Key

It seems to me that he has an opinion that won't change regardless of what we give to him. I mentioned prog in my last post and he said he doesn't like proggy song because "they're too long". I don't know how to satisfy his tastes if he doesn't like short or long songs. I'm not going to bother going out of my way to find a "medium length" song. Because 2 minutes is too short, and 6 is too long. Makes no sense.

Samael

I can't say I do. A lot of my favorite songs are 6+ minutes and I love it. More time to enjoy them :>

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Screen13

Who can resist Neil Young's "Down by the River?" Great song!

sopsych

Correct, I don't like classical. I also don't like jazz (though "Lily Was Here" is good). I'd blamed that on the usual lack of vocals, but now I realize length likely is a factor.

I like probably thousands of songs between 3 and 5 minutes in length. Those between 3:30 and 4:30 tend to be best.

I did listen to a little of that melody "Belfast Child" comes from. Meh. I then went back and listened to the Buckethead song. Mostly because I'd seen him praised on this site but had never bothered with his music before, as I doubted someone called "Buckethead" could be a great. I was wrong - very good guitar work there, and the other instruments on the track are good, too, and the thing flows and experiments nicely, so that it felt a few minutes shorter than its 8 minutes. Still, I'm not interested in seeking out lengthy pieces like that, because I'm almost always busy and have trouble concentrating on other things when listening to music (though that's one benefit of instrumentals, no distracting vocaals).

This thread was never about me convincing anyone or daring people to try to change my mind. To each his own, as long as people don't claim Rebecca Black or other cr*p is actually good. But I am surprised that I'm not finding supporters - radio and music television wouldn't be so full of 3-5 minute songs if that weren't the public's preference.

Janszoon

A site full of music fanatics isn't exactly representative of the general public.

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Time & Place

25 Albums You Should Hear Before the Moon Crashes into the Earth and We All Die

last.fm

Key

As Janz nicely put, welcome to a music forum. If you can't break the habit of being so disciplined with the length of a song, you'll miss a lot of great music.

[MERIT]

Song length is meaningless to me as long as the content is still up to par. Like some of Canibus' tracks or Built To Spill's rendition of Cortez The Killer. Anything shorter wouldn't do them justice.

Neapolitan

3:30 to 4:30 is just statistically the most common duration of your favorite songs - the ones you think are the "best." I can't see how the length of the song could be taken into consideration whether or not a song is good or bad. It's almost like saying if you could eat dessert between three & a half to four & a half minutes it would taste better. No, either the dessert taste good or it doesn't. If you hear something you like.

In Art music e.g. Baroque music a peice can be a Suite or Concertos which can be broken into movements, and some of them are in binary form A-A-B-B. So even if the peice might be lengthy timewise it's actually composed of short sections. And the same is true for most Porgressive Rock songs they are a bunch of short songs that are strung together to make one long song. So if you used that critea that shorter is better and you broke a long song down into it's components it should be still acceptable to you, right?

I like Song 2 (~2 minutes) & Teen Age Riot (~7 minutes) and I can play the latter more than once, too. And they're both out of your 3:30 to 4:30 range. But how long they are really doesn't come into consideration what I like about them. Song 2 is hooky and Teen Age Riot developes as a song.

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Mrd00d

Wanted to add that sometimes I'll get some new songs that I expect to be long and are long and I really want to hear them, but I've just gotten off work, I'm having a beer and/or bowl, and it's just not the right time... I'd better just put on favorite songs on random. And usually I will stick with 1-6 minute songs... But there is a time and a place for long songs. You just might be too busy. But car rides are great for them. Showers are great for them. I took a shower today with a new album filled with 15 minute songs and I ended up taking a 30 minute shower and getting all pruney because it was just right. Lastly, depending on your friends, they're great to put on when you have company and you're socializing and drinking. You can go over there every 3-6 minutes to make sure the next song is what you want to hear, or you can put on long songs and it buys you 10+ minutes where you're not worrying about djing... Lots of reasons. OP, sounds like at this time in your life, you're too busy for long music. Just know that you may want to get to it some day, because some songs are long because there's too much awesome in it to be short. Just like I said towards the beginning, when I'm not in the mood, I'm not in the mood, but when I eventually get to them, I'm thinking "dang, what took me so long, this is great!" but the answer is simply that that was as soon as I could get to them and enjoy them. Just have to be patient and capitalize on opportunities that otherwise could be boring, etc.

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Trollheart

Well, surely the point about creating a thread that asks a question is that people will have differing opinions, and some will try to sway you to their point of view? A thread titled, for instance, "Who loves Gary Moore" or "Aren't the Darkness great", or whatever, will attract positive and negative replies. If your title had been, say, "Do you prefer shorter or longer songs" then maybe there wouldn't have been so much overtly negative reaction, but the fact that you are so entrenched in your opinion and discount so much good music for what is, patently, a crazy reason, is irking a lot of people.

If I know a band, am IN a band, or know OF a band, who play great music but most of it is over your stated time limit, then I know you're never going to listen to their music, and that makes you come across as somewhat ignorant, I have to say, not to mention intractable. I've truly never heard such an unsupportable reason for not listening to music, and that's why so many people here are gobsmacked and can't believe this is the criterion you use. That's why there are no really positive replies, why no-one is agreeing with you.

Though again, as Janszoon says, we're all music aficionados, who aren't too bothered about chart music, the typical 3/4 minute hit single. Were you to have posted this in the pop section, chances are you'd have a lot more people agreeing with you, as people who are into pop/chart music generally prefer shorter songs, though of course that doesn't mean they would refuse to listen to a longer one: look at all those twelve-inch remixes and special extended plays that go on in clubs. Nearly everyone has a liking for longer tracks, even if only sometimes. After all, if you enjoy a song wouldn't you prefer it to be longer than 3 or 4 minutes?

But to return to your original assertation: this is a discussion forum, so people will discuss, and whereas many arguments will have pros and cons and people for and against, there seem to be few who would point blank refuse to listen to a song over six minutes, the way you claim.

So yeah, looks like you're on your own. But hopefully as Mrd00d says, you will change at some point, because you truly are only getting about 1 percent of the greatest music out there due to your stubborn refusal to allow longer songs into your listening habits.

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018