what is your ideal # of songs for an album

depends on the band, dogg

still, i voted 10

i like 13, but ive been thinking about this lately, and it usually boils down to length in minutes

it's either 11 or 12 imo

yeah 32 to 35 minutes, who cares how many tracks

or 6

actually ideal # of minutes would have been a better poll idea yeah...i'll hold off on doing that til later though.

good--two of those polls at once would have overstimulated me

Gonna go with 9, based on the # of albums I love that all seem to have 8, 9 or 10 tracks.

growing up in the 90s it seemed like 12 songs was the standard and I thought there was a certain elegance to that, also liked bands like TMBG that would 20 shorter songs in the same length of time...going back to the vinyl era more and more over the years though, there are so many 8-song and 9-song albums where every track is unfuckwithable that I'm kinda leaning toward that.

xpost oh max

anything over 12 seems like a chore to listen to, glancing at the display and going 'track 7 and i'm not even halfway yet, fml!' keep it down, people, quality not quantity.

by decade:

'50s - 14
'60s - 12
'70s - 10/11
'80s - 10
'90s - 14/15
'00s - 14

Depends on the average track length, but I would say 12.
The ideal length of an album is between 35 and 53 minutes. Everything between that is OK, but generally, the shorter the tracks, the shorter the complete album should also be. Most of Genesis' 70s albums were 50 plus, and that was perfect considering the tracks were often 8-9 minutes plus.

9 is pretty perfect. Like, just less than what you'd think it should be - which suggests excess fat cut loose - but not too few that you feel you're missing out. Taut and perfect.

'50s - 14
'60s - 12

Unless you are speaking of rock'n'roll (which wasn't really much of an albums genre), song lengths were actually longer in the 50s than in the 60s. Plus longplay 78s had less playtime too, but that was only pre-1955 of course.

11

longplay 78s?!? what kinda goof are you tryin to pull here geir.

10

Geir must have meant classical music "song" lengths, i guess.

8-10 btw depending on uh, how many other lps the artist released that year? i think the best example of short albums being a-ma-zing are all the early byrds albums.

yeah, but those were mostly 12 tracks a piece, no?

unquestionably 10

When rap albums has less than 14 songs, it's usually a good sign

10 10 10 10 10

i'm not that into new rap albums with a short amount of songs...sometimes when it's an indie/low profile artist it works well but like those last few Jay-Z and Kanye albums felt less satisfying than their earlier bloated albums to me and weren't any more consistent despite the smaller number of songs.

9

all i can think about is how awesome funhouse is -- 7.

most of my favourite albums are 12 i think

longplay 78s?!? what kinda goof are you tryin to pull here geir.

Frank Sinatra released albums way before the vinyl age, for instance. As did Miles Davis too.

10 seems lazy, i vote 11

word, lazy because it's so obviously the best

growing up in the 90s it seemed like 12 songs was the standard and I thought there was a certain elegance to that

^ this

I like 11 for both listening and design purposes. 11 tracks don't typically make for an overlong album, and you can split the tracklist into two columns of unequal size -- more interesting visually than two columns of equal size.

I voted 11 as well.

12-15 has just the right amount of ambition and scale to make an album noteworthy as a fully realized whole piece: Sgt. Pepper, Tonight's The Night, Wrecking Ball, Public Enemy records, etc.

8 - they wrote 10 tracks then removed the two that didn't quite cut it.

11 - they wrote 13 tracks then removed the two that didn't quite cut it.

Most of my favourite albums have 10 but there's always one track I like less so I'm going to have to go with 9.

1

11

cuz the 70s were like 8-10, 80s were 10-12, and 90s = 12 to whatever. 11 seems like a happy medium, and almost no one ever writes more than 11 good songs at a go anyway.

3 - just like Close To The Edge

7

9 or 11, still deciding. 3 track albums are fun too

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

9 is the magic number.

12 12 12 12 12 12 12 12 12 12 12 12 12 12 12

went for 11, altho was VERY tempted to give 6 a vote

10 tracks and less than 60 mins.

^^^

7, 11, or 13. It's definitely a prime.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

3 2
41 1
43 1
20 1
39 1
50 1
7 1
14 1
1 1
2 1
23 1

weirdos