A lifetime of reading interviews with musicians leaves odd things
stuck in your head. During the early ’90s, when Details had some
of the best music coverage to be found anywhere, I read a Q&A the
magazine had done with Henry Rollins near the 1992 release of Rollins
Band’s The End of Silence, which is 72.5 minutes
long—typical for the period. Rollins was asked about the album’s
length. His response—and this is from memory—was that all
future Rollins Band albums would be 70 minutes or longer: Compact discs
were expensive, after all, and Rollins didn’t want to rip off his fans.
I was in high school when I read this, and I thought it a rather noble
gesture. Then the next Rollins Band album, Weight, came out in
1994, with a total running time of 53:26. Could you blame him for
backsliding? Seventy minutes is a lot of music, especially if you’re
the one making it.
And Rollins wasn’t the only one to turn down the extra running time
offered by the CD. Let’s look at some recent albums, shall we? Here’s
the strong self-titled debut from local power-pop
singer-songwriter-drummer Michael Benjamin Lerner, aka Telekinesis.
Total time: 31:38. Another Seattleite, Eric Elbogen, recently relocated
from Brooklyn, operating as Say Hi: His latest is Oohs &
Aahs, 31:25. I’ve heard nice things about Phoenix’s Wolfgang
Amadeus Phoenix; when I play it, I can do so assured that it will
take just over 36 minutes of my time. JJ No. 2, ethereal Swedish
indie-pop with a beach-baked feel that Pitchfork likes, takes even
less: a head-spinning 26:43.
Obviously, this is a small sampling—but I think a telling one.
The half-hour album was, in the ’60s and even ’70s, commonplace. It is
again now, but for far different reasons.
Much has been said about the death of the album at the hands of the
MP3. Certainly, pop music’s center is no longer the album but the
freestanding song, however many good or great albums may be released
now or in the future. And there’s been a seeming knock-on effect with
albums themselves: They’ve been getting noticeably shorter for the last
10 years or so. That makes sense: The ’00s have been the Incredible
Shrinking Decade, from the reduction of newspaper and magazine word
counts to digital media becoming more hand-holdable to the internet’s
reduction of any number of boundaries. Albums are now seemingly just as
long as artists care to make them—a noticeable difference from
the CD era, during which albums seemed to be as long as artists
could make them.
A quick history: The long-playing microgroove 12-inch disc—the
LP—was introduced in 1948 and by the mid-’50s was the medium of
choice for adult music fans. Jazz, classical, Broadway, and pre-rock
pop thrived on LP, while kids, particularly rock-and-roll fans, stuck
to 7-inch 45 rpm singles. An LP could hold as much as a half-hour of
music per side—a number of Bob Dylan albums came close—but
most stuck to 15 to 22 minutes: shorter sides, better fidelity. The LP
as concentrated artistic statement begins with Frank Sinatra’s thematic
’50s albums, but as rock and roll became art music as well as dance
music in the mid-’60s, it too became identified with the LP, and
expanded from a half hour, give or take, to an average of 35 to 45
minutes apiece.
The compact disc changed all this. The new format enticed fans to
repurchase old favorites, as well as opening a previously untapped
reissue market, but its effect on contemporary albums was bloat:
Artists had up to 80 minutes of playback time, and they used it.
Perfect example: In 1982, Michael Jackson edited down Thriller to 19 minutes a side (it was originally 26 minutes per) for maximum LP
clarity; a decade later, he made Dangerous a CD-era-definitive
77 minutes. (About cassette tapes: Even during the cassette’s halcyon
era, the LP was still the measuring stick; “bonus tracks” existed on
tape, but it was the CD that made them a staple.) By the late ’90s,
hour-long albums—something once almost unheard of unless you were
releasing a double LP—were so standard they became
blasé.
Around the first dot-com crash in 2001, pop music generally began to
strip away its late-’90s excesses. Electroclash and ’80s revivalism
helped dance music move away from the whooshing superclub sound
(evocative of jets taking flight—the moneyed good life), and
“epic” track lengths began to scale back in turn. Hiphop and R&B
beat-making was becoming more minimal, eventually giving rise to tracks
that sounded almost tailor-made for cell-phone ring tones; the endless
skits and interludes that larded rap records also began to scale back.
