Ideal Album Lengths

We knew we were in trouble when Aerosmith started putting out 60-minute records.

I recently purchased two Van Halen albums on vinyl and noticed how quickly I had to flip the record. VH wasn’t prone to long-winded releases. Check out the times of their first several records:

Van Halen, 35:34
Van Halen II, 31:36
Women and Children First, 33:35
Fair Warning, 31:11
Diver Down, 31:04
1984, 33:22

Not until you get into the CD era do their albums go over 40 minutes.

It’s not as if the LP format was limited to 35 minutes’ worth of music. I remember back in the day dubbing LPs onto a side of a Maxwell 90-minute cassette tape and having to cut songs when copying Genesis records. My first two purchases from Genesis were …And Then There Were Three and Selling England by the Pound, which both came in at over 53 minutes, more than an entire album side of material than your typical Van Halen record. Talk about getting more bang for your buck.

You could argue that the fidelity of those old Genesis albums wasn’t very good due to the physical constraints of the LP format and the compromises that had to be made to pack in that much music, but there were very good-sounding records with more content than your standard hard rock album:

Pink Floyd, Dark Side of the Moon: 42:50
Stevie Wonder, Innervisions: 43:52
Supertramp, Breakfast in America: 46:06
Toto IV: 42:17
Michael Jackson, Thriller: 42:16

Clearly, even during the vinyl era, bands could put out records that were over 40 minutes that still sounded amazing (which is why engineer Ken Caillat’s argument that the wonderful song ”Silver Springs” had to be dropped from the 38-minute Rumours doesn’t really hold water).

But then came the CD, and things started to get out of hand. Aerosmith’s 1993 release Get a Grip clocked in at a whopping 62 minutes! Who on Earth needed to hear over 60 minutes of Aerosmith in 1993? Van Halen’s 1998 release Van Halen III was 63 minutes. Rush got into the act too, with Vapor Trails and Snakes and Arrows both well over an hour long.

I’m a big Rush fan. But that’s too damn long.

Listening to records from the CD era, it’s hard not to conclude that if artists had had some self-discipline, they could have ended up with a perfect 40-minute record. I recently listened to the Genesis album We Can’t Dance from 1991, and it’s generally regarded as a subpar album, but it’s over 71 minutes! If you cut out five of the weakest tracks (and there are definitely five weak tracks), I think you’d end up with a very good 45-minute album.

For a more recent example, Peter Gabriel’s I/O from 2023 may contain some good songs, but once again, it runs at almost 70 minutes long. It’s just too much, with too many tracks that aren’t distinctive enough to hold a listener’s attention for over an hour.

One could rightly point out that some of the greatest records ever released have been double-LPs with a lot of material. Consider the following:

The Beatles, The Beatles (White Album): 93:33
The Rolling Stones, Exile on Main St.: 67:07
The Who, Quadrophenia: 81:42
Led Zeppelin, Physical Graffiti: 85:59
Fleetwood Mac, Tusk: 74:02
Stevie Wonder, Songs in the Key of Life: if you include the extra EP included with the double album, a whopping 104:29
The Clash, London Calling: 65:07
Pink Floyd, The Wall: 80:42
Prince, 1999: 70:29

That’s a pretty amazing list, so why was it okay for those bands to put out lengthy records but not Aerosmith, Van Halen and Rush?

Well, it would have been okay for those bands to put out a double album when they were at their creative peaks. You want to combine Toys in the Attic and Rocks into one double album? Sold! It would be among the all-time best. The same for Van Halen’s first two records or Rush’s Permanent Waves and Moving Pictures.

But by the 1990s, these bands were not producing their best stuff. Yes, some of it was good. Maybe a lot of it was good. But an awful lot was filler, fluff, overwrought, drawn out and tedious. Long albums should be reserved for artists at their peaks, creating so much material that they can hardly stop themselves from composing great track after great track, struggling to find a way to get it all out on record. That’s why in the CD era it made sense for artists like Smashing Pumpkins, 2Pac, Drive-By Truckers, Beyonce, Christina Aguilera and Arcade Fire to put out really long albums. It was their time.

In the 1990s, it was not Rush’s time, nor Genesis’s nor Van Halen’s.

And let’s face it: sometimes less is more. I’ll take a perfect half-an hour record by Van Halen any day over a bloated album that has me constantly reaching for the skip button.

