Fairellender writes; 'But then I often notice the same people doing ten-minute long Al Stewart songs (why is this any different attention-span wise?)'
It's a puzzle isn't it? 'Bohemian Rhapsody' is six and a half minutes long, and many 'pop' album tracks are around this length. By contrast we had 22 ballads sung in two hours last Wednesday, and that includes introductions, asides etc. Most of these were of the Child canon. The problem may lie with the sad fact that most people want to be 'cheerful'. What this often means is that they don't want to be made to think too hard, assuming that 'entertainment' has to be vacuous and undemanding. There again, I could easily be wrong :-)