40 or 80?

With the advent of CD we can now have 80 min albums, but does anyone find that albums of 60 - 80 mins are just tooooooo much sometimes.?

Was the good old album of approx 40 mins just right?

What are your views?

It really depends. I like to listen to older albums because they have less time on them, which means that songs aren't as in depth as today. But I like to listen to newer albums because they give the artist more time to do what they want to do without worrying how much time they can put on (still somewhat true today). Back then if you wanted to go beyond 45 or 50 minutes, you had to release a double album, which in the long run would cost the consumer more. Nowadays, you can have essentially one double album on one CD, which takes less money from the pocket of the consumer (except for select albums, i.e. TFTO, The Wall, Quadrophenia, The Lamb, etc.). 

I'm somewhat conflicted.

Most groups these days don't even put 70-80 minutes on their albums, too (Non-Prog that is).

Yup!!! The normal vinyl lenght was excellent lenght (between 30 min to almost 50 for Genesis albums and 60 min for Klaus Schulze's Timewind) just too bad that we had to get up and change sides!

Actually 80 mins is simply too long even when I do a compilation of stuff I love from an artist! The only time I really enjoy 80 min of stuff (even great prog bands ) is when driving long stretches! This mostly to avoid changing CD as not to handle them while driving!

I do not think that it is a good idea for an artist to cram a disc up to the brim. During vinyl days , a group came up with 40-45 mins of music every so often (probably as their  contracts specified, once a year) but bands like TFK , Transatlantic and PT's Steve Wilson put out such a huge amount of work that the stuff is very much diluted.

As the great wiseman once said: Culture and ideas are like jam, the lesser you have of it , the more you want to spread it to make it last!

Great thread Snow Dawg!

Like most here I too believe that albums were far better when they lasted around 40 mins.

Using my favourite band Rush as an example,you can see that their best albums 2112------Signals came during the era when 35-45 minutes was seen as about right for an album length.
These albums contain very few "fillers",and there is more stylistic variety.
Once we hit the CD led mid eighties the track count heads past 10 and suddenly the albums dont seem as good any more (although album length is not necessarily the only reason.)The pressure to record 60-70 minutes of quality new material is obviously a strain on many bands,but unfortunately there would probably be a backlash if bands went back to 40 mins.

lostrom wrote: A duoble on one cd is rather nice and you don't have to fill the hole cd with music. So, it depends from album to album...I prefer cd!

Wether you prefer CD is not the question. What length do you prefer. Sometimes even with my favourite bands, after 60 mins it gets a bit much. I do love the value of a crammed Cd though!

If an album is more than 50 minutes then it usually loses a lot of its punch, I find. Anything over that and I feel you're almost destined to enter into the realms of filler. Just ocassionally you'll get an 80 minute or so album that feels genuinely worthwhile (a few double albums from the 70s, at least) but even then I can't listen to it all in one go. It's wearisome, and I'll want a change of style. Bands shouldn't feel pressurised into filling up a CD - just make the music you want to make and storage capacity be damned!

No one should ever charge more than six pounds for a CD though. And four of those should go directly to the artist's pockets.