Album lengths

[washing machine]

New Adventures in Hi-Fi is long but I don't think there's a down or "filler" moment on the record

I love that album, but Leave definitely goes on too long and its placement smack dab in the heart of the album tires me out for the rest of the record sometimes. First and only song that really made me understand Stip's long-running "this track should be shorter" complaint.

I can understand this opinion but I do not agree with it. Leave is perfect.

Best leave the never ending verses structure to Blonde on Blonde tracks.

[LoathedVermin72]

“Leave” is the best goddamn song on that album and I wouldn’t change a note of it.

[epilogue]

“Leave” is the best goddamn song on that album and I wouldn’t change a note of it.

[run2death]

There are a lot of albums that tack on a song at the end that I kinda hate.

Pinocchio Story on 808s and Swing on This on Jar of Flies come to mind.

[LoathedVermin72]

Pinocchio Story is the best song on 808s!

[Kevin Davis]

I've gone through periods of feeling like albums in general are too long (I specifically recall Sufjan Stevens's "Illinois" album being the catalyst for one of these periods), but over time I've come to appreciate brevity and sprawl in equal measure. It's not every album's specific art to present the most immediately impacting sequence of songs in the most economical manner possible -- some things are meant to unfold slowly, to give you an opportunity to get lost in your own head, or down illogically laid out labyrinths of confusion and creative impulse.

To me it's not really about running time in and of itself; there are just as many short records padded with average, inferior material as there are longer ones. To me it's more about the story the album tells, and what it takes to put that across. This isn't to advocate for artists settling for weak material just to extend the playing time of their product, but I do think that sometimes the exercise of theoretically whittling an album down to its best free-standing songs kind of misses the point.

[Blaine Ryan]

I've gone through periods of feeling like albums in general are too long (I specifically recall Sufjan Stevens's "Illinois" album being the catalyst for one of these periods), but over time I've come to appreciate brevity and sprawl in equal measure. It's not every album's specific art to present the most immediately impacting sequence of songs in the most economical manner possible -- some things are meant to unfold slowly, to give you an opportunity to get lost in your own head, or down illogically laid out labyrinths of confusion and creative impulse.

To me it's not really about running time in and of itself; there are just as many short records padded with average, inferior material as there are longer ones. To me it's more about the story the album tells, and what it takes to put that across. This isn't to advocate for artists settling for weak material just to extend the playing time of their product, but I do think that sometimes the exercise of theoretically whittling an album down to its best free-standing songs kind of misses the point.

[epilogue]

I've gone through periods of feeling like albums in general are too long (I specifically recall Sufjan Stevens's "Illinois" album being the catalyst for one of these periods), but over time I've come to appreciate brevity and sprawl in equal measure. It's not every album's specific art to present the most immediately impacting sequence of songs in the most economical manner possible -- some things are meant to unfold slowly, to give you an opportunity to get lost in your own head, or down illogically laid out labyrinths of confusion and creative impulse.

To me it's not really about running time in and of itself; there are just as many short records padded with average, inferior material as there are longer ones. To me it's more about the story the album tells, and what it takes to put that across. This isn't to advocate for artists settling for weak material just to extend the playing time of their product, but I do think that sometimes the exercise of theoretically whittling an album down to its best free-standing songs kind of misses the point.

KD gets it.

[E.H. Ruddock]

Yeah I mean, isn't it obvious that the answer isn't "short" or "long"? Some long albums are good and some suck. Same goes for the short ones.

Mods, lock 'er up

[LoathedVermin72]

No. Short is better.

