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Albums that are particularly short

Started by shlug, January 03, 2022, 12:42:55 AM

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shlug

There's too many albums that are way too long for their own good to warrant a decent thread ( e.g. Mellon Collie, most modern post-rock albums and more recently Donda).

Instead I thought it would be more interesting to discuss albums that are noticeably short and in particular whether the album benefits from the length or could do with being longer.

Personal favourite of mine but Spiderland is surprisingly short at just under 40 mins. I love how unique and droney the album is so I could do it with being longer as the time just flies by whenever I listen to it but equally it feels like the climax to Good Morning Captain comes in at the perfect point so I wouldn't want to spoil it so I'm a bit conflicted.



Pixies - Doolittle I wish was longer, it's almost a compilation album with that every song bar one or two could be a hit/single.

BJBMK2

Blackstar by David Bowie. Just over 40 mins, but it feels a lot shorter then that to my ears. Probably cos it opens with a whopper of an opening track, at nearly ten mins, so the rest of the album just kind of breezes by. Rather like Station To Station, which runs at only 37 mins, it would not be improved in any way by being extended, or shortened. The length for both is tonally, exactly, correct.

DrGreggles

Pretty sure you could fit the first three Ramones albums on a C90.

cosmic-hearse

'Group Sex', The Circle Jerks' 1980 masterpiece, is a mere 15 minutes long

cosmic-hearse

And Slayer's 'Reign in Blood' is just under 30 minutes

Egyptian Feast

You could stick Coachwhips' Bangers Vs Fuckers on one side of a C60 and still have enough space for side one of Milo Goes To College.

Rev+

There was that infamous Dwarves album that was about 10 minutes long - a review at the time said something along the lines of it being a really funny idea unless you've actually bought the thing.

Similar era:  'It's a Shame about Ray' by Lemonheads was flagged up for being just over a half-hour, but had it been any longer it would have been insufferable.  As it is, it's just about sufferable.

peanutbutter

Pink Moon is only like 26 minutes isnt it? As much as I love it it's exactly as long as it needs to be.

I think half of the reason Illmatic was held up for years as being THE BEST RAP ALBUM EVER was because Nas was the only person in hip hop in that period who appreciated the value of not stuffing a disc with any old shite you've got. 40 minutes long in a period where everyone was going longer and longer.

Quote from: BJBMK2 on January 03, 2022, 01:02:33 AMBlackstar by David Bowie. Just over 40 mins, but it feels a lot shorter then that to my ears. Probably cos it opens with a whopper of an opening track, at nearly ten mins, so the rest of the album just kind of breezes by.
But also Bowie's biggest issue from the 90s up to the Next Day was that he kept making albums around 50 minutes long when basically all his best albums are around 40.
 

Key

The CD era meant people stuffed their albums to an hour or so, but those days are behind us now. I'd say 30-45 mins is the sweet spot.

Spiderland's great cause the entire structure is just building tension up for the last song, if anything it could be even shorter.

Some of my fave albums that work despite their shortness:

Radiohead - The King of Limbs (37 mins)
Clinic - Internal Wrangler (31 mins)
Cocteau Twins - Victorialand (32 mins)
Grouper - Grid of Points (22 mins)
Dean Blunt - Black Metal 2 (23 mins)

greenman

Not really an album I spose but I wish we had more of Premiers Symptoms era Air, various remixes that don't really work added to latter versions I spose and parts of Moon Safari are similar but tend to be a bit more heavy on the lushness.

sardines

Probably cheating as I think they classify it as an EP but at 2 tracks and 28 minutes I always thought Godspeed You Black Emperor's 'Slow Riot for New Zero Kanada' said everything you needed to know about post-rock.

daf

Most of Elvis' albums were a bit on the short side :

