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Bit OT: Songs That Are Too Long


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I disagree on American Pie. As music only it might be boring, but I connect to the lyrics on a deep emotional level.

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The example I gave (American Pie) is one of those, since the verses and chorus just keep going on and on without anything else other than slowing it down in the beginning and end.

I disagree on American Pie. As music only it might be boring, but I connect to the lyrics on a deep emotional level.

American Pie totally works for me. Really nice piano work, too. And even though the verse-chorus combination repeats 7 times, there's a decent amount of variety in the chords, melodies, rhythms, and vocal delivery.

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But those old enough remember when long songs were the cool new thing on the radio. That hip listeners were tired of three minute Pop/Rock and FM radio started becoming AOR (album oriented rock) with stations playing long songs and even complete sides of albums. Then everyone was happy to hear those long Doors and Allman Brothers and other tunes.
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Do you folks remember when the record company told the band Chicago that they would NOT pay them any royalties on albums that had more than 10 songs on them?

 

The record company got tired of endless solos and songs that went on forever. Yep.

 

 

Mike T.

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Do you folks remember when the record company told the band Chicago that they would NOT pay them any royalties on albums that had more than 10 songs on them? ......

 

The ironic thing is that I was told that either the record company or their producer pressured them to make Chicago III be a 2-LP album, when the songs they had available really only merited a 1-LP album.

 

After III, the only other 2-LP album of new material they released was VII (the 4-LP IV was a live album with only 1 new song).

 

Do you know at what time in their history Chicago was told they would not be paid royalties on more than 10 songs per album?

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Love 'em or hate 'em, there are many tunes out there--often from the 70's--that are WAY too long. Maybe we enjoyed them back in the day but now, not so much. Sometimes people run out of the room screaming after just a few opening notes. Perhaps shorter versions would be more appreciated.

 

Anyway, here are a few that come to mind:

 

 

[video:youtube]

 

 

[video:youtube]://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WUdlaLWSVM

 

 

[video:youtube]://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_MjCqQoLLA

 

 

Feel free to list your "favorites."

 

 

You can't include prog in any such discussion - the length of the song usually defines whether something is prog or not.

 

My view on songs that need to be shortened to zero:

 

1) Anything by Bruce "Don't Push Me" Springsteen

2) Anything by Santana

3) Anything by Don Maclean

 

:Python:

 

Springsteen and Santana are fine.

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Or it's all part of the attention deficit everyone today is suffering. I was reading in this modern world of too many radio stations and streams many radio station are shortening songs because they discovered listener are growing bored fast and changing stations. IMO it's a bad side effect of this digital age.

 

 

I do not desire nor require a scintific team of experts to explain music to me.. My gut tells me one of the essential reasons people are bored ( aside from drug use, which dulls the sensibilities and perhaps a jaded populace ) is the nature of the music itself.

 

Compare music from early 20 th century, including the semi classical composers, like Leroy Anderson, (not Ian), and I perceive greater musical ability of the writers.

Beatles , Stevie Wonder, EWF, Sting, Donald Fagen, are wonderful exceptions, but there is too much repetition in the music.

Repetition means more than one aspect. I have never analyzed this, but off the top. Melody, counter melodies, variations in harmony... not the precisely identical chords every dull time, drum machine ( basically ) monotony. ( they do a great job of covering up the monotony of drum loops though - but an actual rhythmic drummer is still generally more interesting) ,

I go back and listen to music from 150, 100 years ago and this seems true to me.

And Beatles were 50 years ago, and Sgt Pepper is a masterpiece of variation.

 

Repetition is its own thing coming out of ( off the top ) African, Latin and Indian ( India ) musical conceptions. But if that valid conception is taken away from its home, and used in the hands of a Garage band or Ableton artist, something is taken away.

 

I recall John Coltrane being into a repetitive thing... and it was a religious feeling, where mantra is a distinct part of the music design to raise consciousness. I believe this still.

But again, it became warped in lesser hands.

 

 

You don't have ideas, ideas have you

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ANY modern gospel song with ad infinitum choruses

 

Hmmm this is a little away from my experience , but being moved by the ( is it!? ) "Holy Ghost" or is it Holy Spirit, that gospel people refer to? This Holy spirit is a whole other way to be involved with music. It is African American, and is special. The spirit can take over the performers, a beautiful experience; but leave your left brain at the door.

