Are CDs too long?

lbr

lbr

monkey boy
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IMHO, yes they are. When vinyl was the primary format on which bands could peddle their wares, practical limitations meant that most albums would run to about 40 45 minutes. With the 74 minute CD however, most artists seem to feel obliged to fill up as much as possible - they probably don't want the fans to feel short changed at all. I think this is lamentable.

For starters, this means quite a few albums with more than their fair share of filler. Better to pick the best tracks and keep it brief.

Even if that's not fair, I mostly find that after about 50 minutes of listening to a single artist/album I'm about ready for a change of musical message. This is nothing to do with getting bored, it's just that I find I enjoy the listening better with variety. I will quite often follow one album with something else from a completely different genre.

What do you think?
 
Some are too short !
Kevin Ayres 2007 release "Unfairground", kicking in at a majestic...33 minutes, more of an EP !
That would have been deemed short even as an LP release back in the 70's !
Wasn't any cheaper either :(
 
some bands write loads of stuff and could fill many cds over and over again - well, thats what oasis say about themselves...
but maybe quality over quanity..?
 
I don't think bands feel they need to fill the CD. I think most feel a bit bad if their CD is under 40min though, and add some bonus tracks or skits and intros etc..

I think the most tracks I have seen/heard on one CD has to be on an NWA album!
 
The "length" of CDs has nothing to do with the pop music examples discussed above. It transpires that the legendary 74 minutes (often exceeded by the way) was the average performance time of Beethoven's 9th Symphony, which was thought by the founder and chairman of Sony to be the longest and greatest musical work ever written. He was wrong on both counts - there are far longer single classical works around.

If you're listening to pop music CDs with their 3.50 minute songs (a throw-back to the side length of 78rpm shellac records) and think that there are too many fill-ups of dubious musical merit, you can always use the Stop button on your remote or program out the offending tracks.
 
Claudio Abbado's Mahler 9th with Berlin Phil on DG lasts 81 mins... the longest single CD in my collection.
 
I think often they are yes. Whether its because they feel obliged or because they can, the extra space available does seem to affect some bands ability to look critically at the track listing and lose the filler. Witness the fact that so many more vinyl releases of modern records are doubles compared to the vinyl heyday when it was a relatively rare thing.

Rock and pop albums should be short (usually), just as singles shouldn't be much more than 4 minutes (usually). Very few bands have enough to say for themselves to fill more than 40 minutes, whatever the format.

Short and to the point with no filler is a good thing in my opinion - one of my favourite all time albums is Nashville Skyline - its less than 30 minutes long. You don't feel shortchanged at all because the quality is so good.
 

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