Length of songs

BUT, it gives less interest when the group lost themselves with no direction, no unity. I don't like free jazz or free rock, it's cacophony, a big mess for me.

 

Talk about Supper's Ready! Gates! Echoes! Shine on! Close! Think what it can give with a 70 minutes of that!

 

Is there a song about that long, now? (70 minutes?) I don't tink so... 

 

15+ minute epics are the essence of Prog - no other genre (except classical or jazz) would get away with that!

 

 

 

 If short songs were a flaw, Gentle Giant would be a bad band, and they are great. Many of their songs are fairly short, but still, show way more ideas than any song in tales from topographic oceans. Take anything in Octopus for example.

 

 There may be hundreds of small pointless songs around as well. As any small song in THE WALL that seem to be nothing but introduction notes with only one idea.

 

 I find the best written songs within the 8 - 12 minutes of lenght. It feels like that's the perfect space to present clear ideas, evolve them, show a climax and keep the momentum at the top. Examples are everywhere.

 

 A "true epic" may also become a true filler: All Tales of topographic, Dogs, Sheep, Pigs (last three with only 3 to 6 real minutes of original music, the rest, either being filler or copy paste), Echoes, Atom, Close to the edge (With middle section as filler and the second part identical to the first). 

 

 We'll find magnificent well written, colorful and full of imagination epics such as Supper's, Thick as a Brick, Shine and Tarkus.

 

 My point is, the music has to fulfill some requirements to be good. These are: Creativity, originality, feeling, passion, imagination, songwriting, energy....But lenght?....Anyone can turn a 5 minutes song into a 20 song. Ask YES and Floyd who were able to write at least 6 or 7 with only one true idea in mind, the rest.....Copy-paste and random notes with no purpose whatsoever.  

 

My point is that section was about thirty seconds long and the drum roll about three and yet it is implanted in my brain forever. And the feeling invoked with a hint of the tune can last a very long time after watching\hearing it.

 

As for Beatles tunes, they may be 4:00 minutes long but some of them contain such compacted content and loaded emotion that it is hours worth of music in 4:00 minutes.

 

It is like the difference between a good short poem and bad long prose. The prose may ramble on explaining everything with as many words as there is and realy lack in substantial content; while a good short poem uses only necassary words but they are perfectly placed within the structure and stuffed to the brink with meaning and emotion, while the prose may be longer in lenghth, the short poem is substancialy longer in content and ideas and emotion.

 

For me the joy of listining is not the sound that makes my ear drums vibrate, it is how my mind interprets the sound as well as the ideas and emotions conveyed in the tune.

 

I am impressed when someone can write an epic song that is under 4:00 minutes but few can do that. When it needs to take longer that is also good (just as standerd prose or long poetry can be good) but when it gets to excess or just rambles for no reason it is not good music.