Can Length Ruin An Album?

The durab thing about the tracks approach is that it's entirely relative. If you were to take it to the extreme, you could say an album with only 1 good track and 14 bad ones was a good album.

Noone does that (I hope), but where would you draw the line? If you were serious about your opinions - say your job was to write album reviews - then I think it would be good to have firmer criteria than that for how you score albums.

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I think it's an important consideration for anyone who are serious about communicating their opinions. I agree that for personal enjoyment, it doesn't really matter that much.
 
I agree some songs are just WAY too long. Only like classical music should be really long. I think most people want to hear lots of great "single" type hits. There is more pressure than ever to make each song a real hit on an album.
 
To those who never listen to albums in their entirey, it obviously won't matter as much. However, I do think they're missing out a bit. Many albums are much more than just collections of songs and have an extra layer of appreciation that can be tapped into if you listen to and take it in as a whole. Those who occasionally do appreciate albums in their entirety will know that the best albums leave you wanting for more when the last track finishes. To me, it's not good if I get tired of the album before it's over .. For an album to be really good, I think it should be enjoyable from start to finish without being boring.

So yeah, length matters.

Close to the Edge by Yes is an example of an album which I think is way too short .. in a good way. :)

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If I put on an album that has been rereleased with extra tracks such as proto-versions of the songs, I often leave the extras out of the playlist. I also tend to leave them out when I write reviews .. The reason is they were not intended as part of the original product and including them as part of the whole can turn an otherwise nicely timed and exciting album into a long and repetitive one.
 
Many don't necessarily feel like they have to, but want to give people their money's worth, don't want to make them feel cheated. In the process they are stretching/thinning out what could be a more solid body of work.
 
Speaking of the Cure, Disintegration is a really long album that I think is pretty much perfect the length it is, though they could possibly have dropped the last song.
 
SounRAB like we're pretty much the exact same age (I was 13 in 1990). But I didn't own a CD player until I was 15 and I had tapedecks in my cars, which were the main places I listened to music, all the way into my early 20s (at which point I stopped owning cars) so the impact of cassettes on me was pretty substantial throughout my formative years.
 
Thanks! I got pretty busy in work and personal life, so had less time to devote to things like online forums, but I recently felt an urge to read and talk about music with people again. It's nice to see you again, too. :)



It's not about never doing so, or always doing so. I actually like to listen to full albums most of the time. But I can also enjoy extracting the best songs from certain albums, tossing them together in a playlist and hitting random play. From that "mix" perspective, getting more good songs is good, even if they come with more bad songs and make the overall album too long. IMO, anyway.
 
In a word, no. I really don't pay much attention. If it is an hour and 20 minutes of good stuff, each song unique in style and content, then no.

If it is similar sounding stuff then yeah, but again, I don't generally pay much attention. Anymore, I listen to an actual album only two or three times before I have the songs rated, and then just add the best songs to my playlist or shuffle through all songs, so it doesn't effect my enjoyment in the slightest.

Mostly I think of the general notion of "more bang for the buck", as they say.
 
I do this as well, especially for something like a review. I usually still listen to the bonus tracks at some point, but not as part of the album. In my MP3 library I change the album name for those to "album name [Bonus Tracks]" to remind myself.

Back in the day though I acquired many albums that had extra tracks and I didn't know they were extra tracks...for instance the US release came with bonus tracks and I didn't know any different, and they weren't clearly identified as such on the back of the CD, or an album that came out in the vinyl/cassette years and the primary CD issue includes bonus tracks. Examples being several of Skinny Puppy's early albums (the CD version of Bites has 17 tracks, original vinyl/cassette had 9; the original Remission was a 6-track EP but the CD release has 11 tracks, etc), and Aphex Twin's Richard D. James album...I only recently discovered that the original UK version was 5 tracks shorter. So I got used to all those albums being as long as they are, it would feel strange to now separate the bonus tracks...but if I did, the albums would probably feel more solid.
 
Tool folks.
For me their albums aren't long enough. It's rare for me to listen to the entire thing in one sitting but I need more from banRAB like that.
Crystal Method on the otherhand just end up repeating themselves, and I find that a lot of Hip Hop / Rap albums usually end up losing steam and getting kind of vague and abstract by the last song... even one of my favorite rappers Mos Def's Black on Both Sides just kind of gets skewed and difficult to stick with and I usually end up skipping to Mathematics so I can move on to something else.

Basically I have to suggest that I don't think the album length REALLY has anything to do with "ruining" or "making" the record for any of you at all. I think it's the way it's put together that matters, when it flows beautifully and chills out when you want it to, and delivers that "punch" just when you need it, the album COULD go on forever and you would lap it up like a dog.

I'm partial to Tool, Lateralus specifically, but also Undertow, other examples would be Incubus - both Morning View and Make Yourself, Foo Fighters - The Colour and The Shape, Nirvana - Nevermind, Clapton Unplugged, just to name a few of which that I feel are true SOLID albums.
 
I don't really like double albums. Even albums I like, I find I rearely listen to the second disc, and one really good album could have been made from condensing the two. Prime examples Smashing Pumpkins' Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness (first disc great, second disc largely unnecessary) and Nine Inch Nails' The Fragile (as above).
 
Terrific long albums:
The White Album
Mellon Collie and The Infinite Sadness
69 Love Songs
Exile On Main Street
Zen Arcade

That's off the top of my head, but the fact is, there are alot of albums out there that could stand to have at least 1 or 2 tracks shaved off.

Then again-there are alot of albums that I consider too short-
Richard Hell- Blank Generation
NODZZZ - s/t
Vivian Girls- s/t
Wipers- Youth of America

But, as Urban said, I'd rather be left wanting more than hearing a few extra filler tracks.
 
Exactly. I'd even say 40-50 minutes but it depenRAB on the genre. A fast punk album is better in the 30-35 minute range and something slower or more creative where ideas take longer to develop could be at the longer end of the range.
 
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