Short CDs

Subject: RE: Short CDs
From: GUEST,Ray
Date: 15 Mar 18 - 02:38 PM

I have one by John Cage which is only 4 minutes and 33 seconds long!

Subject: RE: Short CDs
From: GUEST,Kenny
Date: 15 Mar 18 - 01:19 PM

Oops - above should be only 5 CDs out of 32 LESS than [ < ] 40mins .

Subject: RE: Short CDs
From: Phil Cooper
Date: 15 Mar 18 - 09:46 AM

I know that one of our February Sky CDs was consider too long by a folk DJ. He claimed recordings should be no longer than 14 songs. When we make a recording, we want to present songs we do in a good order. We don't want to put out short recordings, just because we have songs. I think currently that few people listen to recordings all the way through. In college, I used to play LPs all the way through and not do anything else. I don't have that time luxury now, so I quite often listen in the car. I also realize that many people who buy cds randomize the tracks (after we work hard on a good sequence) and play mps versions of them. We have put side one and side two notes on the back of our last two recordings, just suggest place where the listener might want to take a break.

Subject: RE: Short CDs
From: GUEST,kenny
Date: 15 Mar 18 - 06:58 AM

In the last 3-4 months I have received 32 new CD recordings for use on the "folk / traditional" community radio show I co-present in Aberdeen [ "The Wednesday Session", SHMU FM ]. All but 4 of them are by Scottish musicians. I looked at the total track times on each and the results were as follows :

> 40 mins = 5
40 - 50 mins = 14
50 mins+ = 13

Subject: RE: Short CDs
From: Joe Offer
Date: 15 Mar 18 - 01:11 AM

When he was posting here, Sandy Paton said that 40-45 minutes was good for an album. Any more, and the listener might lose attention. And every album from Sandy's Folk-Legacy Records, is a treasure.
Rest in peace, Sandy. We still miss you.
Joe

Subject: RE: Short CDs
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 14 Mar 18 - 07:50 PM

One of Tim Hardin's albums ran for less than 25mins
For years, country music albums were very short.
Brad Paisley fought against the short playing time practice.

Subject: RE: Short CDs
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 14 Mar 18 - 05:43 PM

I found the latest CD by Ricardo Arjona on Spotify which lasts 53 minutes, and his previous CD lasts 76 minutes - both are superb albums

Subject: RE: Short CDs
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 13 Mar 18 - 02:13 PM

Stuffing a comercial CD to it's fullest capacity is great for artist retrospectives

eg.."The Entire Collected Works Of PFR - Vol 1: 1975 to 1979 - The Hippy Punk Years"

but entirely unecessary for new releases...

Vinyl LPs got it right - more than 45 minutes usually results in up to an additional half an hour of second rate filler...

Subject: RE: Short CDs
From: Roz
Date: 13 Mar 18 - 01:46 PM

I find that when I am putting together albums of original material, or original interspersed with traditional, that my albums end up being around 30-40 minutes, because I like to pick songs that fit together and have a clear movement/story/theme. I have hours of material, but a good album is not just hours of material. There has to be a unifying force to it. Otherwise, just make your own playlist of everything an artist has released.

Subject: RE: Short CDs
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 13 Mar 18 - 01:39 PM

Beatles White Album. Disjointed and patchy after the previous two albums.

Subject: RE: Short CDs
From: GUEST,Rigby
Date: 13 Mar 18 - 07:52 AM

In the vinyl days it was quite a good party game to try to name double albums that wouldn't have been better cut down to a single LP. It's not very easy to think of them.

Subject: RE: Short CDs
From: GUEST,matt milton
Date: 13 Mar 18 - 05:16 AM

Ah, but maybe if the new CD from Kathryn Roberts and Sean Lakeman actually were 20 minutes longer it wouldn't be as good... maybe it originally was longer and they decided that some of the tracks weren't up to standard... who can say...

I hear more albums that contain filler, which would have been stronger if they'd had fewer tracks, than I do perfect albums. One of my favourite albums, Pink Moon by Nick Drake, is around 30 minutes long. I love every song on it. But I wouldn't want it to be longer. It's just fine how it is.

Subject: RE: Short CDs
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 12 Mar 18 - 06:59 AM

One very good reason that I use the Live Music Archive frequently.

Subject: RE: Short CDs
From: The Doctor
Date: 12 Mar 18 - 05:51 AM

In the early days of CDs I looked at a recording of Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture, on the RCA label. It was the only piece on the disc, and lasted for about 20 minutes. I didn't buy it.

Subject: RE: Short CDs
From: treewind
Date: 12 Mar 18 - 05:13 AM

I've been advised that 55 minutes is a good length for a CD. Less than that and people feel short-changed (though 40-45 minutes was normal for vinyl where technical difficulties limited the length). More than an hour and many will lose interest and stop listening before they get to the end.

The original CD standard (total capacity) was 74 minutes, then an 80 minute standard emerged, which has become almost universal.

