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Short-ish iconic studio albums 70s
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Sean Trane View Drop Down
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Points: 20507 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Sean Trane Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 18 2020 at 02:43
Originally posted by LAM-SGC LAM-SGC wrote:

I realise the restrictions of a vinyl LP in the 70s, but you seem to have missed the point I'm making.
 
Standard vinyl duration in the 70's for UK and North Am was between 35 and 45 mins (rarely more), but continental Europe saw many albums below 30 minutes (France, Italy, most notably), but in Germany, Klaus Schulze came close to 60 mins with Timewind.
 
in the 70's, MCA sued Elton John when his last album for them was under 30-mins (if memory serves in was +/- 27-mins) and won... Soo EJ found a couple more bottom-of-drawer tracks and slapped them on the album.
 
Longer disc-album duration was certainly a problem in the 90's (some felt obliged to fill it to the brim), and it produced weariness. Thankfully, the return of vinyl (not a fan of the media's return, but it does have some advantages) made the albums shorter again. 
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Points: 1550 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote LAM-SGC Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 18 2020 at 02:38
That reminds me, I must check the lebgth of Wind & Wuthering.
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Points: 1550 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote LAM-SGC Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 18 2020 at 02:37
I'm not making a concrete statement. As I said, it is just a slight theory, just based on a few of My favourite iconic albums, which are all shorter than the albums before and after them.
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Points: 5538 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Mortte Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 18 2020 at 01:54
I donīt think shortness has nothing to do about what album comes iconic. 

Examples:
Jethro Tull: Thick As a Brick 43:46 
Genesis: Selling England by the Pound: 53:50
Led Zeppelin IV 42:34
the Beatles: Abbey Road 47:03

And I havenīt mentioned any iconic doubles.


Edited by Mortte - February 18 2020 at 01:54
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Originally posted by LAM-SGC LAM-SGC wrote:

This thread has taken an interesting turn, but I realise I haven't explained myself properly. So let me do it by way of comparison
Yes - Fragile - about 41 mins
Yet their iconic CTTE only about 37.
Same as DP Machine Head, short in comparison to albums close to it by release.
Neil Young's iconic Harvest 37 mins but On The Beach almost 40 mins.
My point was that it seems that so many iconic albums were shorter than albums of the same period by that artist. And maybe that shortness by 3,4 or 5,6 minutes had something to do with these albums becoming iconic. I don't know, just a germinating theory.
 

I think you are onto something

Brain Salad Surgery is not generally considered 'Iconic' and that perhaps because it has too many tracks. If has been kept to just 2 tracks (or 4 if you count KE9 as 3 tracks) then it would have been better..

Side One would then have been
1) Toccata (7 minutes)
2) Karn Evil 1st Impression (13 minutes)
Side Two
3) Karn Evil 9 2nd Impression (7 minutes)
4) Karn Evil 9 3rd Impression (9 minutes)

I would have added the song Brain Salad Surgery (recorded at the same sessions) at the end to even out the sides . Would have been so much better and potentially a top 20 album on PA at least.

As a side note I would also be tempted to 'integrate' Toccata into Karn Evil 9 and put it between 1st Impression and Second Impression ( which then becomes 3rd impression). 
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Originally posted by verslibre verslibre wrote:

Originally posted by Snicolette Snicolette wrote:

If I recall correctly, shorter sides also meant better sound levels (on vinyl).  So bands that were defining themselves by great sound as well as great musicianship would not want to put too much material on each side, which would decrease the sound quality of the recording as well.  And I'm sure someone here will let me know if I'm in error.  :)  
 

No, not in error. (:
  Oh, thank you.  I thought I remembered it from those days.  Something younger people might not have been aware of....also, there was a HUGE surge in interest in high quality audio with many people spending big money on great sound systems to play this music.  So that would certainly have been a consideration of the progressive bands as far as what their audiences would hear.  We also would play back music on tiny speakers, too, in the recording studio, to hear music as it's worst, as many people would hear it that way, but it sure was fun to hear tracks on the best available gear.  :)
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Another example of what I mean is Red, imo the best KC album, but also if I'm not mistaken (and I might well be ;) ) the shortest KC studio album of the 70s, just a few seconds under 40 minutes.
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Originally posted by Snicolette Snicolette wrote:

If I recall correctly, shorter sides also meant better sound levels (on vinyl).  So bands that were defining themselves by great sound as well as great musicianship would not want to put too much material on each side, which would decrease the sound quality of the recording as well.  And I'm sure someone here will let me know if I'm in error.  :)  
 

No, not in error. (:
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Originally posted by BaldJean BaldJean wrote:

Edgar Froese's "Epsilon in Malaysian Pale" (in my humble opinion a legendary album) clocks in at just over 34 minutes


Now that is exactly the kind of thing I mean and what an amazing album.
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If I recall correctly, shorter sides also meant better sound levels (on vinyl).  So bands that were defining themselves by great sound as well as great musicianship would not want to put too much material on each side, which would decrease the sound quality of the recording as well.  And I'm sure someone here will let me know if I'm in error.  :)  
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Economics and the nature of the business are at play as well. A shorter album means less time to produce, which means more product (sorry for the term) to make available. If you look at the time span between releases, such as Fragile and CTTE, you will see how many albums came out in rapid succession. This helps account for the shortness of the albums.
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Originally posted by BaldJean BaldJean wrote:

Edgar Froese's "Epsilon in Malaysian Pale" (in my humble opinion a legendary album) clocks in at just over 34 minutes
 

In every way imaginable!