You don't have ideas, ideas have you

We see the world, not as it is, but as we are. "One mans food is another mans poison". I defend your right to speak hate. Tolerance to a point, not agreement

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I disagree on American Pie. As music only it might be boring, but I connect to the lyrics on a deep emotional level.

 

Me too.. music too. :like:

You don't have ideas, ideas have you

We see the world, not as it is, but as we are. "One mans food is another mans poison". I defend your right to speak hate. Tolerance to a point, not agreement

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MacArthur Park Richard Harris released April 1968 7:20..I know..I have both singles.

 

[video:youtube]

 

If anything, NOT LONG ENOUGH!

 

Yes, I liked that song and arrangement very much. :like:

You don't have ideas, ideas have you

We see the world, not as it is, but as we are. "One mans food is another mans poison". I defend your right to speak hate. Tolerance to a point, not agreement

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Do you know at what time in their history Chicago was told they would not be paid royalties on more than 10 songs per album?

 

Yeah I'd be interested in more info on this as well. I'm not sure how you could even count songs up on a Chicago album, since they often ran songs together as medleys. They were also fond of including little snippets as intros or preludes in separate divisions on the vinyl. Would a corporate exec count those as songs?

 

I can imagine a label pressuring the band to go in a more commercial direction, which of course they did in spectacular fashion.

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http://bluefunk.rocks/KCAvatars/JazzyGoodtimes.jpg

 

 

As much as I love Stevie, I never sit through all of "Isn't She Lovely." Not only is the repetition tedious, but as a very deliberate non-parent, I find the "sounds of giving the kid a bath" part just repulsive.
I feel similarly. But the first part is just beautiful.

 

 

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But those old enough remember when long songs were the cool new thing on the radio. That hip listeners were tired of three minute Pop/Rock and FM radio started becoming AOR (album oriented rock) with stations playing long songs and even complete sides of albums. Then everyone was happy to hear those long Doors and Allman Brothers and other tunes.

 

Not only that, some of us who spun the records at the station loved the long songs.... it meant bathroom break

 

Gotta hit the head? Spin up Grand Funk Railroad "Im' your Captain/Closer To Home" Almost ten minutes of potty time :D

 

That is until the time the needle skipped and I'm running back down the hall to the booth to recover ....

David

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I thought Howes 'rockabilly ' guitar passage was clever. Very different from what most rock and blues guitarists were doing back then.

 

Well, he did repurpose it from a song in another band he had just written it in. It was not originally a Yes tune at all, but I'm forgetting the band and the song. But I think Yes doesn't really work without Howe, because he's really the one who brings the music down to earth with his blue collar-style roots grit. The rest of the band are all up in varying degrees of LaLa land, completely divorced from the blues and the origins of rock & roll. Don't get me wrong, Howe wasn't some backwater cow handeither, he got all crazy with his echoplexes and psychedelitry too, but he always could bring the music back to earth.

Puck Funk! :)

 

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When "American Pie" came out, there were a lot of comedians at the time that integrated music with their schtick, so when my brother and I heard it on WBCN for the first time, we were laughing hysterically due to the repetition, as we couldn't imagine a serious artist ever doing that so figured it HAD to be a joke!

 

We had the same reaction a bit later upon hearing Philip Glass (our first exposure to him) in a full performance of the opera "Einstein at the Beach". We thought maybe it was something along the lines of PDQ Bach.

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Do you Feel Like I Do - Frampton Live

Stranglehold - Nugent

Wow...I specifically thought of those songs as NOT too long.

 

I think I might be older than you so maybe it's that I discovered them when I still had more time on my hands!

You want me to start this song too slow or too fast?

 

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When "American Pie" came out, there were a lot of comedians at the time that integrated music with their schtick

 

Speaking of comedians, Tim Hawkins has an interesting idea for long songs:

 

[video:youtube]

 

 

 

When an eel hits your eye like a big pizza pie, that's a Moray.
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On a side note, how does one embed video? I notice people don't click a video link; it has less power. I spent an hour yesterday trying different things in HTML after inspecting the code pages of posts that embed video, to no avail. I did not see this topic covered in the FAQ's section. I seem to be the only one who doesn't know how to do it. :-)

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