To be fair to the OP, not all short songs are bad. I mean...this is pretty fantastic:


Riverside - Reality Dream II - YouTube

To be fair to us, I don't think any of us (apart from Janz, and that was obviously in jest) said short songs are bad. I don't think any of us think that. I like a lot of short songs, some are great, but it really has no bearing on whether I enjoy a song or not. Except that if I'm really enjoying a song I'm disappointed when it isn't long enough. The reverse does not apply.

Still, I must ask wisdom: having listened (I don't know how far but) to the Rainbow and Threshold song, do you not now realise that your argument is flawed? Had you come across these songs on your own, it appears from your posts here that you would have discounted them as "too long" and not even bothered listening to them. Now that you have, can you not see what a fallacy it is to refuse to even give a song a chance, just because it's too long? Is this not a sort of musical racial profiling? ;) (note the BIG wink: NOBODY accuse me of hatecrime or anything here please, surely we're not that bloody stupid?)

As for Mostly Autumn and No-Man, why are they boring? Because they're not big exciting openings like the others? But how do you know they don't BECOME that way? They don't but even so... Do you consider anything soft and quiet to be boring? If so then that further limits your scope as to what you may enjoy musically in the future. Go back to "Boh rhap", say it wasn't a well-known classic. Would you still discount it as having a "boring" opening because it's only piano and not listen to it? But then look at what you'd be missing. Can you not see how empty your premise is, how it does not, nay can not work?

Is it just that you're not into prog rock, which is the direction you seem to be aiming most of your criticism about long tracks? If so then fine, not everyone is. But that doesn't invalidate those songs, nor any outside that genre.

Yeah, I have absolutely no problem with short songs. Sometimes they're good for a starter track like an instrumental or an opener. Sometimes it's not necessary, but I don't think it's bad when band have songs that are less than 3 minutes. Ever since I got into post-rock and prog though, I seem to prefer it when a song exceeds 6 minutes. I don't hate it if it doesn't exceed that, I just seem to enjoy it more, because there's more to enjoy.

My argument isn't perfect, but I think it's still a good argument.

I didn't listen past the first minute of any of those songs. Because in Rainbow's case, I know the band and the only style I like was with Joe Lynn Turner. Threshold - well, it seems like the band never was that popular, and there's usually a reason for that. Besides, upbeat rock songs rarely resonate with me emotionally. "Okay" is not enough for me to spend more than six minutes on when I have better things to do. The other two songs leads to another pronouncement I figured out a few days ago - if I dislike the beginning of a song, there's almost no chance I will like the whole of it.

I can like soft songs (e.g., "Hold on My Heart," by Genesis and "I'm Not the One," by The Cars), but soft songs that go on and no, probably not.

I stopped reading after "I didn't listen past the first minute of any of those songs."
I'm sure you had something really great to say afterward, but my pre-conceptions got the better of me.
Sorry bro.
If only I could read entire paragraphs.

:laughing:

Ha, well, I listened to more of the Threshold song. It's technically impressive and not as upbeat as I thought, but it feels disjointed and only the weird harmony near the middle resonated emotionally.

You're making it really hard to take your posts seriously. You didn't even bother listening to the whole song? Even Vegangelica listened to the whole song before she made her conclusion about it. And I find it interesting how you can judge a song based on the beginning. If you know anything about prog and i'm assuming you don't, the beginning of the song doesn't always mean the rest of the song is going to sound like that.

officially finished after " it seems like the band never was that popular, and there's usually a reason for that. " on top of not listening to whole recommendations. What chance do we have if you won't give us a chance.

I agree with you.

But, why everybody busy here with songs length? Is this a ultimate matter of listening songs?

Perfect response, haha.

Do you mean, why is everyone concerned with the length of a song, as it doesn't have any bearing on its quality? I agree, and so do 90% of the responders here, but surely if you've read through the thread this is a redundant question?