After writing the above, I wondered if I’d ever committed the sin of producing an album that was way too long. I did a quick check, and the longest one I’ve ever completed was The Palisades from 2016, clocking in at 47:53. And you know what? It would probably have been better at 40 minutes.

So there you are.

The Costs of Work-Life Balance

Roxane Gay of the New York Times has an interesting piece this week on work-life balance, in which she commends the recent trend of people saying no to employers who ask for limitless sacrifices. After confessing that she is a workaholic, she writes, “The expectation that we should go above and beyond for employers who feel no reciprocal responsibility is a grand, incredibly destructive lie” and “it’s why an entire discourse rose around labeling people who are simply doing the jobs they were hired for, nothing more and nothing less, as ‘quiet quitting.’”

My HR professional wife has had to contend with this new way of thinking in our post-shutdown world (I hope post-shutdown). She has managers who are complaining about staff, calling them “lazy” or “not team players” solely because they do the work that’s been asked of them from home rather than in the office. My wife has had to push back.

“Do they do their work well?” 

“Yes.”

“Are they friendly with their co-workers and clients?”

“Yes.” 

“When you ask them to do something do they do it?”

“Yes.”

At which point my wife slaps her palm against her forehead. 

Do we really want people to stop making solid work-life choices that allow them to eat dinner with their children and make it to their after-school activities, if they also meet the essential objectives of their jobs?

Working from home may have some detrimental outcomes – we’ll see how this experiment goes – but so does working oneself to death, and the trend of young people resisting employers who want them to sacrifice their lives is a positive one. At least, it’s positive for the individual and for that individual’s family. I also try to consider things on a more macro level, because as a society we have benefitted greatly from people who are shitty parents but who have a drive to achieve greatness. 

I think of the lyrics to Rush’s song “Mission,” in which lyricist Neil Peart admires the drive and creativity of those who’ve contribute great works of art, film and architecture to our benefit while conceding that there is a cost to the individual, and by extension, that individual’s family.

We each pay a fabulous price
For our visions of paradise

Beethoven, Picasso, Einstein, Hemingway, Frank Lloyd Wright, Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, etc. – they’ve all benefitted our society in profound ways, but in many cases they left a trail of oppression and neglect in their wakes.

I view the myopic drive for greatness as akin to owning a boat. I’m glad to have a friend who owns one, but I’d never want the headache of owning one myself. The same can be said of a career that supersedes family. I’m glad some families have had to endure that hardship insofar as the result benefitted the greater good, but I’m sure glad mine isn’t one of them.

MEMORY AND MUSIC TIME TRAVEL

If you’re human you undoubtedly know about the fallibility of memory, how even our most-assured recollections can be put into question or proven entirely false upon further examination.  It’s reassuring then to discover that at least in some cases, my first-hand memory is spot on and confirmable. For someone who loves music and has a penchant for nostalgia (guilty as charged) the miracle of technology allows me to listen back to concerts I attended long ago. And it turns out that at least some of my memory is intact.

I recall that on October 9, 1982, during Rush’s opening song “Spirit of Radio,” vocalist Geddy Lee sang “One likes to believe in the freedom of baseball,” substituting for the word ”music” in honor of the Milwaukee Brewers victory over the Angels in game four of the ALCS earlier that afternoon. I remember it. And now I can validate it, because the entire concert is available on YouTube. When the crowd screams, my fourteen-year-old self is there, unaware that forty years later he’ll be able to access his own applause. Remarkable.

Once I discovered this defining show from my youth, I turned to other concerts from long ago, and it turns out that there are at least seven shows that I attended from 1982-1986 available for streaming. (note: I find that YouTube regularly scrubs live recordings from its vault, and the Genesis concert link is already defunct. Bummer! A new Google search can often lead to an operational link):

Rush, October 9, 1982 (https://youtu.be/xgIhhNabk10)
Genesis, November 10, 1983 (link no longer working)
Yes, March 10, 1984 (https://archive.org/details/Yes_90125_1984-03-10-AnotherTownAndOneMoreShow-Milwaukee)
Bruce Springsteen, July 12, 1984 (https://www.guitars101.com/threads/bruce-springsteen-alpine-valley-music-theater-east-troy-wi-july-12-1984.678215/)
Elton John, September 9, 1984 (https://youtu.be/G51mCqcd_r0)
Tom Petty, June 23, 1985 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNviPMup2wA)
Rush, March 24, 1986 (https://youtu.be/M4kyxrp4N1E)

Before YouTube deleted the recording, I was able to confirm that during the Genesis show in 1983, Mike Rutherford had to sit out a good chunk of the song “That’s All” because of technical difficulties, and that the singer Phil Collins encouraged the audience to plug their ears and repeat the phrase, “Masturbation will not make me deaf.”