The “rock is back” wave shunted Creed and Nickelback out of music
magazines (if not actual rock-radio playlists) in favor of the wirier,
dirtier-sounding Strokes and White Stripes. It doesn’t seem like a
coincidence that album lengths, too, began to tighten up.
Much as I’d love you to just take my word for it, though, I figure
an assertion like this needs some data to back it up. What follows is
far from complete and by no means scientific; nevertheless, I think
it’s indicative. Even before the digital era blew up the amount of
available music to an unmanageable degree, the record business offered
more than even a fanatic could keep up with; there’s no way to
calculate the industry’s total output, especially now. So to keep
things simple, I used data from AcclaimedMusic.net, which processes
hundreds of year-end and all-time lists into überlists of the most
critically adored albums and singles of the rock era. Beginning with
2008 (too soon for ’09), I calculated the mean length of Acclaimed’s
top 10 albums every five years going back to 1978; vinyl LP lengths
stayed consistent for so long that going back further seemed beside the
point. Here are the results, with artists in parentheses:
1978: 40:54 (Elvis Costello, Bruce Springsteen, Blondie, the
Jam, Pere Ubu, Funkadelic, Van Halen, Kraftwerk, Talking Heads, Big
Star)
1983: 41:03 (R.E.M., Tom Waits, the Police, U2, New Order,
Def Leppard, Metallica, Minor Threat, ZZ Top, Aztec
Camera)
1988: 46:18 (Public Enemy, Sonic Youth, Pixies, N.W.A.,
Jane’s Addiction, Talk Talk, Tracy Chapman, R.E.M., Leonard Cohen, My
Bloody Valentine)
1993: 50:12 (Nirvana, Björk, Smashing Pumpkins, Wu-Tang
Clan, Liz Phair, PJ Harvey, Suede, Breeders, Underworld, Afghan
Whigs)
1998: 57:00 (Air, Lauryn Hill, Lucinda Williams, Mercury
Rev, Massive Attack, Fatboy Slim, Neutral Milk Hotel, Madonna, OutKast,
Manu Chao)
2003: 57:05/51:54 (White Stripes, OutKast, Dizzee Rascal,
Radiohead, the Shins, Blur, Darkness, Mars Volta, Cat Power, the
Strokes)
2008: 44:29 (Portishead, Fleet Foxes, TV on the Radio,
Vampire Weekend, Bon Iver, MGMT, Nick Cave, Deerhunter, Santigold,
Elbow)
Obviously, there are plenty of variables: These lists fail to
account for any number of genres, trends, movements, and styles. There
are variables within the lists as well: Funkadelic’s 1978 One Nation
Under a Groove is a 59-minute LP plus bonus EP, OutKast’s 2003
double CD is by far the longest item on any list (the two ’03 numbers
are the mean per title and per disc, respectively), and I eliminated
Bob Dylan’s Live 1966 on the grounds that it wasn’t a real 1998
album.
Nevertheless, the results speak for themselves. The hour-long album
hasn’t vanished, but there are a lot fewer of them than there used to
be: Half the ’98 albums are over 60 minutes, while the ’08 list
features only one (Elbow) that even approaches an hour (58:30). The
music biz may not be able to save itself from irrelevance in the
digital age, but at least it’s a little less demanding of your time.
who cares. its about quality really. when was the last time you heard an “album” where every track was good, and not filler. total waste of article space. was mudede involved in this mindless mumble?
Excellent article…I’ve noticed the same thing myself but didn’t go to the trouble to quantify it. As for the person above, I can think of plenty of albums where every track is good, not filler, and for the most part they’re all 45 minutes or under. There’s a bigger issue here that has to do with cohesiveness, chunking, people’s intuitive ability to count up to 6ish and their lack of same to count past that, and all other sorts of stuff. Personally, I’ve always thought the EP was a very underrated form, myself, and many of my favorite “albums” (Beaster, East To West, Klark Kent, Goddess in Progress) work best in their original 3-songs-per-side incarnation…
I care. Albums are ART- what is in them is subjective- it is a matter of OPINION- I am so sick of people talking about music like somehow they are the authority on what is “good” and what is not.