It's not. I think that has been proven multiple times here, by different people, and now you're just struggling to try to justify the unjustifiable really.
Unbelievable. No wait, not in your case, as I'm coming to expect these things from you. What a waste: one of Rainbow's classic rockers and "you don't like Dio's style". I assume you mean singing style, as Ritchie, who formed the band and creates it style more than anyone through his amazing guitar work, is still with them?
Oh my god you do talk some rubbish don't you? How do you know how popular they are? And it's present tense: their new album is due out this year. What's your definition of popular? Chart success? If so, then you can consider 80-90% of bands on this planet unpopular. I suppose Threshold bought every copy of their, to date, eight albums, not to mention four live ones, themselves? Their concerts were played to empty arenas, were they? Their music is absent from every ipod in the world? Jesus! Sometimes I wonder, I really do...

So all you listen to is downbeat. Oh excuse me, all that resonates with you is downbeat music? Seems odd but if so why talk so much about the songs we have been, and dissect and refute them. Why not just say "I prefer downbeat songs" and save us all the trouble of trying to convince you? Though I find it hard to believe that someone couldn't be moved to a smile by the likes of the Pretenders' "Don't get me wrong", Huey Lewis's "If this is it" or even Simple Minds' "Alive and kicking". What's that you say? They're all short songs? But we weren't discussing short uptempo songs, you said "upbeat rock songs", didn't you? (Sorry, just anticipating your rebuttal...)

Unbelievable arrogant. How can you possibly know if you don't listen to the song? There are so many songs I know that have started off one way and ended totally different. That's what's so great about music: like football, often anything can happen over the course of a song.
So you'd listen to "hold on my heart" but not "Fading lights" (10:16), "Driving the last spike" (10:08) or even "Dreaming while you sleep" (7:16)? How about "No son of mine"? That just scrape in at 6:39? Does not all this sound ludicrous to you, to limit yourself in such a draconian way?

:bowdown::clap:

^ I don't know why you keep bothering to try. Let the man limit himself to half the music in the world because of a ticking watch. His loss not yours.

But I have to admit I don't like singers who use microphones. It blocks seeing the singers' lips move. :(

I know, I know: I keep tryin' to get out, they keep pullin' me back in! :)
It's just sometimes the responses are so annoying, arrogant and often contradictory that I have to respond. Seems the OP is adjusting her premise whenever it doesn't suit. First it was long songs, then it was long but not popular (!) songs, now it's long fast songs. I'm interested to see what she comes up with next.

'sides, it keeps me off the streets and away from decent folk! :laughing:

Yeah, the problem is mostly with Dio, singing and writing. Note that Rainbow circa Joe Lynn Turner was about shorter songs. By the way, I heard Blackmore doesn't play rock music anymore.

Mainstream exposure, at least. But if they're current and good, eventually I'll probably see the band mentioned somewhere else. Psst, that principle also applies to the Rainbow song.

I like "Alive and Kicking" and "Don't Get Me Wrong." (I've tired of "If This is It.") I didn't say I never like uptempo songs, but something long probably has to be emotionally complex yet still scrutable to work for me. (I'm changing my argument slightly as I have new insights.)

The team that leads after the first quarter usually wins :) But this isn't football. Something cohesive enough to be a song probably won't vary much in quality as it runs its course. I base my observation on having listened to at least 5000 songs in my life. I grant you that maybe a longer song demands a slightly longer sample.

I don't know what "Fading Lights" is. I'm a big fan of "No Son of Mine" - but it would and could have been better had the repetitive chorus been cut by 30 to 60 seconds. Despite having "We Can't Dance" on CD, I've never listened to the other two. I know they weren't singles and probably didn't get much airplay anywhere, and the album on the whole isn't great - that combination tells me they likely aren't anything special.

Realistically, everyone needs limits. There is plenty of good music in this world - leaving out categories one tends not to like allows more enjoyment for the proven stuff.

Blackmore doesn't know shit

The Mark III Purple were my favourite line up.

It really depends on the song for me. Some songs are very interesting orchestrally, so I'm willing to put up with the length.

Dio is acknowledged as one of the most important heavy metal singers ever, and writers, and generally seen as the real "voice" of Rainbow, though of course there are those who don't like him. Not sure what your problem is with him, whether it fits in with your points here or not, ie whether it's because he tends to write longer songs on the whole, but okay that's your choice. Nevertheless, to stop listening to any song after 1 minute just seems weird to me.
Not in any way necessarily. Do you think you've heard every band considered "good" or even "popular"? I hadn't even heard of Sigur Ros until recently, checked them out and really liked them. But you won't find them on the radio or in the charts. Does not in any way invalidate their music though. A band does not have to be popular, or known to you, to be good. Threshold do very well without you, thanks.

