraps.
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post #31 of 33
7/18/08 at 1:24pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by BrianM View Post
Exile on Main Street is a good choice. Sticky Fingers also builds and crescendos perfectly for my taste.

Okkervil River's The Stage Names is a recent one that works so well as a unit but also as individual tunes.
I love STICKY FINGERS. "Moonlight Mile" about as perfect an album closer as you'll get. "Sway" is the Stones at their raunchiest; most straight outta the garage track. The thing with that record is I tend to mix up the track order for a better flow.("Can't You Hear Me Knockin'" wouldve been the perfect opener.)
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post #32 of 33
7/18/08 at 3:21pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by DaveB View Post
and the mix sounds even better on the record.
Not surprising (and this is me shaking my fist at the computer every time you post about your vinyl collection [shakes fist]). Ironic that finally getting an ipod last year reawakened my interest in music enough so that I'm trying to find sufficient space for a new phonograph...
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post #33 of 33
7/29/08 at 9:16pm
Good reading thanks.

I like the compromise established at the albums from The White Stripes crescendos & calm down.
The one hour mark is the best I can ask.
Re RHCP and overstuffed: Yes. But Stadium Arcadium is long enough for a double they should had replaced a lot of songs but that's all.
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