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Originally Posted by wisdom
I never heard of "Creepshow" or even that band. I might have heard "Echoes" at some point. I have heard some lengthy Pink Floyd songs, and I do not like - they slog on, where I can't even tell where in the 'epic' things are . But I like many of the shorter Pink Floyd tunes. I have the same issue with (not prog) "Rosalita". If I want a story, I'll read a book or a magazine article or maybe the music video can add a story. I'm not against songs that are story-telling - for example, I like Bruce's "Atlantic City" and "Hazard" by Richard Marx. But I want a quick jolt in mood more than I want a story. Plus, often I like the ambiguity of story fragments as opposed to a full depiction. And it seems like some epics have to be listened to many times or studied via printed lyrics to particularly understand things - I don't want to have consciously work at it. Or, heaven forbid, have to listen to the whole album to figure it out. Coheed & Cambria songwriter, get a life.
Finally, I think most of us know that many long songs involve artists exploring instruments, soundscapes, whatever - which easily becomes self-indulgent. Prog rock is notorious for that, but Led Zeppelin did something similar with "Kashmir."
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It's hard to argue with personal preferences, but based on what you're saying about how you approach music in general, it sounds like you're shutting yourself out from a notable part of the "listening experience" in general, as lofty and sterile as that may sound. It's like saying you read a couple of books in high school that you didn't like, so you just don't bother reading books at all. Yeah, a lot of books in high school curricula are trite, over-analyzed, and more often than not given way too much praise, but for every academically-lauded doorstopper, there's a genuinely riveting and fascinating novel that's relevant and worth every minute you put into reading through it, even if it doesn't get nearly as much attention.