Piss off.
When will humans become hunted by fucking robots!
The track length is really the important consideration here. The Aughts is all about pop music. 3 minutes is a pretty standard length for a pop song. The 90’s was all about slow building progressions lasting up to 11 minutes, and even electronic music was mainstream, which tended to have longer running tracks. Totally different styles, totally different album lengths. What DOES bug me is when someone calls a release with 6 tracks on it an “album”
http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/1304…
what happened to my incredibly astute comment?
Michelangelo,
Excellent observations. I would argue that the recent trend of top 10 albums shows the running time declining -for critically acclaimed albums-. Either (1) critics like shorter albums now more than they did 10 years ago, or (2) critics are indifferent to album length now more than they were 10 years ago. Some artists are making shorter albums, but critics are the ones selecting specific albums as top 10; so you could say that the top 10 albums are getting shorter. I’m not sure if you can tie this to the LP/CD/MP3 format. You can’t say that the best albums are short, therefore, all albums are short- The best albums are picked by committee, they’re not a random sampling of all albums.
Chris:
Any sampling of 10 albums out of the 800 billion (or so) released per year is a random sampling, whether they’re critically acclaimed or not.
If critics like shorter albums now than they did 10 years ago, it’s because the albums are shorter, not because the critics had a meeting somewhere along the way and decided they’d stop liking albums that went past a certain running time. “(2) critics are indifferent to album length now more than they were 10 years ago” makes literally no sense.
While I definitely think the MP3/Myspace/shift toward song vs. album/etc. has changed things, I’d like to think it’s also a return to some sort of sanity on the part of most musical artists. I also used to think that artists’ practice of putting as much music as possible onto a CD (a la Rollins) was admirable, but I honestly think very few albums can maintain consistent quality up to the 80 minute mark. I’d always much more prefer a shorter, tighter, cohesive album from bands/artists I like, over a bloated, mediocre mess.
If there is any singular genre where things really got out of control in the 1990s, it was rap albums. So many of them were full of absolutely stupid skits, ballooning albums up to sometimes 20+ tracks, with only half being actual songs. And the rap double album trend (barring Outkast, of course) was just too much.
I find it fascinating that it became common for so many years for bands to consistently put out “long players” that were in fact the length of the double vinyl album. (Early on, the extra time was given over to “bonus” material not meant for the album sequence proper, and remixes — and then the buried “hidden track,” before extended CD length was just expected to be used up by more music).
This may have had an effect on songwriting that we may not be absorbing yet — did it diffuse creativity in a band to come up with more songs, drawing out their skills at the expense of urgent, hook-filled compositions? Did this diffusion contribute to why so much 90s rock sucked?
Also, it was common for a couple of decades (early 70s-mid 80s maybe) for critics to chastise bands for filling up too little of an LP side. I doubt that had a direct effect on why artists chose to make longer records in the CD age (I agree that it was probably the pressure that Rollins initially felt) — but passed along notions such as this may have some effect. For example, when I think of the glory days of punk, the “Spiral Scratch” EP comes to mind a lot quicker than a bunch of LPs — and it makes the “culturally important” lists, but not with as much romance or seriousness as the full lengths. Interesting how the bias may have shifted (with critics).
Estey: I think you’re definitely onto something. Space and time constraints didn’t permit me to go as far into some of the artistic implications of the question as I’d have liked (at some point I’ll probably do an extended remix of this piece, how ironic), but especially regarding punk I think it applies. If one of the years I’d included had been 1976, the first Ramones album would be on the list, and at 29 minutes it would have been a real anomaly. Of course, so would Stevie Wonder’s Songs in the Key of Life, a double-LP with bonus 7-inch EP, and that probably would have balanced things out a bit. Nevertheless, punk’s self-conscious short-fast-and-out is an ongoing model: see the Minor Threat album in the 1983 Top 10, balanced out (again!) by Tom Waits’s over-50-minute Swordfishtrombones. Kind of an odd recurrence, that.
