When more is less

I just reviewed an album, 'Blue' by the German Neo band Eyesberg, which is a bit over 57 min long, and I got the same feeling, the last 2 songs are quite weaker than the rest and I feel that the overall quality would have benefited from dropping them and release a 50 min album. In this case at least they are put at the end of the album so one might take them as a kind of 'bonus material', the best stuff is there anyway intact and 'undisturbed' by the last 2 songs if one takes that mentality. 

I agree that anything over 60 minutes is very challenging to make compelling all the way through. I'm OK with bands filling the remaining time with bonus tracks, just as long as they make it clear that it is not part of the album's 'canon' (I think it's safe to assume that the majority of prog albums, concept or not, are made to be viewed as a whole and not song-by-song).

Longer albums usually just feel more substantial if done well. The reason why the hip-hop albums that are acclaimed this decade are acclaimed is that they are usually thoughtfully-made 60+ minute albums stuffed with lyrical material. It becomes very easy to say important things in that format. Several rock bands these days are just opting for the 10 3-minute tracks, which works great sometimes, but also sometimes feels less substantial.

On the other hand, I think The Mars Volta's Noctourniquet could have dropped a couple tracks and I would have liked the album better. Some of it was rather bland to me in comparison to the other tracks. I don't feel it would have been a flawless album, but it would have been a very good one, I think, instead of just a good one.

Polymorphia wrote: Longer albums usually just feel more substantial if done well. The reason why the hip-hop albums that are acclaimed this decade are acclaimed is that they are usually thoughtfully-made 60+ minute albums stuffed with lyrical material. It becomes very easy to say important things in that format. Several rock bands these days are just opting for the 10 3-minute tracks, which works great sometimes, but also sometimes feels less substantial. On the other hand, I think The Mars Volta's Noctourniquet could have dropped a couple tracks and I would have liked the album better. Some of it was rather bland to me in comparison to the other tracks. I don't feel it would have been a flawless album, but it would have been a very good one, I think, instead of just a good one.

(or perhaps shortened that section which drags on unnecessarily)

Trimming the fat off of albums was more of a pragmatic concern when there were only 45 minutes of vinyl time available, or 78 minutes of time on a CD.  But that's less of a concern now, so there's no "financial disincentive" to trim one's album.  Does this extra "fat" lessen the artistic value of the album?  Sometimes yes, but I think usually the answer is no.  More is more, as my colleague Roxbrough above states - especially if there's no added cost to the consumer - remember that cost (whether it be gauged in mental anguish or actual money) is a key component of the "value" equation.   It depends a lot on how the album is presented.  If you have a single 60 minute track that has 20 minutes of garbage in it, then technically you may still have 40 minutes of greatness, but we don't often see it that way, we think of it as a mediocre track.   But if you have an album with 40 minutes of great songs, and then one 20 minute suckjob tacked on to the end, then it may be easier to personally "edit" that last track out of our minds (and our digital playlists, more to the point).  If I were rating such an album, I wouldn't merely give it 5 stars just for the 40 minutes and tell the reader to skip the last track - that's not realistic.  But do I wish that last track were never released on the album?  Not at all.  I didn't have to pay extra for it, and I may even learn to like it someday.  Bring it on.

Of course a relevant point is that "the weak stuff" may not be the same for everybody. Perhaps some listeners enjoy more that weaker stuff (for my taste) and less the stuff I like more, so perhaps stuffing it all in the album gives more chances of some of it appealing to more people?

There has been filler on albums throughout the years, so I do not think it is necessarily a modern thing. There was filler in the "classic" era (Five Percent for Nothing, anybody?). I do think that there is a tendency in some o imagine that the longer a track, or album, is, then the more Prog it is.

Sometimes, less is, indeed, more.

Gerinski wrote: Of course a relevant point is that "the weak stuff" may not be the same for everybody. Perhaps some listeners enjoy more that weaker stuff (for my taste) and less the stuff I like more, so perhaps stuffing it all in the album gives more chances of some of it appealing to more people?

It's interesting - when vinyl imposed a physical restriction, I feel albums were generally shorter, then when CDs came along I wonder if albums got "padded" as a way of giving the consumer "value for money", e.g. if you can fill a CD with 80 minutes of music why not do so.  With downloads becoming more prevalent I think this mentality may be becoming less prevalent, and with no real restrictions perhaps artists can have the right amount of music on the album.


Edited by Padraic - January 13 2015 at 16:12