Short-ish iconic studio albums 70s

Quality, not quantity.

In fifties and begin of sixties LP:s were 30 minutes or less. To me mostly 25-45 minutes albums have always been just fine, of course there are great double LP:s too (for example so much last days talked Trout). But really already in the nineties I paid attention the quality of albums weakened (not every of course) and I think one reason was you can put all the songs in the CD:s you have recorded. Before you just have to leave out "loose" songs just for the limitation of LP:s.

I've thought about this for a while. The obvious limitations of vinyl clearly kept most albums below 45 minutes (good job when I used one side of a C90 cassette to record them from my mates (one for the oldies! 😆)

However, some bands just scraped over the 30 minute mark at times. I think the classic rock album Rainbow Rising clicked in at just over 33 minutes - but it was concentrated quality, even if getting up every quarter of an hour to turn over the record, set the needle, get the duster out etc. was a pain in the **** that the vinyl crew of today seem to forget! 😆

It is rare that bands trying to fill up an hour, or even more, on an album, don't find themselves having to use filler (good material, but maybe not quite top notch).

Try this out - take any of your favourite modern (post vinyl) albums and see how many good ones become truly special when you restrict them to only around 40 minutes, and discard the odd track or two. I think it shows that sometimes less is more!

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 :)

 

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. 

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.

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.

 

Edited by verslibre - February 17 2020 at 13:24

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.  :)