But before I move on, can't you see that in listening to the Threshold track you have actually disproved your own premise? You said that if a song starts off one way you don't listen any further as it's unlikely to change (your football --- I stress, I assume American football, I was talking about soccer, the real football --- reference below) and yet having listened to this track you admit it changed significantly halfway through. You even gave it grudging acceptance. But on the basis of the length of that track, and on only that one criterion, you've already said you would not have listened to it. So now that you have, is it not obvious that there's a reason, even a need, to give longer songs a chance?

No, I know, that's why I qualified my own response to reflect what you said. You said you don't get any emotional resonance out of them, which is what I said.


Perhaps in American football, I don't know. But in English and other football, it can go right down to the wire. A team leading 3-0 at half time can very easily be beaten 4-3 or drawn if the right circumstances, luck (dodgy penalty, offside goal given, man sent off etc) occur, or if the halftime team talk is good enough, so no, in football there is no foregone conclusion up to maybe the 80th minute, and there's always extra time. Last year, one team were being beaten 4-0 at half time and came back to draw 4-4 by the end. Yeah, some fans of the losing team left early, but they regretted it and now wish they had stayed for a historic comeback by their boys.

5000 songs? In your life? If I may be indelicate, what age are you? Even a 30-year old, listening to one song a day for 20 years (assuming the first ten years are not spent deliberately listening to music) will listen to more than that. I'd imagine over my lifetime (50 next year) I would have listened to, let me see, on a very conservative estimate, at least three times that amount. Probably more like ten times, really, and I don't listen to music ALL the time. Now admittedly I may be much older than you, and I probably listen to more music, (or maybe not), but even at that, 5000 songs in your life doesn't seem a sufficient amount to be in a position to be making the rigid demarcations you're laying down for yourself. Don't you feel like you should experience more?



If you have WCD and have not listened to those tracks you're missing out, and without giving them the chance you will never know and can never truly make that claim. As I said before, you can't base your perception of quality on whether or not songs were singles: there are probably better tracks on most albums that were never released as singles than there are single tracks.
No they don't. Why? Why limit yourself? If you want to explore, say African tribal music and never have before, why not do so? Or Italian disco? Or dubstep? Or death metal? Or grindcore? Why would you limit yourself to not trying these avenues, unless you're actually not interested in them? There are genres I am not interested in, but that doesn't mean I might not be at some point in the future. I don't place a limit on myself, saying you can never explore those genres. What would be the point of that?
A narrow view if ever there was one.
:whythis::rolleyes::crazy:

Are you serious? I'm 23 and have listened to a hell of a lot more songs than that, and still that's not enough to be a great judge of music.

^ My last.fm alone is like.... point 2% of what I have listened to in my life.

If you average that out to four minutes a song that comes to 1 week 6 days 13 hours and 20 minutes of music. That's how much music Howard the Duck listens to in two weeks.

I'd also like to add. Wisdom you use general philosophy to criticise a whole wide world full of music yet you've only watched 5 minutes into the whole damn movie. So if you're going to write a generalising report, it would make sense that only a fraction of it would be viable.

erm, make that 4-5 days, i sometimes skip between songs

That's how long it would take to list to 5000 songs on average of four minutes a peice, but I still believe you could listen to 5000 songs in five days.

So you're saying .... we're conversing with someone who's five days old, at best? ;) Not much time to build up all that wisdom, huh?

It's not only about age or how many songs you've listened to. You disregard listening to music or experiencing some subject then write reports about it based upon intolerance is completely unfounded. There's absolutely no way of taking it seriously. Report writers still go through the experience no matter how unpleasant it is to write something comprehensible which is then backed up with reason taken directly from the source you should be familiar with.

The whole argument was doomed from the start.

Dio was a lousy singer, and his songs are lyrically vapid and repetitive; length magnifies all those flaws. He wasn't exalted by many until he was old.