[Kevin Davis]

During one of my periods of feeling like albums in general were too long, I went through the exercise of whittling every album in my collection down to its seven best songs. The weak songs just waste my time and weigh down the batting average, I thought, so this will streamline and improve my listening experience for the better. But some albums were too weak to withstand this exercise, leaving still too much suboptimal material in my path, so I ultimately chose to further narrow every album down to three songs. Most of the albums in my collection could swing three good songs, but as I listened under these conditions, it dawned on me that, even among the three good songs, there was usually one that stood out as clearly superior to the others, and that if I truly wanted to optimize my listening experience, I would cut my losses and nix two more songs from each album. So I shaved every album in my collection down to a single song, and then I listened to them. All in a row. I thought it would be great, but it turns out that, all at once, it was just like having one big huge damn album again. So I went through the exercise one more time, further and further refining the list until, eventually, I cut it down to one super-song (I can't remember but I think it was "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" -- I was a lot younger then). Once again, I listened. And lo, it was the perfect distillation of everything I loved about my otherwise sprawling and overwhelming music collection, until it occurred to me that there were parts of this rather long song that were clearly superior to other parts of it -- like, do we really need the two-minute fade-in? How many times do we really need to hear Dave Gilmour sing "shine on you crazy diamond?" So again, I edited. And I edited. And eventually, I shaved the song down to a single moment -- a moment so microscopic that, to the human ear, it was basically silence, the auditory version of a single-celled organism imperceptible to the unaided senses. But it was not silence; it was the single greatest recorded sound I'd ever heard, the single justification for every agonizing decision contained in the above-described exercise and all the sonic pleasure I would ever need, because you do not need lesser great things when you have the greatest thing.

[knee tunes]

Of all the albums I own, I have never thought of any of them as being too short or too long.

I usually only think of them as how often I want it revisit them , and how much, or not

I'm reminded of the concert goer who has an actual list of songs they've not heard before, or what their favorites are, or what the pee breaks are.

It's kind of sad and nerdy and very much missing the point

So in short, to answer your questions : no

[LoathedVermin72]

During one of my periods of feeling like albums in general were too long, I went through the exercise of whittling every album in my collection down to its seven best songs. The weak songs just waste my time and weigh down the batting average, I thought, so this will streamline and improve my listening experience for the better. But some albums were too weak to withstand this exercise, leaving still too much suboptimal material in my path, so I ultimately chose to further narrow every album down to three songs. Most of the albums in my collection could swing three good songs, but as I listened under these conditions, it dawned on me that, even among the three good songs, there was usually one that stood out as clearly superior to the others, and that if I truly wanted to optimize my listening experience, I would cut my losses and nix two more songs from each album. So I shaved every album in my collection down to a single song, and then I listened to them. All in a row. I thought it would be great, but it turns out that, all at once, it was just like having one big huge damn album again. So I went through the exercise one more time, further and further refining the list until, eventually, I cut it down to one super-song (I can't remember but I think it was "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" -- I was a lot younger then). Once again, I listened. And lo, it was the perfect distillation of everything I loved about my otherwise sprawling and overwhelming music collection, until it occurred to me that there were parts of this rather long song that were clearly superior to other parts of it -- like, do we really need the two-minute fade-in? How many times do we really need to hear Dave Gilmour sing "shine on you crazy diamond?" So again, I edited. And I edited. And eventually, I shaved the song down to a single moment -- a moment so microscopic that, to the human ear, it was basically silence, the auditory version of a single-celled organism imperceptible to the unaided senses. But it was not silence; it was the single greatest recorded sound I'd ever heard, the single justification for every agonizing decision contained in the above-described exercise and all the sonic pleasure I would ever need, because you do not need lesser great things when you have the greatest thing.

Could you please put a few paragraph breaks in this

[knee tunes]

Burn everything to the ground and kill the women and children.

Is that a Slay Tracks lyric?

