the ever shortening length of hiphop /r&b cds

(double?!? - i hope that doesn't = 18 squid price tag)

The most disappointing hip-hop double LP is obviously Wu-Tang Forever. Is Outkast still planning on double a double LP for the Stankonia followup? I hope not.

(And on a slightly related note) I was just reading about how The Roots' ?uestlove has been exec-producing Common's new album, and apparently there's a track with Stereolab!?!? on it! Woo-hoo!

I'm also digging the fact that dance records seem to be doing much the same e.g. Rooty. bout time.

So, er, what's the album like then?

this is definetely a welcome move.

Check here.

well this is the question innit. maybe the 45minute thing is symptomatic of a slight shift back towards the lp as main event with singles as tasters rather than vice versa, where you'd fling on some extra crap to fill out what was basically a singles collection (in wu's case well no one ever said "that monolith's too big"). perhaps this is hiphop's groggy comedown, with themes and narratives and concepts in shock return oh no OH NO!

they didn't?

b-but they never went away!

Bad photoshop = Miss E... So Addictive

Every record is its own perfect length. It's just whether we like "it" (as an art object) or not.

also, Reasoning: more product per dollar for people (usually teenagers) who actually pay for music.: so yr telling me that it's 40 yr old accountants who are sitting around, taking the time to download whole albums off of p2p services?

the album IS an old man's form. the phrase "art object" totally devalues any pop sentiment xpressed in the rest of the post.

But really: now it's 40-year-old accountants running to the store to buy Missy Elliott? And now Jess gets to judge what "pop sentiment" is, the difference between dumb arguments and informed opinions are, whether or not CDs get to have filler or not (and the more important question of who gets to judge what is filler and what is not), how long albums (or LPs or CDs or whatever the hell we're supposed to call releases by musical artists) should be?

Neat-o! Let the schoolin' begin! (But really what should we call an object of musical art other than an 'art object'? More time goes into the creation of a hip-hop/r&b album than into most paintings and sculptures...do we really think that no planning goes into...oh, forget it.)

Oh, and if you count the remix of "Work It" at the end of Under Construction, which I always do with a Missy album, it's up to 57 minutes. But you're right that there seems to be a general trend downwards. The Mr. Lif and Anti-Pop albums were both pretty short; even the new LL is only slightly more than an hour! They're just getting lazy now.

(translated, it means: "matt, you have a very impoverished notion of what 'debate' and 'discussion forums' mean, don't you?")

Thanks for the translation! I had no idea what you were talking about but now I do! LOL!

BTW: What does "impoverished" mean? Is that something like when I confused "debate" and "discussion" with calling your statement "dumb" and then acted like I had some kind of high-falutin moral authority?

Listen: forget it. You know a lot about music and stuff. But other people have opinions too, including me, and I don't like being shit on, for whatever reason, even by an adult male quoting a 14-year-old girl. I just wonder about the wisdom of the argument that generally runs "All great albums are shorter than 40 minutes," which seems to be where this is heading with minor variations. Isn't that the sort of rock-culture thing that ILM is supposed to look at instead of swallowing whole?

And some of people's favorite songs are album tracks that aren't singles. One person's "filler" is another person's Favorite Song.

C U L8R!

Actually yes they are!! According to our figures the biggest single visitor demographic for P2P sites now is 35-49 year olds.

(No, I'm not totally sure I believe it either.)

I'd still argue that - leaving aside the thorny qn of skits - there's no such thing as 'filler'. There's such a thing as 'album tracks I don't like which I call filler cos it sounds more objective'.

(i.e. what Matt said).

I've no problem with someone having a personal preference as to album length. I like ones that are 25 minutes and 3 hours long so it doesn't seem to affect me much.

shorter albums are good because: it's easier to take in, get an immediate impact, still be buzzing off the first track when the last finishes so you want to rewind.

longer albums are good because: you're more likely to put it on 6 months later and love a track you'd never really got into before.

the worst Photoshop i've seen recently is on the covers of Lisa Left Eye, Oasis and Doves albums!

Also some literal filler is good, I think - a tossed-off song from the end of a session can have an urgency or spontaneity other ones lack.

I think the f-word mixes actual studio/contractual process and listener response up too much to be useful.

Could we modify the argument to say that shorter albums are less likely to motivate the listener to *perceive* filler? I get the impression that long albums tend to give the initial impression of being patchy simply because as a listener it's hard to sustain the momentum, and because as we often tend to form heirarchies of quality there seems to be a greater distance between the songs we like most and those we like least. Shorter albums tend to sound more consistent in comparison. Actually this is essentially what Tom is saying, innit?

Teenagers haven't got the time to download their music, they'll pick up the Missy cd in a megastore on a Saturday, go to mcdonalds and then play it before they go out. Since when do most teenagers spend there time slowly taking tracks off of Soulseek, that would be for the friendless teens, who are probably downloading Creed or somefink.

I know, I know, generalisations, but that's because, 'generally', that's what being a teenager's like.

Yup, the Oasis one is especially awful. When a layman like me can pick out the one or two filters used on a picture that isn't even interesting in the first place, back to the drawing board!

Sloppiest photoshop ever is that last Megadeth studio album. I think they may even have used MS Paint instead!

the gentrification of the teenage years - can't figure out right now whether that sux or not.

YOU FILTHY BEAST, you know damn well that's the only Beach Boys song I like.

Anyway, I pretty much unilaterally hate double albums cos I don't have patience. This probably makes me stupid. Everyone at my work today who bought Missy was a 30-something accountant, what's wrong with that? I didn't buy anything, because I inexplicably shot my cash wad last week on a Beauty and the Beast DVD. This adds nothing to the discussion. Is that a monolith in your pocket or are you just happy to see me? Most double/triple/quadruple/50-cd box sets are just like director's cuts of famous older movies or unedited new versions of popular books - a good portion of the time the new cut is full of pretty pointless crap that is only being included cos the person it involves has gone all celebrity and hip and profitable. Ex. the more recent 40lb version of The Stand, or all those goddamned DVD extras, like I mean do we need special extra scenes from Next Friday?

They sound consistent because I believe x artist is not able to stretch ideas (or idea) for 70+ minutes. there are many exceptions to this but when they do and can't that's where we get problems.

''I get the impression that long albums tend to give the initial impression of being patchy simply because as a listener it's hard to sustain the momentum''

the length of recs isn't s problem for me because I can listen to a few tracks at a time. as a first listen I do listen to the full rec but after that I listen to, say, 3-5 tracks at a time. Then i'll listen to another 3-5. I listen to it in sections.