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Album lengths


Vincent Vega

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Back in the 1960s and 1970s, most albums were typically composed of 6-10 songs, mostly for space reasons; We'd call them mini albums today. Sure, you had your double and triple records which could go for 25 songs or so, but for most artists only one album or so was a double or triple.

But was perhaps the smaller amount of songs per record not only better for the artist (let's say the artist wrote 50 songs; with 10 songs per record, that's enough for five records right there), but also for the material--The less songs, the less filler? Today artists are expected to release 12-16 song albums; to release an 8 song record would not be taken well, and so they're forced to pad out the albums with more songs, sometimes lesser songs or even outtakes.

Was perhaps the older way--shorter albums--better?

The "less is more" mindset?

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Back in the 1960s and 1970s, most albums were typically composed of 6-10 songs, mostly for space reasons; We'd call them mini albums today. Sure, you had your double and triple records which could go for 25 songs or so, but for most artists only one album or so was a double or triple.

But was perhaps the smaller amount of songs per record not only better for the artist (let's say the artist wrote 50 songs; with 10 songs per record, that's enough for five records right there), but also for the material--The less songs, the less filler? Today artists are expected to release 12-16 song albums; to release an 8 song record would not be taken well, and so they're forced to pad out the albums with more songs, sometimes lesser songs or even outtakes.

Was perhaps the older way--shorter albums--better?

The "less is more" mindset?

You also have to keep in mind kids bought singles and in the case of The Beatles, what they put out in England wound up being repackaged and radically changed from a 14 song album, to 10-11 songs that would be mixed in with singles/b-sides.

I think when an artist tries to fill up a CD, they get into including filler, but if they keep it to 45 minutes to an hour, it usually works out.

And when someone says they wrote 50 songs, sometimes 2 or 3 ideas become one song. Most of the songs that make those "all time greatest" lists were usually because they took 2 okay songs and for whatever reason, when they put it together, worked for the better.

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Kind of related, but I have a problem with how damn long hip hop/rap albums are. Most of the albums I've listened to from that genre are at least an hour long, with anything from 15-20 tracks on it. There's so many hip-hop/rap albums that I'd love if all that extra fat was trimmed down to say, 45-50 minutes instead of 70 or 80.

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Artists I'm a big fan of: I'll take as many songs as possible.

Other artists that I like: In my experience the length of the album doesn't matter. I can see it easily with artists with a long discography that have both long and short albums. It's about the same percentage of good and less good songs on an album throughout their career. So if on their 9-song albums there are around 3 good ones, 4 alright and 2 bad, then on a 15-song album there will be about 5 good, 6-7 alright and 3-4 sub-par.

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Kind of related, but I have a problem with how damn long hip hop/rap albums are. Most of the albums I've listened to from that genre are at least an hour long, with anything from 15-20 tracks on it. There's so many hip-hop/rap albums that I'd love if all that extra fat was trimmed down to say, 45-50 minutes instead of 70 or 80.

yeah, definitely agree with this.

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