A good artist in a modern style is likely to at least get a little music television exposure eventually. Not that I think Sigur Ros is good, but I think I saw a video at least once.

In fact, I used the qualifier "rarely."

Because I can tell those things suck. I have been exposed to bit and pieces of that (except for Italian disco, which I assume isn't far from regular disco).


People are making too big of a deal out of my 5000 songs comment. It was a conservative estimate. Maybe the actual number is 10,000. Also, I mean unique songs (it could be a few millions listens). It hardly matters. The point is the sample size is big, and therefore my observations have a solid basis.

I don't think that's particularly true. There are boatloads of talented people out there making fantastic music. Very few of them are are going to end up on a music television channel.

If I had any respect for you at all, it rapidy diminished with each new confused and unfounded comment. But this, sorry to be rude, but this crap above: that's it. I'm out of here. You have nothing to say to me and you have no place in an argument like this if you think you can make a comment like that. You don't even say in my opinion (though it is only yours). Dio has been univerally hailed as one of the strongest, most talented and most influential voices in metal, and for you to put him down with a pithy comment like that with no basis whatsoever just takes your arrogance to levels I can't even deal with anymore.

I'm done with this so-called debate. You're welcome to it.

Haha, sensitive fanboys. Metal isn't a genre where good singing is required, and good singers in it have names like "Rob Halford" and "Bruce Dickinson." Maybe Dio's voice was strong (not sure about the last decade) and apparently the "enunciation" was above-average, but his voice didn't sound good. Perhaps I assessed the writing harshly, but the lyrics lack emotional substance, period. Metal standards for lyrics are pretty low. Was Dio long regarded as a metal great? Maybe, maybe not. But metal fans are a small subset of music fans. [move to a Dio thread?]

Told ya. ;)

The fact that you can't see that Dio was a great singer proves to everybody in this thread that you have no idea what you're talking about. And good singing is pretty normal in the metal genre. Take a look at power metal, progressive metal, and heavy metal. Bands like Theocracy, Symphony X, Myrath, and the like all have fantastic singers.

Stop while you're behind, otherwise you're going to get eaten alive.

I'm really coming close to telling you where to go. You're so full of it it's just sickening and you can't see anyone's view other than your own. I've never known such obstinate arrogance in my life, particularly from someone who plainly hasn't a clue about the genre, making (another) stupid and ill-informed comment like the one bolded above.

But just so you can see you're wrong and it's not just my opinion, read the third sentence. Unless you're afraid to see how many people disagree with you.

Ronnie James Dio - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Now I'm off before I get into trouble with the mods. Have a nice life.

Ki man, don't even bother. This is plainly someone who is only interested in their own view and not prepared to listen to arguments in a mature way. Let the thread die and be forgotten, which is what it deserves. I'd waste no more time on it if I were you. Better things to do.

Now you're just coming across as the forum brat, the above statement alone shows that you really don't know that much about music.

Most metal fanboys are not really that sensitive on this forum and by singling out two of the most famous vocalists in metal, it really shows just how liimited your knowledge of the genre really is.

I saw the start of this thread where you were whining on about disliking songs over 6 mins, then you didn't like very short songs either, I don't know what you were bleating on about in the middle section as I haven't read that and now you're getting your knickers in a twist over metal. There really is a time and place for everything and all you're doing now is just making yourself look dopey, just be a good boy and sit the rest of the thread out.

As for metal not really requiring great singers, I'll have to cut and paste that one, for when I need a good laugh in the future.

Thanks for addressing your comments about wisdom's wisdom. From my perspective, it has appeared that people in this thread are taunting him for his preferences and opinions. When I see a peckfest, I err on the side of caution and jump in to take a stand.

I can understand that you, in your experience, have never heard a song that you disliked because of its length.

I am, however, skeptical that you or Ki or others who like songs "regardless of length" would not get just a little bit bored by an extremely long song such that you started disliking the experience of listening to it. You may not have heard such a long song yet, but one could be out there.

Can you imagine getting bored while listening to an extremely long song simply because of its length? If so, then our only difference would be in how long a song has to be before we start feeling some negative feelings about it because of its length.

