[Mr.PD]

Quote:

Originally posted by gloco so anyone here ever listen to the full 17 minute version of "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" by Iron Butterfly?

[size=small]YES!![/size]

That is until my casette player quit working.
I must admit that I never thought of an album playing in any particular order. My brain jumps from one subject to another all the time anyway. So, jumping songs (track1 then track 7) never bothered me. Although when I make a cd of various artists and songs I try to keep a theme or at least some cohesiveness going through out the 79 minutes of the cd.

Now I am going to have to go back and relisten to my cd's that are of older albums. Just to see what you all are talking about.

BTW, I very seldom find and album that I like every song. Usually just 3 or so songs are to my liking.

 

[john_jcb]

Quote:

Originally posted by gloco so anyone here ever listen to the full 17 minute version of "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" by Iron Butterfly?

It was one of the staples of early FM radio. I can remember hearing that one as if it were yesterday.

Remembering LP's and 45's it seems to me that the same things were complained about then. A few good songs and the rest filler. That was the thing that was so amazing about the great bands like the Beatles and Zepplin for instance, every song on both sides was good.

I enjoy hearing the outtaakes of certain artists. Others the final cut was crap why would I want to hear an outtake.

 

[leon]

Wanted to chime in on this...

What I've heard is that Karajan didn't really even know there was a specific new audio format coming on. All that he said in the conversation was something along the lines of "it would be good if a new format could contain the 9th symphony". And that was closer to 74 minutes than to 80.

Also, depending on the metronome system (?) you're following, the 9th symphony might come in as 60-something minutes long. The version of story I heard is that Beethoven knew someone who invented (?) the metronome, and when he composed he had that person's metronome in mind. Doing the 9th in 60-something minutes can be rather intense, so some choose to have it performed at a slower pace.

Just the version of the story I heard...

I'm all for shorter albums, if that means better "density" for the contents. A lot of 9-track albums I end up liking a lot, probably because the number 9 is stamped all over my birth date?

 

[penvzila]

Cool topic! This pops into my mind a lot lately. It depends your definition of an album. If your definition is a cohesive collection of music that is intended to be listened to start to finish, then it would probably be a good idea to cut as much as possible to create a tight artistic statement. However, Tool's latest album is also 79:58, and it is still very "tight".

I think it has a lot to do with the genre of the music. For example, electronic artists routinely fill up albums to the 79:58 mark. I have an Autechre EP that is over 60 min. long.

 

[redshifter]

Quote:

Also, depending on the metronome system (?) you're following, the 9th symphony might come in as 60-something minutes long. The version of story I heard is that Beethoven knew someone who invented (?) the metronome, and when he composed he had that person's metronome in mind. Doing the 9th in 60-something minutes can be rather intense, so some choose to have it performed at a slower pace.

this is true. beethoven was friends with the man who invented the metronome, maelzel. in beethoven's 8th symphony, the scherzo or joke movement pokes fun at the metronome, with its tick-tock rhythms. beethoven went through all his symphonies and put metronome marks--which by todays standards are fast. roger norrington's beethoven recordings follow these speeds.

 

[kerelybonto]

Quote:

Originally posted by redshifter ... i mean, how important is "wet my bed" to stp's "core"?

I always listen to "Wet My Bed" before "Crackerman." I've been meaning to start a thread on what I consider essential track combinations, but I guess it works here.

I feel that "Wet My Bed" really makes "Crackerman" a better song. It sets the tone for the song and separates it from getting lost in the aftermath of "Plush." Another example some of the rest of you might be able to relate to better is "Empty Spaces" before "Young Lust" on Pink Floyd's The Wall (which, by the way, retains it LP format as a two-disc CD set even though it would have fit on one disk). In each case you have a really solid song, usually a single, preceded by a song that, by it self, isn't something worth paying a great deal of attention to. But I just think it makes the whole thing flow better. Like carlo, I like listing to albums, not songs, and this is one of the reasons why.

There are songs on some long albums that I would consider filler, usually because they don't fit with the other songs. (The last few tracks of Soundgarden's 70-minute Superunknown sound very different than the rest, for instance -- although I still like them.) For the most part, though, I appreciate the extra material, even if I don't think it really belongs on the album it's been included with. Granted, I don't listen to a lot of newer bands, who, in my opinion, tend to write songs (singles) rather than albums and consequently put out bad albums with a couple good tracks. This seems obvious when you compare a lot of newer acts with a band like Led Zeppelin, which rarely released singles.

I've been staying in a house for the last week and a half (on vacation in the mountains) that came equipped with a nice h/k table and a hundred or so old LPs. I've never really listened to vinyl before, and as carlo was saying, I understand a lot of my CDs much better after having heard them on their original format. (I also got to listen to a lot of music that I'd wanted to but hadn't -- I need to go buy some Jeff Beck CDs now.)