For the Yes concert in 1984, I distinctly recall Tony Rabin accidentally adding harmony vocals to a verse of the song “Hearts” (the “Many moons cascade one river…” section) quickly dropping out when realizing his mistake, and he and bassist Chris Squire cracking up as a result. I’m listening to the concert now, and…there it is! The blunder!

The guy who posted the Elton John concert calls it, “Elton John, Stoned in Alpine Valley” and includes this description: “Although there are some contenders for this, I still consider this Elton’s most drug-fueled show.” And now I can listen to his drug-fueled performance as if Elton’s sobriety is still a decade on the horizon. (It’s also fun to think that this was supposed to be his “final American tour.” The dude’s most recent farewell tour has been going on for over four years!)

I also appreciate that my memory of setlists is sometimes more accurate than what I can find on websites that archive such things. For Supertramp’s 1983 concert from Alpine Valley, Wisconsin, I reviewed the entry on setlist.fm and immediately knew it wasn’t correct because I remembered the band performing “Waiting So Long” and “Child of Vision.” Sure enough, I just checked the notes I wrote after the show, and both of these tunes were played. Unfortunately, I can’t find any recordings on-line of the Wisconsin show or any other shows with a similar setlist. The Internet has its limitations.

But not as many limitations as memory itself. Hell, I attended a Jimmy Buffett concert with my future wife and brother-in-law in 1993, and until one of them mentioned it to me a few years ago I had no recollection of even having been there! Worse, I’ll have a discussion with a friend today and forget the contents by the day’s end. A few weeks ago I was trying to recall the name of the actress “Carey Mulligan” and it eluded me. This morning I spoke to my mom, a nurse of over four decades, and she had trouble accessing the word “autoimmune.”

I’m looking forward to the day when physicians are able to employ a defrag of our internal hard drives, allowing us to access memories accurately and quickly like Jeopardy champions. But until then, most of us will have to muddle on through life knowing that while a portion of our recollections have some truth to them, many fall in a gray area somewhere between truth and fiction.

How gray?

Say it with me Fletch fans.

Charcoal.

A Death Poem

Death has been on my mind lately because there’s been a lot of it, some of it personal, some of it the public figure variety, most recently that of Neil Peart of Rush who I’d seen perform live numerous times.  The outer circles insulating my charmed life have been breached by the passing of those around the same age as me or just a few years down the line, so mortality has taken on new resonance.  I’m not depressed about it nor am I fatalistic, but I can’t pretend it’s not there.  It has to be reckoned with.  So, time for some poetry!

WHEN DEATH IS ALL AROUND

When death is all around
not even breath can be assumed.
Hyper-conscious.  Present. Aware.
It’s what you’ve been aiming for all along.
Yet the privilege shared by
witnessing others’ passing
falls flat upon weary ears
like a stone on the sunken earth.
Whether it’s “wrapped in the cradle of His bosom”
or “a dot of light in the sky’s sphere,”
there is no comfort in words of comfort.
Because lately it’s been friends
and friends of friends,
and mothers and lovers and brothers and sons,
wives and husbands
and old acquaintances.
No, not even breath can be assumed,
nor the sunrise,
nor lilac’s bloom,
nor pangs of hunger,
nor sated desires,
nor sacred moments.
For in another’s absence 
beckon those final empty seconds,
when all we hold dear
will be loosed into the ether
of God’s hollow embrace.

Rock and Roll Lyrics

Rock and roll lyrics run the gambit, from positively poetic to brazenly banal.  A friend of mine once made the claim that song lyrics are never poetry, which is a pretty bold statement and a pretty dumb one, I think, but there’s no denying that often song lyrics are embarrassingly bad:

Time to find the right way
It seems to take so long
When I find the right way
I know I will be strong

- Head East, “Lovin’ Me Along”

But it in the hands of a gifted lyricist, meaning and imagery jump from the speaker and grab you by the gut:

There were ghosts in the eyes of all the boys you sent away
They haunt this dusty beach road in the skeleton frames of burned-out Chevrolets

- Bruce Springsteen, “Thunder Road”

Sometimes lyrics can reach us on a very personal level and describe us more succinctly than we could ever hope to achieve on our own.  A woman once gave me a hand-written copy of the lyrics to Billy Joel’s “Code of Silence,” explaining that the words described her “to a T.”   I had already owned Joel’s album, The Bridge, but had never really studied the lyrics before, and upon reading the feminine script on a pink sheet of notepaper with no musical accompaniment, I was given insight into a human being who was clearly wrestling with a difficult past (I never found out what it was, but I can take a wild guess).

