Poll: Do you think music is long enough?

[skitzo van]

Well I love everything from small popish number that last about two minutes, to large classical pieces with many movements that count as one song (such as a few two hour suites). But I'd have to say the average I've listened to is three to four minutes

 

[lwm3398]

I've recently been introduced to Atmosphere, a hip-hop group with, this'll blow your mind, meaning in their songs. The average length of the songs is about maybe 4 minutes, but the thing is, they're composed in such a way that they drag on and on and can get so much musical and lyrical genius out in minutes.

But some songs can't, just because of the style and genre, because of the composure and instrumentation. A ten minute rock song is almost always pretty good, depending on the level of repetitiveness, and can also get out that same genius mentioned above (if it so chooses). But the way hip-hop songs are styled, heavy with percussion, a shit-ton of bass in the background, they may seem slower and to last longer just by being what they are. Some genres can't do that, also just by being what they are, so they have to go for actual length to simulate the same feel.

Here's a link to a page of Atmosphere's songs on youtube, if you're interested. I recommend you first listen to either Puppets, Guarantees, In Her Music Box, Smart Went Crazy, Scapegoat, or Yesterday before anything else: http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=atmosphere&aq=f

 

[the Dept of Science]

This question is silly. There is no fundamentally "good" song length. No one element of music is either necessary nor sufficient to make it a good song. Whether a song needs to be long or short depends on a great number of things. For example, a 3 minute song can get away with having 2 good hooks/melodies, one for the verses and one for the chorus. If your song is going to be longer than that, its probably going to require at least a couple of different section where you change the tempo/mood/instrumentation etc. On the other hand, this is by no means necessary, lots of drone/experimental music doesn't have changes, but is still very good.
There just aren't any hard and fast rules. You can have an awesome 2 minute song, you can have an awesome 20 minute song. Similarly, you can have a crap 2 mintue song or a crap 20 minute song. To say that one song length is inherently better than another is just silly.

 

[Ironic Pirate]

The problem was even worse on ...And Justice For All, where (if I remember right) a nine minute song had like four lines of singing. Now, I like instrumental stuff, but that song was far too repetitive to be an instrumental.

It was eight lines, and the song is entitled To Live Is To Die. That's perhaps the most dominant example of noodling in the album, although there are other songs on that album which are extremely long - and which arguably outstay their welcome.

Ah, thank you. Haven't heard the album in a while.