Anyone Else Dislike Most Long Songs?
 

I dislike most songs that exceed 6 minutes. Usually they're boring and repetitive or rambling. Anyone else agree?

Can't say I agree. Some are boring, others aren't, but that's true of all songs regardless of length.

In this day an age, 6 minutes is not really considered long for song.

Depends. I listen to them less because they take more concentration, but I wouldn't say it's a rule of thumb.

Absolutely not. If I like a song, then the longer it is the better (within reason). Songs like "Supper's ready" by Genesis, "Grendel" by Marillion, "Freebird", "Stairway to Heaven", "Bat out of Hell"... I could go on. Brevity is by no means any measure or guarantee of quality. Sometimes you have to let the song have time to develop to fully appreciate it, and that's seldom (though not never) possible with a 3/4 minute song.

Depends if the song needs to be that length.
Creating long-winded pretentious 20 minute pieces for the sake of making them long helps nobody.
But a longer running time can help tell a story;





Words don't even need to be included, a story can be told through musical progression.

Depends on the genre. I listen to lots of jazz and classical, where something under 6 minutes is considered short, especially with classical music. I mean, some orchestral pieces can be an hour or more in length (this is rare and mostly occurs with choral works for the Church.)

Classical vs. Popular Music

Some of my favourite music is over 6 minutes long, and it is NEVER boring. Examples:



Some jazz songs:



But you won't listen past 6 minutes because it'll get boring for you, so....

I'm going to completely disagree with the OP - for me the longer the better. There's little I dislike more than an idea I'm starting to appreciate being snuffed out too early. I'm not saying I like sounds to be repeated and carry on forever, but I do like to be able to really get a feel for what I'm listening to. Six minutes and upwards I think is best because that gives time for experimentation within the idea of the song, or in the case of Bob Dylan type songwriters the opportunity to build up to a climax.

I'll give an example of a song that ought to be a lot longer that is not selected for any particular reason but because I happen to be listening to it:
"Personal Jesus" - Johnny Cash: Johnny Cash is indisputably one of the greatest country artists of all time and his wonderful voice inimitable. The nearest song I can think of which sounds like it is "Whorehouse Blues" by Motorhead, but the point is it's a great idea, well written song but damn it only lasts for three minutes. Perhaps some sort of instrumental section in the middle further exploring the dark aesthetic the song has been producing, even a little guitar solo, but it's over too quickly.

The better the better. Regardless of length.

I came in here more or less to make this point.

Theoretically speaking, that's what I'd say and what I'd like to think I believe.
In the interest of honesty, though, in practice, I tend to be more drawn to longer tracks. I'm also kind of a sucker for long-winded prog and jazz noodling, so long as they're done well.

I listen to a lot of prog and post-rock so 95% of the music I listen to tends to exceed 6 minutes and pass 10 minutes and even reach 15 to 20 minutes. Longer songs are great, especially if an album is full of them.

A lot of the electronic I got really into when I was younger was usually around 7-10 minutes in length, so I'm used to longer songs, and have been for quite awhile. There can certainly be long songs that are unbearably boring, but just as others have mentioned, you can have a boring short song just as well.



Here's an interestingly long track, which was produced and based around 9/11.

Of the non-rap pop and rock genres that have gotten much airplay (at least in the USA), the one that often irritates me is prog. Due to song length.

Not me. Since I listen to tons of Congolese music, some great records are records that are over 7 minutes. In fact one of my favorite songs are those that are 16 Minutes.

The longer a song is, the more time it has to tell a story. A good story typically can't be condensed into 3-4 minutes; it takes a good 8+ minutes to develop one fully in lyrics and music.

There's a sweeping generalisation if ever I heard one, and I would venture to add, an ill-informed one. What experience have you with prog rock? How well do you know the music? Would you care to cite examples, and why these songs in particular bug you? Would you include "Echoes" by Floyd, or indeed "Creepshow" by Twelfth Night, neither or which could seriously be said to be boring or just extending the play time for the sake of it?

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."

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.

Nope, I love them, but only if they're black metal.

I personally don't have an issue with length as long as its good.

Listening to GNR - November Rain right now and at nearly 9 min it does not get boring or repetitive.

I used to listen to Prince's Purple Rain a lot (when I was a kid) and it was one of the most enjoyable tracks back then for me.

Just yesterday while listening to Carolina Liar - I'm Not Over I was thinking its too short at 3:24.

With their powers combined, I feel compelled to say "/thread" although I reckon the banterin will a-continue...

OP, I truly can't understand your idea of "having to work at" a song. Of course it's all personal preferences, but you asked did people agree, so we're answering. Most don't, it would appear. This has to hold true for the reverse. I would never NOT listen to a song because it was too short (what about "Imagine" or even "October" by U2?) --- you have to allow songs their own identity and not try to file them in boxes labelled: short, I like, will listen to. Long, I don't like, won't listen to. You're really shortchanging yourself there and as Zyrada says, cutting yourself off from some potentially enjoyable music just because you've decided that this arbitary (couldn't be more arbitrary, to be honest) barrier exists, one which you've erected yourself.

It's also unfair to say that long songs are just an excuse for what I like to term "technical wankery". Some of it is, of course (Dream Theater, come on down!) but much of it is an artist trying to tell a story. But then you say you don't like them to do that either. You cite Bruce's "Rosalita"? That's a great example of an artiste just enjoying himself too much to bring the song to an end; it's not lengthened for any other reason. It's ... what's the word? Oh yeah: fun!

Honestly, the better songs all tell some sort of a story, and are usually the better for it. It's the more generic, plot-less, empty pop songs that tend to be the shorter and more mainstream, but are ultimately hollow, as they don't bother to go into any detail or take any time over their lyrics. Boy meets girl, they get married, end of song. Or they're in love. Or they want to dance. Or some other generic pap. Is that what you like? I doubt it, but you have to see that for a song to be properly written it does sometimes (not always) have to be longer than the current single length, and really, six minutes is not that long.