Details? Good music coverage? Really? ouch…
Excellent article
I would love to see this article extended, Michaelangelo! It’s a really important topic and your first analysis is very strong.
Yes, I actually wondered about the Minor Threat/Tom Waits math your list for that year. Because Waits’ “Swordfishtrombones” wasn’t just exciting for the “reinvention” of his compositions (because really, was “Soldier’s Things” or “Down, Down, Down” or “Johnsburg, Illinois” that much different from anything on his three previous LPs?), it seemed progressive because it was a lot of short songs. Not a bloated double concept album (Waits had done that in his “prior persona” already) but the post-punk concept of extended economy along with short song-length experimentation (as in Costello’s “Get Happy,” etc.). Waits was looking to the future in the length of CDs as the market prepared them for existence. (Of course, now “Swordfishtrombones” seems really short compared with almost every Waits album since, which often get near the twenty track mark each time.)
I can probably dig out a few early reviews that criticized The Ramones for releasing albums that were too short, too, but somehow also positively noting the short lengths of the songs. I do also think most critics were appropriately assessing the differences between the emerging minimalist punk aesthetic and the jam and groove based one Wonder created out of. Those massive double CD rap releases were possibly a throwback to the 70s soul era of albums as enormous Cadillacs of entertainment.
I have a 71-minute Colbie Caillat promo sitting on my desk now. Five tracks (~27 minutes) of said album make up “bonus material” that will be included on deluxe editions of the album or as iTunes exclusives, etc. I’ve spoken to artists like Matt & Kim and Ted Leo who say that they’re also forced by retailers/labels/suits to record “extra” tracks for the purposes outlined above, which often results in shined-up b-sides, which are often embarrassing for the artist and the listener alike, seeing the light of day.
Thus, I assume the figures listed for the album times are for the “regular” versions of said albums. Perhaps the bloated album hasn’t fully disappeared, but portions are being repackaged and priced separately.
i guess my point is, when you are listening to a classic album, are you considering the actual time count, or rather (and hopefully so), the journey that its taking you on. again, who cares about minutes, seconds, etc. i care about the song crafting.
i mean, whats next then, exact time counts on sex, drunkeness, etc.? who cares. if it makes you feel good, well, nuff said.
final point: minute counters = boring, geek, mf’er!
Then don’t read articles which are obviously about counting the time of albums, Ray Ray.
And why get mean about it, have you had a rough day, chief?
Methinks Fatos and Pestey should get a room.
I think the sociological hoohah is beside the point: when CDs were new (and relatively more expensive), both artistic and economic reasons led musicians to fill ’em up. What became ever more clear is that most people don’t want to listen to 80 minutes of the same band or style consecutively. Even a 60-minute LP is really two 30-minute lengths, in that the break between sides provides a psychological breather. (This is why some smart folks released 70-minute CDs…but broke them into two 35-minute CDs.)
Another factor: the faster and louder and more monochromatic the music, the sooner ear fatigue sets in (wanna listen to an 80-minute, 60-song, ’80s-style hardcore punk CD? didn’t think so). The more variety, the more nuance, the more space and time allowed for things to develop, the longer a good album can be (to a point, of course). And obviously, extended length is the whole point of some genres, from minimalism to hypnotic “new age” crap.
apologies for the tone. i actually stopped at the first paragraph, was tough just getting through that. you are right, all need to be free to be who they are. some of us prefer kirk and the green space lady, others, spock and his perference for logic.
What a lot of people in this comment section aren’t addressing is that while the newer, shorter albums may have overall better songs and no filler, the pricing of them hasn’t changed a bit. When my iPod broke down and I was forced to *gasp* BUY MUSIC at the local record store, I was shocked at how 30 minutes worth of music cost $20. CDs these days are not priced correctly at the amount of content they have, so an indie as fuck album may have only 32 minutes of music, but it would cost the same as a 65-minute long electronica album.
Again, people who download music don’t really care in the first place, but if bands want to have their albums sell, they should price them accordingly
The last thing i think about when I purchase music is the length of the tracks/albums. As in every art form, it’s quality over quantity every time.