Subject: RE: Short CDs
From: BobL
Date: 12 Mar 18 - 04:46 AM

Dammit! I could have got it all on one MiniDisc! Guess only 74min MDs were around at the time. Actually, I haven't listened to it for a while - doing so always made me fancy a pint (ditto Hamish Moore's bagpipe album "Open Ended" and a wee dram).

Subject: RE: Short CDs
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 12 Mar 18 - 03:43 AM

Vic Gammons CD ' The Tale of Ale ' runs 79 minutes and 19 seconds.

Dave H

Subject: RE: Short CDs
From: Hagman
Date: 11 Mar 18 - 08:14 PM

And here's a differing POV:

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/migos-drake-future-albums-long-streaming-w516991

Even after the LP was officially dropped – it was a Phil Collins release that was the first non-LP major act, from memory – the pop CD in particular was not over filled to capacity; it’s only really been a recent phenomenon, as RS is pointing out.

From an industry POV, record companies were keen to keep the track count down to minimise paying mechanical royalties to the song publishers there-on – this was particularly true in the C&W world where the LP/CD was on average 10 tracks and no more. Classics were different – it was rumoured that thje initial max of 74 mins was landed on because Herbert Von Karajan insisted that Beethoven’s 9th should be complete on one CD – given that Sony and Philips developed the CD, and HvK had nowt to do with them at the time, suspect it’s an urban myth. 30 mins was the tolerance for one side of an LP, and that was pushing it for symphonic music.

If Bob Dylan conceived a new “Blonde on Blonde” today, how long would it run, I wonder? (“SELOTLL” was cut slightly to fit the 2-lps on one CD.) Is there filler on The White Album? Runs 94 mins, about peak for pop lps the. Would they have been tempted to go for 160 mins as a double-CD or cut out Ringo’s contributions and fit it on one?

Suspect the point about rap is that it can mostly be recorded almost live – Kanye West etc. notwithstanding – which is why we have a surfeit. Despite increased technology these days, a work like “Sgt Pepper” or “DSOTM” would still require a lot of studio time…

These and other questions will likely never be answered.

Subject: RE: Short CDs
From: Gurney
Date: 11 Mar 18 - 07:19 PM

Sometimes I find that I can't quite get 2 LPs digitised onto onto a CD. Sometimes I can, though.

37 minutes is about right for a LP, but a CD should have much more.

Subject: RE: Short CDs
From: GUEST,Rigby
Date: 11 Mar 18 - 06:12 PM

Not many artists have 40 minutes' worth of good material, let alone 80!

Subject: RE: Short CDs
From: MoorleyMan
Date: 11 Mar 18 - 01:23 PM

It does seem to be an increasingly common trait in recent years for an album to weigh in at less than 40 minutes, and in an increasing number of cases between 30 and 33 minutes. Particularly in the country/Americana field. In a way it's going back to the days of vinyl and the playing time of that era although that was sometimes due to technical considerations (the dynamic range and sound quality of a crammed groove is often compromised).. For a CD, it may not be any shortage of quality, but it's poor value for money IMHO. Sometimes the reason seems to be just getting the music out there fast without waiting to have enough for a normal-length disc. There also seem to an increasing number of artists releasing EPs nowadays too. And singles...

Subject: RE: Short CDs
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 11 Mar 18 - 10:41 AM

I seem to remember a Martin Hayes one that came in at way under 40 minutes. In the earlier days of CDs short measure was common in classical music. In contrast, I once borrowed a single LP that had the whole of Beethoven's Choral Symphony on it. I think it was the mighty Bruno Walter conducting. Very generous for a vinyl album but you needed a very classy cartridge and stylus to play it properly! The first three movements were all on side one, and they ain't short!

Subject: RE: Short CDs
From: Jack Campin
Date: 11 Mar 18 - 10:32 AM

You can go beyond 80 minutes with nonstandard formatting - most but not all players can cope. I have a CD of Berlioz's Requiem (I think) which does that.

Subject: RE: Short CDs
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Mar 18 - 10:31 AM

The Beatles 'Revolver', widely considered to be the finest album ever made. is 34:43 minutes.

Sometimes less is more...

Subject: RE: Short CDs
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 11 Mar 18 - 09:48 AM

A recent Show of Hands CD was 79 minutes. There is no excuse for the very mean 37 minutes from Kathryn Roberts and Sean Lakeman.

Subject: RE: Short CDs
From: Vic Smith
Date: 11 Mar 18 - 09:11 AM

By contrast, the most recent CD on Rod Stradling's Musical Traditions - Two Bob's Worth a live recording of the folk club performance in the 1990s by Bob Copper & Bob Lewis runs to 79 minutes and 46 seconds.
The absolute maximum is just 14 seconds longer than that.

Subject: Short CDs
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 11 Mar 18 - 07:10 AM

The new CD from Kathryn Roberts and Sean Lakeman is a mean 37 minutes of music, which although contains excellent music should be at least 20 minutes longer. I look forward to live recordings from forthcoming tour!!!