Roustabout (1964 soundtrack) : 20:05
Elvis Sings Flaming Star (1968) : 20:30
- - - - - - - - - - -
It Happened at the World's Fair (1963 soundtrack) : 21:21
Let's Be Friends (1970) : 21:23
- - - - - - - - - - -
50,000,000 Elvis Fans Can't Be Wrong (1959) : 22:00
King Creole (1958 soundtrack) : 22:01
Paradise, Hawaiian Style (1966 soundtrack) : 22:20
I Got Lucky (1971) : 22:29
Double Trouble (1967 soundtrack) : 22:36
A Date with Elvis (1959) : 22:58
C'mon Everybody (1971) : 22:58
- - - - - - - - - - -
For LP Fans Only (1959) : 23:28
Elvis for Everyone! (1965) : 23:58
- - - - - - - - - - -
Harum Scarum (1965 soundtrack) : 24:14
Girl Happy (1965 soundtrack) : 24:16
- - - - - - - - - - -
Elvis (1973) : 25:25
Almost in Love (1970) : 25:44

The Mollusk

Quote from: peanutbutter on January 03, 2022, 03:21:16 AMI think half of the reason Illmatic was held up for years as being THE BEST RAP ALBUM EVER was because Nas was the only person in hip hop in that period who appreciated the value of not stuffing a disc with any old shite you've got. 40 minutes long in a period where everyone was going longer and longer.

"DONDA" really fucked up in this regard I think. The age of this sort of ludicrous overindulgence in rap is thankfully dying. Conversely the 5 Kanye-produced mini albums of 2018 had a far better grasp of the more sporadic approach hip hop had started to take, spurned on by stuff like Earl's 30 minute long "I Don't Like Shit, I Don't Go Outside" from 2015. Other contemporaries like Chris Crack and Mach-Hommy have found their stride over the last few years by releasing 20-30min projects roughly once or twice a year to great underground success. Hip hop has begun to re-embrace its scrappy punk roots in the last half decade (shorter albums, more experimentation and minimalism on the beats) and it's become all the more strong for it. Makes me super happy to be alive to see such a broad swell of creativity across the genre, it's genuinely thrilling.

the science eel

Quote from: peanutbutter on January 03, 2022, 03:21:16 AMBut also Bowie's biggest issue from the 90s up to the Next Day was that he kept making albums around 50 minutes long when basically all his best albums are around 40.
 

Exactly.

Gainsbourg's Histoire De Melody Nelson runs at 28 minutes or thereabouts and the first and last song are pretty much the same and they're both around 7 minutes long - so that's half of it!


kalowski

Quote from: Key on January 03, 2022, 05:00:38 AMThe CD era meant people stuffed their albums to an hour or so, but those days are behind us now. I'd say 30-45 mins is the sweet spot.
God, yes. So many long and bloated albums in the 90s made us forget that the medium of vinyl limited the length of records to a decent and sensible time. Just the other day I was thinking about starting a "released two albums on the same day" thread (except I think I've done it before) and I released that in 1991 Guns n Roses released two albums on the same day with durations of 1 hour 15 and 1 hour 16 mins each! That's nearly four times the length of Sgt Pepper.

shlug

Milo Goes to College is another one clocking in at about 22 mins with 15 tracks, the longest song being just over 2 mins long. You could probably say the same about most punk of the time but the short length of the tracks really compliments the punchy riffs whilst not overstaying their welcome. Think if the songs or indeed the album was any longer, the lack of sonic variety on Milo would start to chafe. Probably one of the reasons Milo dwarves anything the Descendents did thereafter; the main reason ofcourse being they weren't able to recapture that rebellious youthfulness that made Milo so listenable in the first place.

purlieu

I never quite got why so many people seem to dislike albums longer than 40 minutes. Obviously some records are best suited to shorter runtimes, but plenty of my favourite records are 50+ minutes. For me, the number of actual songs is probably more important than the length of the album. I see a lot of electronic records these days which are obviously put together with modern vinyl standards (no more than about 36 minutes) in mind, meaning they only end up with four or five tracks on them, which never feels satisfying. My perspective tends to be aim for between nine and 13 tracks and let the album length be decided by that. It's why Pink Moon and The Idle Race's Birthday Party are both excellent as sub-30 minute albums, because they do everything they have to do and end, and why I struggle with a lot of American mainstream records which often seem to run to 17 or 18 tracks to this day.

sutin

I thought Primus' last album The Desaturating Seven was oddly short (just over half an hour) because of the kind of band they are.

cosmic-hearse

There is something deeply unsatisfying about 50-something minute LPs. Either weed out some of the chaff or commit to a proper double album.

