Thoughts on the double album

From SEBTP, I'd cut "I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe)" and "More Fool Me" (cliché choices, I know).I'd also shorten "The Battle of Epping Forest". From Thick as a Brick, I'd cut the whole second track or at least most of it and probably leave the first track as it is. I've just recently been getting into Lark's Tongues, so I can't yet tell you if I would cut anything. Who knows, maybe it's the perfect record.

I can't think of anything I would cut from Close to the Edge though.

harmonium.ro wrote: I have never understood all this talk about "filler", especially when it comes from people that I deem serious and worthy of respect. Transposing and applying this filler talk on the arts, it would be like when I visit a painter's retrospective, I should skip the walls with watercolours and drawings because they're "filler" and the exhibition would have been better with only the major paintings. Also, the smaller paintings and most of the paintings making up series would also be filler.

 

Filler is definitely a problematic term as it's subjective, often overused and needlessly pejorative. However, I still think it can be a valid description in certain circumstances. If you look at artists like Frank Zappa or the Flower Kings, (to take two examples off the top of my head), artists that have large discographies and seem to release material in a somewhat undiscriminating fashion it's hard not to encounter the occasional dud - a track which is not merely a smaller or humble offering than the album's more bombastic centrepiece(s) but a track which just sounds like they weren't quite giving it 100% and feels like it only made the cut to bulk out the album.

The Jethro Tull remasters, stuffed as they are with unreleased songs, have revealed that Ian Anderson could be quite brutal in sacrificing songs in order to ensure a leaner, more focused album at the end of it.  One gets the feeling that with a band like The Flower Kings, for comparison's sake, very little of the recording session fails to make it onto the final cut.

My opinion on the double album, as well as on the current trend of bands to stuff a CD as full as they possibly can, is that most bands are incapable of sustaining my interest or writing enough good material for more than about 60 minutes (live albums not included here).  A great example is that I just listened to Destined Solitaire by Beardfish.  Not a double album, but it would have been in the old days.  Found the first 40 minutes quite entertaining, but around the 50 minute mark I was ready for the album to end and by a little past 60 minutes it started to become excruciating.  I began to wonder if the album ever would in fact end or if barring me hitting the stop button, it was going to go on until the sun was a cold dead husk in the sky. 

My point is, most bands should stick to under 60 minutes, period.  Double albums should be exceedingly rare, and single albums should be limited in time.  That's the one thing I miss about LPs.  Bands were limited in what they could put on an album, so they had to pick the best stuff for inclusion on an album.  Now they can throw everything including the kitchen sink on an album.  With todays 80 minutes available for CDs, I don't see the need for double albums at all.  Although, I did order Steve's Grace for Drowning.  But at least he kept each CD around the 40 minute mark.  Often, what I do now is listen to only one CD at a time for double albums, not both in a row, which probably is not what the author intended. 

Bottom line after this long winded post is I wish bands would stick to putting out 40-60 minutes of good music, rather than trying to throw everything at us.  So I generally prefer single albums to doubles.  That includes stuff like The Lamb, The Wall, and so on. 

^ I think the problem is with your tastes, all those are albums that I find great especially because of their extensive exploratory nature; I'd regret any second cut off from them. 

fuyuakiworld wrote: Never really liked double LPs, as I find them too long. Now, if it's a concept or of an entire concert, that's cool, but Works, TFTGO, The Beatles (white album),  all too long, and I would love them if they condenced them onto one LP.

Dean wrote: fuyuakiworld wrote: Never really liked double LPs, as I find them too long. Now, if it's a concept or of an entire concert, that's cool, but Works, TFTGO, The Beatles (white album),  all too long, and I would love them if they condenced them onto one LP. I've heard this before and don't really get it.   How can your enjoyment be determined by how long a disc lasts? - surely your listening time is dictated by other things, like how much spare time you have or how long it is between teatime and bedtime, so assuming say you had two hours to listen to some music then that time will be filled with two hours of music - that could be a triple album or a double and a single or three single albums - they could all be by the same artist or they could be by two or three different artists, or dozens if you are listening to "Now That's What I Call Prog" (12 golden greats of the Prog Era on 3 CDs for just $9.99!! Buy it now!) . If you are implying that you are suffereing some form of listener fatigue while listening to a double album then that fatigue will ensue from listening to two single albums in the same timeframe, won't it?

If it's too long and/or there are bits you don't like, no one is stopping you from doing your own edit.  Personally I find the albums that typically get singled out just fine.


Edited by Slartibartfast - December 21 2011 at 05:46

dbl post sorry

Edited by tamijo - January 14 2012 at 07:51

HarbouringTheSoul wrote: From SEBTP, I'd cut "I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe)" and "More Fool Me" (cliché choices, I know).I'd also shorten "The Battle of Epping Forest".

Why stop there?   Just throw those songs under the bus in their entirety.


Edited by Slartibartfast - January 14 2012 at 08:27