No. It's my general outlook on life.

r2d dreams of a gay paradise

LOL

[Kevin Davis]

During one of my periods of feeling like albums in general were too long, I went through the exercise of whittling every album in my collection down to its seven best songs. The weak songs just waste my time and weigh down the batting average, I thought, so this will streamline and improve my listening experience for the better. But some albums were too weak to withstand this exercise, leaving still too much suboptimal material in my path, so I ultimately chose to further narrow every album down to three songs. Most of the albums in my collection could swing three good songs, but as I listened under these conditions, it dawned on me that, even among the three good songs, there was usually one that stood out as clearly superior to the others, and that if I truly wanted to optimize my listening experience, I would cut my losses and nix two more songs from each album. So I shaved every album in my collection down to a single song, and then I listened to them. All in a row. I thought it would be great, but it turns out that, all at once, it was just like having one big huge damn album again. So I went through the exercise one more time, further and further refining the list until, eventually, I cut it down to one super-song (I can't remember but I think it was "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" -- I was a lot younger then). Once again, I listened. And lo, it was the perfect distillation of everything I loved about my otherwise sprawling and overwhelming music collection, until it occurred to me that there were parts of this rather long song that were clearly superior to other parts of it -- like, do we really need the two-minute fade-in? How many times do we really need to hear Dave Gilmour sing "shine on you crazy diamond?" So again, I edited. And I edited. And eventually, I shaved the song down to a single moment -- a moment so microscopic that, to the human ear, it was basically silence, the auditory version of a single-celled organism imperceptible to the unaided senses. But it was not silence; it was the single greatest recorded sound I'd ever heard, the single justification for every agonizing decision contained in the above-described exercise and all the sonic pleasure I would ever need, because you do not need lesser great things when you have the greatest thing.

Could you please put a few paragraph breaks in this

Thanks for asking nicely, but some paragraphs are meant to unfold slowly, to give you an opportunity to get lost in your own head, or down illogically laid out labyrinths of confusion and creative impulse.

[LoathedVermin72]

TL;DR

[knee tunes]

During one of my periods of feeling like albums in general were too long, I went through the exercise of whittling every album in my collection down to its seven best songs. The weak songs just waste my time and weigh down the batting average, I thought, so this will streamline and improve my listening experience for the better. But some albums were too weak to withstand this exercise, leaving still too much suboptimal material in my path, so I ultimately chose to further narrow every album down to three songs. Most of the albums in my collection could swing three good songs, but as I listened under these conditions, it dawned on me that, even among the three good songs, there was usually one that stood out as clearly superior to the others, and that if I truly wanted to optimize my listening experience, I would cut my losses and nix two more songs from each album. So I shaved every album in my collection down to a single song, and then I listened to them. All in a row. I thought it would be great, but it turns out that, all at once, it was just like having one big huge damn album again. So I went through the exercise one more time, further and further refining the list until, eventually, I cut it down to one super-song (I can't remember but I think it was "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" -- I was a lot younger then). Once again, I listened. And lo, it was the perfect distillation of everything I loved about my otherwise sprawling and overwhelming music collection, until it occurred to me that there were parts of this rather long song that were clearly superior to other parts of it -- like, do we really need the two-minute fade-in? How many times do we really need to hear Dave Gilmour sing "shine on you crazy diamond?" So again, I edited. And I edited. And eventually, I shaved the song down to a single moment -- a moment so microscopic that, to the human ear, it was basically silence, the auditory version of a single-celled organism imperceptible to the unaided senses. But it was not silence; it was the single greatest recorded sound I'd ever heard, the single justification for every agonizing decision contained in the above-described exercise and all the sonic pleasure I would ever need, because you do not need lesser great things when you have the greatest thing.

Could you please put a few paragraph breaks in this

Thanks for asking nicely, but some paragraphs are meant to unfold slowly, to give you an opportunity to get lost in your own head, or down illogically laid out labyrinths of confusion and creative impulse.

LV,

in short, Kevin Davis said: that part between "remember when you were you young" and "and you shone like the sun"

that

[Kevin Davis]

Really I was just hoping LV would take half the sentences out and rearrange the remaining ones to make them flow better

[knee tunes]

During one of my periods of too long, I went through the exercise of whittling down the batting average, leaving still too much good songs, but as I listened under these conditions, it dawned on me that, I would cut my losses , but it turns out that, all at once, it was just Crazy Diamond" -- I was a lot younger then). Once again, I listened. And lo you have the greatest thing.

ok

[washing machine]

This thread got good.