Also, historically this meant cramming 25 odd minutes into a single side of an LP which generally sounds dreadful. I remember buying a far too long Rancid LP as a teenager & it sounding weak as a result (it also sounded weak because it was Rancid, but I soon learned that).

Nico's Desertshore and The Marble Index both come in at less than half an hour - great as they are, I'm glad they're not any longer though.

purlieu

Quote from: cosmic-hearse on January 03, 2022, 02:38:50 PMThere is something deeply unsatisfying about 50-something minute LPs. Either weed out some of the chaff or commit to a proper double album.

Also, historically this meant cramming 25 odd minutes into a single side of an LP which generally sounds dreadful.
I dunno, I've owned Abbey Road and Tubular Bells on vinyl before and they sounded fine. It is a bloody awkward length for vinyl, though, if you're splitting it over two albums. You end up with about 12 minutes before swapping sides, which just kills any chance of it having any real flow.

pupshaw

Faces Ooh La La comes in at 30:22. Side one is 13:35. At the time there were grumblings, and things got worse when  Rod slagged it off as a piece of shit in Melody Maker and various other places, although he put in less than the minimum effort required. The group was in trouble anyway, but this was where Stewart's shithead tendencies fully manifested. 

Glebe

Quote from: shlug on January 03, 2022, 12:42:55 AMPixies - Doolittle I wish was longer, it's almost a compilation album with that every song bar one or two could be a hit/single.

Surfer Rosa's short enough too. Both are probably still my fave albums ever.

Come on Pilgrim is an EP really though some count it as an album.

Video Game Fan 2000

Minutemen - The Punch Line comes in at 15 minutes.
Husker Du - Everything Falls Apart is less than 20 without the singles

Glebe

Kildozer's Intellectuals are the Shoeshine Boys of the Ruling Elite is cracking.

I'd love to add the first, self-titled Fugazi release and follow-up Margin Walker to the great short albums list, but yeah like the aforementioned Pixies' Pilgrim they're officially EPs really so bleh.

I don't think there's even been a double album that couldn't be whittled down to a superior single disc. Quality control usually takes a large hit in the unfocused second half.

kalowski

Quote from: thecuriousorange on January 03, 2022, 06:51:44 PMI don't think there's even been a double album that couldn't be whittled down to a superior single disc. Quality control usually takes a large hit in the unfocused second half.
The problem is that people rarely agree with what should be whittled. I'm amazed that people would keep Piggies on a single disc White Album but then I'd keep Bungalow Bill.

Glebe

Quote from: thecuriousorange on January 03, 2022, 06:51:44 PMI don't think there's even been a double album that couldn't be whittled down to a superior single disc. Quality control usually takes a large hit in the unfocused second half.

Apparently George Martin wanted to do just that with the 'White Album'.

Norton Canes

Quote from: thecuriousorange on January 03, 2022, 06:51:44 PMI don't think there's even been a double album that couldn't be whittled down to a superior single disc

I appreciate that this is objectively true in that tracks can always be ranked by quality and the lower half of the resultant list discarded. But if anyone tries doing that to Sign o' the Times they can kiss my Prince-lovin' fundament.

Rizla

The other Elvis's debut My Aim Is True is just shy of 33 mins. Most of the songs are well under 3 minutes so it feels even shorter than it is. (Am i the only one who thinks it's the best of his early works? Much as I love the sound of the Attractions, it's just perfect).