Anyway, back to the topic -- is the 45-minute album done for? I think maybe ... I do think bands feel the need to fill up CDs, to give their fans their money's worth, so to speak. At the same time, I don't think that's a bad thing. I bet a lot of guys in the 60s and 70s would have killed to be able to release more than what they could fit on a single LP, material they (or their recording companies) couldn't justify putting on a second disk.

kerelybonto

 

[DarkAngel]

Just got the new Chilli Peppers "by the way" for $9.99 at Best Buy, total run time is 69 minutes! Great album, don't like the earlier RHCP funk/punk/rap juvinille stuff, this is much better.

I am listening to it for the 2nd time now, and hear no obvious "filler" tracks, very solid CD.

 

[daycart1]

I agree that there can be a lot of value in an "album" which might run 40 minutes or even less. But I also agree that any "artists" who cannot fill over 70 min (say with 2 or 3 "albums", even on their very first CD must be considered LAME-O! Any decent artist will have hours of excellent material ready to go.

 

[Voldemort]

Quote:

Originally posted by daycart1 I agree that there can be a lot of value in an "album" which might run 40 minutes or even less. But I also agree that any "artists" who cannot fill over 70 min (say with 2 or 3 "albums", even on their very first CD must be considered LAME-O! Any decent artist will have hours of excellent material ready to go.

I think some artists might have hours of excellent music for a 70-80 minute cd but then again, think about Weezer. Weezers albums are really short, about 30 minutes. Now the 2 new albums "Green album" and "Maladroit" were released within a year, but do you think it would have been better with one album combined with all the songs or like they did it now with 2 quite different albums. I like the way they did it with 2 albums. Then again some artists would just suck with short albums, would Tool's AEnima or Lateralus be the same without all that "filler" stuff between the songs, it would decrease the lenght of their albums but AEnima wouldn't be as great as it is now without "Message to Harry Manback" which is hilarious. It would suck big time.

 

[redshifter]

Quote:

I feel that "Wet My Bed" really makes "Crackerman" a better song. It sets the tone for the song and separates it from getting lost in the aftermath of "Plush."

so what you're saying is "wet my bed" is there to cleanse the palette?

on another note, when an artist makes a song 4 minutes and 20 seconds long, think they are trying to send a message?

 

[kerelybonto]

Haha, something like that, redshifter. ... But, really, even if I listen to "Crackerman" off the album, I always listen to "Wet My Bed" before it. I've been looking for a MP3 jukebox-type program that'll let me link tracks together just so it always comes up that way. (Also to link more necessary track combos like "Another Brick In The Wall, pt. I"/"Happiest Days"/"Another, pt. 2" and "No Sugar Tonight"/"New Mother Nature.")

kerelybonto

 

[ArChaos]

Quote:

Originally posted by gloco so anyone here ever listen to the full 17 minute version of "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" by Iron Butterfly?

Hehe...1970 - The first album I ever bought... has anyone here ever DANCED to the full 17 minute drums version - we used to have "contests" - who managed to hang on till the end of the live version...

Back to the subject - the 40/80min lenght of an album is a technical limitation and even so quite relative...the fact is we had "double" albums then and "double" CD's and more now...the real question is how much does the artist have to say. The "value for money" thinking is OK with me as long as it doesn't hurt the quality - ALWAYS, in my opinion, quality comes before quantity and the most annoying thing for me is to have to skip tracks. I like to listen to an album as a whole, in the intended order by the artist and enjoy the development of the ideas in the music - of course it depends very much on the kind of music one listens and it's probably less important in pop music...

This being said, I vote for double 80min CD albums with no filler tracks at 1/2 retail price...

 

[gloco]

I guess its really up to the artist or band.

Some artists put out short albums that are great from beginning to end, while others release 70+ minute studio albums and have tons of filler or extended tracks, such as "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida."

Look at songs released by the Misfits, the average time of a song is something like two minutes, while Metallica's "...And Justice for all" album has tracks that range from 5+ minutes to 9+ minutes.

 

[CaptBubba]

Quote:

Originally posted by ArChaos This being said, I vote for double 80min CD albums with no filler tracks at 1/2 retail price...

released every four years?

 

[Braver]

I prefer those 'short' 40 minute albums. I take albums in as a whole, and 40 mintes is a good deal easier to take in than two times 80 (or 60 for that matter). easier for the artist to make something coherent. as for value, a CD is a CD. if the quality is up there I don't mind paying as much for a 50 minute CD as for a 80 minute one. and those 40 minute oldies are cheap anyway. if an artists can fill 100 minutes of high quality music ( IQ Subterranea), thats ofcourse great, but necesariliy (sp?) more memorable than a shorty (Pink Floyd Dark Side O The Moon).