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Topic ClosedI'm tired of (most) 79 minute albums!

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Zargus View Drop Down
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: November 22 2007 at 13:02

The longer the beter.. and some filler is always nice. Smile

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Direct Link To This Post Posted: November 22 2007 at 12:45
I agree with the original poster. I bought "Amputechture" by TMV and found it very difficult to enjoy all the way through, I bought "Close To The Edge" for the same price, which is way shorter in overall length and I didn't feel cheated in the least. If TMV had just picked the best of that album I would have enjoyed it more than throwing millions of hours of music on there.
However, if ELP had made a 79 minute album in between Trilogy and Brain Salad Surgery I think I would enjoy every second.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: November 22 2007 at 12:30
Very few is any artists can pull off 80 minutes of solid material.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: November 22 2007 at 12:20
Yeah, sometimes it's hard to get through a super long album likeall of Tools or GY!BE. I feel the best timed albums are the fifty minuete long ones, easy to digest, and at the same time can pack an epic or two.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: November 22 2007 at 12:07
Originally posted by darqdean darqdean wrote:

Pah! What tosh. I get more upset by artists putting too little music on a CD than too much. The number of times I bought a 35 minute album and been left wanting more by the end of it by far out-weighs the number of times I've turned off a 80 minute album because it was boring me. You can always cut tracks from a long album, but you can never add music to a short one. Stern%20Smile
 
This is Prog for heaven sakes, it's supposed to be long and indulgent - train yourself to improve your attention span and not to complain about the generousity of the artists in providing too much music.


ApproveThumbs%20Up Much agreed! (Need to have been longer: Close To The Edge, CSNY's "Deja Vu", The Six Wives of Henry VIII.... etc.)


Edited by ClassicRocker - November 22 2007 at 12:09
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: November 22 2007 at 09:04
35-55 minutes =

65-80 minutes =


But surely it depends
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: November 22 2007 at 08:09
I make this point on my site actually;
 
due to the sonic limitations of vinyl, albums couldn’t really be much longer than, on average, 40 minutes - 20 minutes per side. (This was one of the reasons the double album, then triple album became so popular at the time).
 
Now I have to admit, I don’t have the time to sit and listen to a 70 minute CD. In addition, my experience is that artists tend to over-populate their albums with songs and pieces of music that, had there been more stringent restrictions on album lengh, simply wouldn’t have been selected.
I also think ( and this is only an opinion) that this goes a long way to understanding why there are so many classic albums from the 70’s and early 80’s, but fewer since the advent of CD; Quality control! You had only so much space on your record, so you made sure it was the best material you had at that time. Of course, it also explains why classic artists from this time could have 6 albums out in 4 years; in this day and age of 2007, it’s not unusual for an album to appear only every 4 years from a major artist.


Edited by lightyearday - November 22 2007 at 08:10
If you like the music of Rick Wakeman and ELP go to
www.myspace/grahambholley
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: November 22 2007 at 05:59
I totally agree here long albums tend to feel forced in a way and are never quite the masterpiece as shorter ones. Of course there are exceptions
http://myspace.com/toxicmindfin
http://myspace.com/porcelainprog
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: November 22 2007 at 04:48
I agree with the topic creator, 30-50 minute albums are generally more coherent and usually the material is the absolute best of the artist at the time. These days artists seem quite reluctant to cut songs from albums even though this is one of the most important parts of constructing a good album.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: November 22 2007 at 04:14
Originally posted by The T The T wrote:

I know the needs for artistic expression demand more.. time... or resources.. or whatever. But sometimes it's just pretentiousness of artists who really think all they write is good. Yes, even Roine Stolt sometimes suffers from this (even though I love his music so much that I happen to enjoy his elephantistic albumsTongue).... But what about the times when albums lasted 40-50 minutes? What about some balance? Some equilibrium? Not EVERYHTING has to be 80 minutes long! Angry
"Elephantistic" is quite a good description of a Flower Kings album. At first I read "Elephantastic" which I found less appropriate. Tongue
 
Agreed with the majority here. I prefer to see an album as a whole (regardless of whether it's a 'pure' concept album or not) and not as a set of songs in which I have to make my own selection. So artists, please only release what's worth releasing and not what's physically possible to be released.