Doesn't of course follow that ALL long songs are great, but what about "American pie" by Don McLean, or "Stargazer" by Rainbow? How about one of the later Genesis, "Driving the last spike", or "Belfast child" by Simple Minds? Or how about Iron Maiden's "Hallowed be thy name"? Come to that, how about "The rime of the ancient mariner"? Eagles' "Hotel California"? The Doors' "Riders on the storm"? What about all those blues standards that can go on for ten minutes or more? Gary Moore's "Empty rooms"? I could go on. I will.

Dire Straits' "Telegraph Road". Alan Parsons' "The turn of a friendly card". U2's "Bad". Tom Waits' "Twenty-nine dollars". Def Leppard's "Die hard the hunter". Im deliberately choosing non-prog songs here, for the most part. You may not know all of them, but each has its own little idiosyncrasies that could not just be put down to, ahem, technical wankery. Each tells its own story, and the length of the song is appropriate to that story.

As for "If I want a story I'll read a book" --- what a narrow vision. Would you prefer NO songs told ANY story? Would you have the likes of Rhianna, Beyonce and the X-Factor crowd control the charts... oh, wait. But would you rather their sort of music was the only sort? Music is MEANT to tell a story --- even an instrumental, if done correctly and with the requisite expertise and feeling, and feel for mood and theme, can conjure up its own story, or lead you to assign your own story to the music. There is a place for "yeah-yeah-yeah-keep-rockin-my-girl-loves-me" sort of throwaway songs of course, but I much prefer something that speaks to me, tells me something and makes it obvious the artist took time and thought over the composition, and that it means something to them. Usually, that will then translate to meaning something to me.

I have Neroli and Thursday Afternoon by Brian Eno and they are both single track albums just over an hour long and definitely repetitive. Neroli especially never feels like an hour and I have even played it again when it's finished.

If the OP wants to make a pre judgement on a genre based on the length of the tracks, than that's their problem. However, they're missing out on a lot of great music.

It's hardly a prejudgment. I hear the songs and end up disliking them for length-related factors.

But I do like "Bad," and GNR did two of the best long songs ever in "November Rain" and "Estranged." That pair and [arguably, since I mean an edited version of] "I'd Do Anything for Love (But I Won't Do That)" are probably the only 7:00+ songs I enjoy. "Paradise City," to me, is not good. "Hotel California" tells a good story, and the guitar-playing is some of the 70's best - but it still feels long. "Belfast Child" is boring - although that comes from someone not interested in UK history. In my experience, Dire Straits specialized in long, dull songs - even the normal-length songs bore after a while. The long Genesis song I like is "No Son of Mine," which isn't prog at all and sticks to the story. The extended music video version of "Amazing" by Aerosmith and "Still of the Night" by Whitesnake are rare examples of songs made great by adding unusual, well-played instrumental sections.

For the record, I also usually don't enjoy very short songs. "October" probably is the shortie I enjoy the most.

So you don't like long songs and you don't like short songs. What in gods name do you listen to then?

When I have the time, or just need some wonderful sounds as background, especially when I'm at the computer, a good long song usually does the trick. Hell, when I was a kid, I usually picked the long songs on the jukebox (hey, I was not going to waste that quarter on something two minutes while I was waiting for my Pizza!)

Echoes - Pink Floyd
Curtain Call - the Damned
Sister Ray - Velvet Underground
Maldoror est Mort - Current 93 (or really anything from the first albums from Nature Unveiled to Dawn)
Shores in Flames - Bathory
Voodoo Chile - Jimi Hendrix Experience
Many Ambient works, usually those that convey something dark.
When the Music's Over - The Doors
The Thrill is Gone - BB King

Plus one I chose as a kid:
Take Your Time - Lynyrd Skynyrd



Only a very few examples, but there's more.

There's something for every mood in my collection, and sometimes long songs do the trick.

To view things in a different light for a while, when I'm in the mood to just write long pieces of just do research, a nice long work usually does the trick, especially one that creates a mood. It's cool when musicians stretch out and try something beyond the obvious. It's half and half with the artistic success rate, but when it works, it works. Some of them fit very well into my research of 60's Cult Movies, especially the Hippie flicks - one good play of Steppenwolf's "Monster" (and, yeah, even Iron Butterfly's "In a Gadda da Vida!") takes me there when I do some of my writing about that era off-line. For NYC Roughies (films like Olga's House of Shame), it's over to "Sister Ray." Long songs help the focus out a bit. Helps with the flow of both the research and writing.

European Horror films? Some Cold Meat Industry-style ambiance does the trick!

A little indulgence does the ears and mind good. also helps with the much needed daydreaming as well when I need to stretch out and think.

I'd have to echo that, though I think what you mean is that songs that are VERY short (less than two minutes, maybe?) don't appeal to you. However, you are seriously restricting yourself by placing these, frankly ridiculous limits on what you listen to, and pre-judging a song if it's over six minutes. Do you look at playing times, and decide on that flawed basis whether to listen to the song or not?

Incidentally, "Belfast child" is based on an old traditional melody, which you probably won't like either, called "She moved through the fair" (or sometimes "She moves through the fair") --- this is All About Eve's version of it, so you can see how cleverly Simple Minds adapted it. It's only five minutes long, so you have no excuse not to give it a chance.



Incidentally, may I ask if you bother with any classical music, much of which can run to the tens or higher minutes? ;)

And sorry, but I have to say this: based on your judgement shown in this thread, your username doesn't seem very appropriate...

I bet he won't even bother with the pieces I posted on the first page.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.