thoughts?
i used to say this a bit more ironically, but now i definitely mean it
vests by d2lta is a good example of a song in this range i really like
thoughts?
i used to say this a bit more ironically, but now i definitely mean it
vests by d2lta is a good example of a song in this range i really like
boundaries set by technology are not characteristic of capitalism, prior to vinyl people were operating under lots of other constraints too, some of them also related to modes of sale and employment. in any case there are lots of pre-recording examples of short songs so i’m disinclined to believe the notion that ‘natural’ listening/composing actually favored longer lengths in the past. longer-form music never got its’ chance on the radio but it certainly remains in the settings it predominated in the first place
Your smugness is endearing. No one said boundaries set by technology are characteristic of capitalism. Before pianos there was no piano music. Before the invention of musical strings there was no fiddle music.
But capitalism absolutely drives form to fit function through profit motive. The drive to produce new music in pursuit of beauty drove the pursuit of innovation in musical technologies. The drive to profit drove the industry to take every single act that came through the door and tell them they need to cut their songs down or they wouldn’t work with them. The radio played songs and then mixed in advertising so they had a formula for how many songs to play between ads. Every aspect of the rent-seeking behavior of the abusive music industry pushed the 4-minute song despite what tradition, art, or artist had to say.
Of course there are short songs before recordings. Songs were as long as they needed to be. But the 4-minute norm was established for profit.
okay let’s go along with your thesis: so 4-minute song norms were established for profit. does that make a 4 minute song bad? because that’s the only way i can see this mattering, or you’re just pissed at the abstract concept of someone telling a musician how long they can play.
that does not follow. a constraint is a constraint - musicians will make the best songs they can given constraints. most 4 minute songs are good. the issue is that they then become the only songs, and longer songs are presented as per se bad; this greatly limits miusic. genres that don’t get radio play have always ignored that constraint, such as all the metal albums people are referencing or my own love of math rock. a lot of the songs i like tend to last in the 5-10 minute range, more a result of genre and just liking staying on a good song without gaps from loops then sone insistence that a particular length os good music.
It makes the idea of preferring individual creative pieces based on their duration a perversion. It comes entirely from the social dissonance of making songs that aren’t in the norm and then crafting entire aesthetic identities around either preferring or not preferring pieces based on that measure.
Yes, people can say a particular piece was too long or too short, and they did, as critique of a piece. Saying that 1:30 is the perfect duration for a piece is so many layers of referential aesthetics based on perversion for profit that I cannot even fathom having this fucking conversation but here we are.