One thing to keep in mind is how drastically CDs changed the way we listened to music. It became a million times easier to skip to your favorite songs and even put it on random play.
Also, we paid about the same amount for a CD in 1990 as we do today. They were relatively far more expensive to produce as well. I think the added digital space + production costs = longer albums so artists and listeners could get their money’s worth.
I think y’all are missing what’s really going on here.
The most important element isn’t how we purchase music, but how we listen to it: If I’m sitting at home, loading my CD player, I don’t want to change the disc every half-hour. If I’m listening to my iPod on my way to work, I don’t have time to experience a full 40 minute album – but I’ll happily enjoy a 20 minute EP.
The shortening of the standard album is a good thing for us vinyl enthusiasts. Most every album over 50 minutes nowadays gets put on a two-record set. Better fidelity, say some, but what a pain in the ass to flip a record three times to hear less than one hour of music! I hate uselessly extravagant two-disc sets (see the new Dylan album, which has about 11 minutes of material per side). I started out on cd’s in the late 80s, but in the early 90s I discovered the joys of vinyl and the thought that went behind the classic two-sided a/b structure. I really enjoy a concentrated 20-minute program of music from my favorite band; my highlight of this summer is that for the first time in over a decade, Wilco released an album on ONE vinyl disc. This is a trend I’d like to see much more of.
The most glaring omission in this piece and in the comments.
1986.
Slayer.
“Reign in Blood”
29:04 (track times only, based on my CD – of course, there are the pauses between songs – 2 seconds for CD, a little longer for vinyl)
With 2 bonus tracks added on the re-release, nearly 35 minutes.
And you KNOW it’s one of the most important albums ever made. And YES, it came out on vinyl first.
I know – someone’s gonna get all “exception that proves the rule” all up in this.
Yay short albums! Keep ’em wanting more!
Yeah, you know, as Raymond Carver wrote, every idea has its size. I don’t think short albums are better than long albums myself; they can be. I don’t like how EPs are left out of the discussion of “classic releases” most of the time (like how short stories are dying as a cultural expression in the marketplace?), but that doesn’t mean it’s kick ass that people are making half hour records now as a trend. Probably better, but there’s some really talented AND prolific people out there too. Fewer though, I’m sure.
Good point about cost, Reject. Then again, some us pay gobs of money for just one rare (sometimes not even that old) song. But I’m sure you’re referring to the consumer of contemporary product. Pricing music is one of those new market negotiations fraught with existential contention. My only assertion, probably already addressed by others above, is that the sound quality of the medium should be reflected in the price — and that means those double vinyl new releases being criticized could be a better deal for the listener than a single LP, if they don’t have CD mastering. (To bring up a whole other batch of arguments, based on the changing nature of mastering since the initial phasing out of mass produced vinyl.) The spread of those grooves means something in terms of sound reception if it’s not just a vinyl reproduction of a mastered copy meant for compact disc distribution.
Not to be defensive, 2fs, but I don’t think it’s “sociological hoohah” to wonder if an extended format encouraged creative lassitude. You’re writing about economic imperatives, which has sociological implication.
Phil P., Slayer (and Rick Rubin) worked very hard to make “Reign In Blood” as tight a statement as they could, but the expansiveness of ” … and Justice For All” kicks ass too (with only two or three medium length songs spread out a vinyl side).
Finally, Matos isn’t fat, End Of Story, and we do have a room, with a bunch of other people: The EMP Pop Conference, where you might have a lot more fun than trolling the Internet to call people names. But I doubt it.
When Henry Rollins re-released his major label works on his own independent label, those hummers were packed with additional material. He also re-released a bunch of classics from the late 70s and 80s like Devo, Gang of Four, and Trouble Funk and they had lots of bonus material. Good value if you really like the bands, otherwise there was always the K-Tel and Polydor hit single records that are replicated today with the whole “Now that’s what I call ______” series on CD. Punk compilations were always good for a stack of 30 second songs, and 12 inch singles had the long remixes and “dance mix” version with hilarious drum machine effects and scratching. La la la like a virrrrrrr a virrrrrrr whooo! virgin! Hey!