Edited by Casartelli - November 22 2007 at 04:14
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: November 22 2007 at 04:08
Pah! What tosh. I get more upset by artists putting too little music on a CD than too much. The number of times I bought a 35 minute album and been left wanting more by the end of it by far out-weighs the number of times I've turned off a 80 minute album because it was boring me. You can always cut tracks from a long album, but you can never add music to a short one. Stern%20Smile
 
This is Prog for heaven sakes, it's supposed to be long and indulgent - train yourself to improve your attention span and not to complain about the generousity of the artists in providing too much music.
What?
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: November 22 2007 at 03:56

Yeah, I share the same view. The Flower Kings are consistent offenders, IMHO. If they just cut their albums down I think they'd be much better thought of. There are some moments of prog brilliance amidst some aimless filler on most of their work, particularly the last few albums. 'Unfold The Future', 'Flower Power', 'The Rainmaker', 'Adam And Eve' and 'Paradox Hotel' I find to be particularly noteworthy in this respect. The latest, 'The Sum Of No Evil', despite having no obvious 'fillers' (unlike anything else they've done since 'Space Revolver', IMHO) I still feel overstayed its welcome a little. (However, DT's 'Systematic Chaos' was nearly 80 minutes but I can handle that all the way through...it's simply the only album of theirs I can say that about, funnily enough) 

For a CD, I think around 50-60 minutes is the ideal length, and I think 60 minutes is often pushing it. Most of my favourite albums this year have been just the right length, IMHO- Porcupine Tree's 'Fear Of A Blank Planet' and Rush's 'Snakes And Arrows' spring to mind, as well as Fish's 'The Thirteenth Star' which was around 50 minutes or so; no filler whatsoever, every song stands up. But his previous effort 'Field Of Crows' has a fair amount of weaker material on it, IMHO, and that's nigh on 75 minutes. In other words, I feel quality is far more important than the quantity.



Edited by salmacis - November 22 2007 at 03:58
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: November 22 2007 at 03:04
Originally posted by King of Loss King of Loss wrote:

The times albums lasted 40-50 minutes is because vinyls couldn't store more than 60 minutes Wink
 
 
But I prefer shorter ones. 35 might be too short; 45-50 is just fine; 55 is the maximum.
 
Of course, there are excellent 75-80 mins albums, but I haven't found a masterpiece of this size yet (I'm not counting occasional double vinyls).
 
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: November 22 2007 at 01:45
I generally find myself listening to shorter albums more, often for the previously mentioned reason that I don't have a straight 80 minutes in which to listen to music. However, if an album is consistently good throughout, I don't care how long it is, and it will often be a source of many songs to enjoy as individual songs. I feel like I get my money's worth when buying a longer album, as well.
 
As with most, I'd prefer a consise, short album to a long album with the same ideas drawn out over 80 minutes, but, similarly, I'd prefer a complete album that doesn't limit its length to a short album that feels incomplete.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: November 22 2007 at 01:19
A lot of the music released today would have been a double album back in the day. I much prefer the 50 minute albums myself, maybe that's why i'm not a big fan of bonus tracks. But there are always exceptions to the rule.
"The wind is slowly tearing her apart"

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Direct Link To This Post Posted: November 22 2007 at 00:11
Originally posted by The T The T wrote:

Originally posted by King of Loss King of Loss wrote:

The times albums lasted 40-50 minutes is because vinyls couldn't store more than 60 minutes Wink
 
I know, but that doesn't mean that, just because you CAN put 80 minutes of music in a cd, you HAVE to do it...Wink


...unless it is a collection (like compilations, live albums, greatest hits).
Ex: Supernatural Fiarytales set - each of the 5 discs has only about one hour of music on it!


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Direct Link To This Post Posted: November 21 2007 at 22:17
Complain to God for giving you a short attention span.  The longer the better for me.  If I like the artist, I will trust their judgement that they won't put crap on an album just to fill it up. 

Too much music.  Oh for that to be the worst of my problems.
Biggles was in rehab last Saturday
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: November 21 2007 at 22:04
Yep. Happens to me too. The whole reason I can't seem to enjoy DT's Scenes From A Memory is because it lasts for sooooo long it gets pretty tedious. I prefer prog albums to be in between 30 to 50 minutes (unless it's a double album or something)
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: November 21 2007 at 19:50
I see the point to this thread however I like a full CD I would just prefer they save the highly indulgent noodling and risky stuff for the end of the CD so the first 50 minutes is great,  that way I could bail out when I feel like it and still enjoy the main body of the CD  .  Smile

Edited by Yorkie X - November 21 2007 at 19:55
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: November 21 2007 at 19:16
I think 79 minutes of music, for the most part, is significantly better then when a older album is re-release with "bonus" tracks, and for those part, I fail to see what the bonus is. Smile
Genius is always allowed some leeway, once the hammer has

been pried from its hands and the blood has been cleaned up.

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