I just added up Peter Baumann's first solo LP, Romance 76, and it's 32:19!


Edited by verslibre - February 17 2020 at 13:24
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Points: 10387 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote BaldJean Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 17 2020 at 13:12
Edgar Froese's "Epsilon in Malaysian Pale" (in my humble opinion a legendary album) clocks in at just over 34 minutes


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Originally posted by LAM-SGC LAM-SGC wrote:

This thread has taken an interesting turn, but I realise I haven't explained myself properly. So let me do it by way of comparison
Yes - Fragile - about 41 mins
Yet their iconic CTTE only about 37.
Same as DP Machine Head, short in comparison to albums close to it by release.
Neil Young's iconic Harvest 37 mins but On The Beach almost 40 mins.
My point was that it seems that so many iconic albums were shorter than albums of the same period by that artist. And maybe that shortness by 3,4 or 5,6 minutes had something to do with these albums becoming iconic. I don't know, just a germinating theory.
 

I know what you mean, but perhaps a few minutes' difference doesn't seem to be a point of contention with most listeners in the same way that fifteen or twenty-plus minutes' worth of additional music is. 
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This thread has taken an interesting turn, but I realise I haven't explained myself properly. So let me do it by way of comparison
Yes - Fragile - about 41 mins
Yet their iconic CTTE only about 37.
Same as DP Machine Head, short in comparison to albums close to it by release.
Neil Young's iconic Harvest 37 mins but On The Beach almost 40 mins.
My point was that it seems that so many iconic albums were shorter than albums of the same period by that artist. And maybe that shortness by 3,4 or 5,6 minutes had something to do with these albums becoming iconic. I don't know, just a germinating theory.
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Artists like Neal Morse the flower kings and IQ release extremely bloated overly long albums these days. Look at all of our top 30 albums, see anything in common? They’re all under an hour.
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Genesis have problems already in seventies with vinyl format, at least Foxtrot & Lamb are really long as in vinyls, and really I wonīt let from them anything out!
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Seems like in the cases of the albums that came in at 30-35 minutes, the bands could have come up with one more song of good, maybe even great, quality. Otherwise the band is leaving a lot of unused minutes on that vinyl. 
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Gentle Giant were the kings of short - but dense - prog. None of their studio albums were over 40 minutes, and I don't think they even made a song longer than 10 minutes (not counting live stuff).

I have a fairly short attention span, so I find it tough to get into an album that's close to an hour or longer. Although I don't have the attitude that every album must be listened in full every time, so often I have better luck listening to individual tracks than the whole thing.
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Originally posted by LAM-SGC LAM-SGC wrote:

In the realm of classic rock, AOR, hard rock in the pre-punk days of the 70s, it feels more noticeable now in light of modern albums over 60 mins,when you realise how short some of the iconic albums by great bands were. For example, Deep Purple had a few round the 40-42 minute mark, then Machine Head came out and it was only around 37, then Who Do We Think We Are at around 34,35. And when listening to Machine Head this morning after having listened to an album that was 52 minutes,it felt so short, I was just getting into Space Truckin' and then it was over.... :)

Just an observation, please return now to your normal duties :)
 

I remember walking into the Wherehouse in the very early '90s, and they were proudly displaying Bryan Adams' new CD, which the label had adorned with a huge square sticker that read "OVER 60 MINUTES OF MUSIC!" 

"More minutes" turned into a big deal back then. If we bought a CD and it had no bonus tracks, we felt ripped off. That's exactly the mind set the labels were shooting for as they phased out vinyl and tape. But here's something really, really funny, that we had no idea of at the time.

When Jethro Tull's Crest of a Knave came out, it felt like one of those albums that could have used a couple more songs to round things out. It was still forty-odd minutes, but with its seven songs (even one being ten minutes long), it still felt that way. Back then, we were all about driving around and blasting music, and we'd buy the cassette as soon as we saw it.

In order to push sales of the new compact disc format ($20-22 avg. for singles), Chrysalis omitted "Dogs in the Midwinter" and "The Waking Edge" from the US cassette release only (UK tapes had them). When you got the CD eventually and flipped it over, you saw the proper track order and those two songs were integrated, not tacked on at the end with the (*) and denotation "(Bonus Track)." 

Long story short: Crest of a Knave works much better as a fifty-minute album.
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