I can understand your feeling annoyed if it were true that I had misquoted you when I wrote the following:
However, I was not quoting you, Trollheart, but instead was creating a conditional sentence, which is a sentence discussing a hypothetical situation and its consequences. Conditional sentences contain two clauses, such as in this example: "If it rains [condition], (then) the picnic will be cancelled [consequence]." Conditional sentence - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I wrote the above conditional sentence because I wished to test your limits to see if a song could ever get so long that it might feel excessive to you and reduce your appreciation of it.

I suspect I would get bored if I had to listen to a song that lasts 100 years, and its length would reduce my pleasure while listening. The reason I make this prediction is that I have discovered, through experience, that the longer a song lasts after around the five minute mark, the more likely I am to experience one of the following:

(1) Boredom or irritated, even if I like the long song's sound;
(2) A sense that the long song is disjointed and meandering, with its various parts no longer relating very much to each other because there are so many parts; or
(3) A sense that the long song is too repetitive, if the artist chose to use repetition to make the song so long.

A long song either has to include a lot of variety OR become repetitive (repeating sections or stretching them out for many minutes)...or both!...to create its long length, and I find too much variety and too much repetition in a song to be unappealing. How I define "too much" is subjective and reflects my preferences.

* * * * * * *

I feel you have summarized our differences in listening styles very well, Ki.

It isn't unrealistic to like music; it is, in my opinion, unrealistic to claim that the length of a song can have no effect on your enjoyment of the song.

As with my analogy that I offered to Trollheart, if you had to listen to one artist's 100-year-long song (or if that seems too excessive to you, imagine a song that takes 1 day to listen to), can you imagine getting bored by doing the same activity for so long such that your pleasure in the song is reduced?

Yes, whether someone finds a song to be "too long" or "good" or "bad" is just personal preference and is subjective. No "proof" can be provided for an aesthetic opinion. (That's my opinion! :))

This observation cuts both ways.

You will have a finite amount of time in your lives that you will spend listening to music. If you spend more of that time listening to longer songs, then you will miss out on hearing a larger number of shorter songs. If you spend less of that time listening to longer songs, then you will miss hearing the ends of longer songs, but you will have spent more time listening to shorter songs. With either music listening style, you will miss quite a bit of music that you might have liked. :)

* * * * * * *

I agree.

Formulas distinguish music from random noise made without intention, and so I feel you make a valid point by noting that music follows at least some formulas or conventions (even if it it is just the convention of trying to break conventions! :p:).

I prefer a musical form that has a certain mixture of pattern (repetition) and variety. I have found that, in my experience, long songs tend to have either too much repetition or too much variety for my tastes (and sometimes both!), and their length exacerbates those problems.

I don't view songs as inherently "good" or "bad," but I definitely prefer certain songs to others, and I tend (as you know) to dislike longer songs.

I think biological reasons exist for people's responses to songs based on their length:

(1) Our brains tend to "tune out" repetitive or constant stimuli, such as an unchanging sound or smell so that we are no longer aware of them. If a song becomes too repetitive, which can be the case with long songs since they have a longer time than short songs to *become* repetitive, my brain starts to tune it out, and I find the song less interesting:

"The brain is interested in changes that it needs to react or respond to, and so brain cells are charged with looking for any of these differences, no matter how minute. This makes it a waste of time registering things that are not changing."

BBC - Future - Science & Environment - Adaptation: Why your brain loves to tune out

(2) Our brains search for pattern in the noise of stimuli.

If a long song has so much variety that it is hard for me to detect a relationship among its parts, then I tend to dislike the song because I miss finding a pattern or rationale for the song's structure. A long song that aims to provide a lot of variety can pack in much more variety than a short song and so is more likely to feel meandering and disjointed to me than a shorter song.

(3) People get bored, and so it makes sense (to me and you) that the length of songs can relate to listeners' sense of boredom:

"Scientists have found that our perception of boredom can be affected by our sense of passing time, which is managed by the frontal cortex in the brain." What happens to our brains when we're bored? - Curiosity

I figured i'd protect my side if anything. But you're right. Debating with somebody who isn't willing to debate isn't much fun.

On this point, I think I actually have to agree with wisdom. Most of my favorite metal has very little emphasis on the vocalist or has no vocalist at all, so at least for me, the genre really doesn't require good singers.