But you can’t talk about it
And isn’t that a kind of madness
To be living by a code of silence
When you’ve really got a lot to say?

Many times lyrics – even good ones – are unimportant to me.  As a rule, as long as lyrics don’t overtly suck, then it’s the tune that matters.  So, for instance, the band Yes typical composes songs whose lyrics are so esoteric and so stream-of-conscious that they’re virtually meaningless.  Take the opening lyric for Yes’s “Going for the One”:

Get the idea cross around the track
Underneath the flank of thoroughbred racing chasers
Getting the feel as the river flows.
Would you like to go and shoot the mountain masses?

I don’t know exactly what goes on in Jon Anderson’s head, but I suspect it’s been aided by lots and lots of drugs.  But his lyrics lead to images that are malleable, subject to the listener’s own experience, so that as long as the words aren’t blatantly bad, to me it doesn’t really matter what they say.  But what if, for instance, the opening lines to “Going for the One” were the following:

Get the idea come and take me back
Underneath the sheets like thoroughbred racing chasers
Getting the feel as my love blood flows
I would like to go and shoot your mountain masses

Well, now, that would lead to a very different image, and it would suck!  There’d be nothing left to the imagination except an overwhelming desire for the song to finish as quickly as possible.  It doesn’t matter how good the tune is, the lyrics would make it completely unlistenable.  Ridiculous lyrics are the main reason why I could never get into the big-hair metal bands of the 80s; the words were so pitifully bad that I couldn’t possibly excuse them.

The lyrics to Prince’s “Darling Nikki” were no doubt titillating to me when I first heard them as a sixteen-year-old:

I knew a girl named Nikki
I guess you could say she was a sex fiend
I met her in a hotel lobby
Masturbating with a magazine

Hearing it today, it may turn you on, it may turn you off, but there’s no denying what the lyrics are about.  There’s nothing left to the imagination, and really, there’s nothing to be moved by.  It’s just…there.

But then I consider a pop song like “Sweet Talkin’ Woman” by ELO, and I realize that even the worst words in the world can sometimes be rescued by a great melody:

I was searchin’ on a one-way street
I was hopin’ for a chance to meet
I was waitin’ for the operator on the line
She’s gone so long
What can I do?
Where could she be?
Don’t know what I’m gonna do
I gotta get back to you

Pretty soul-grabbling stuff, huh?  And yet, it’s a fun song!  Why can I overlook terrible lyrics in some instances but not in others?   What’s the secret?

And then, why can I overlook great lyrics in some cases but not in others?  Take “Limelight” from Rush, a fantastic tune whose lyrics I never really thought too hard about until I saw the documentary, Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage.  Sure, I had known some of the words and I got the Shakespearean reference, but I never knew that the chorus had the word “seem” in it, as in:

Living in the limelight
The universal dream for those who wish to seem

Didn’t know it, never thought about it, didn’t care.  I just knew that Geddy Lee was singing Neil Peart’s lyrics, the music was unbelievable, and the message was something about fame or something.  It didn’t really matter to me.  And even now, the lyrics aren’t so important to me. I just know the song rocks and the lyrics don’t suck, and that’s enough for me in this case.

But then I look at another Rush song, ”Subdivisions,” whose lyrics are so strong and whose message of suburban conformity is so relatable to me, that they elevate the song to new heights:

Growing up, it all seems so one-sided
Opinions all provided
The future pre-decided
Detached and subdivided
In the mass-production zone
Nowhere is the dreamer
Or the misfit so alone

When I consider lyrics that have reached me over the years – songs like like “The Logical Song,” “Someone Saved My Life Tonight,” “What Becomes of the Broken Hearted,” “Read Emotional Girl,” etc., – the words are simple, direct and heartfelt.  Take Elvis Costello, an undeniable wordsmith, but who often packs way too many words into a song, with too many syllables, too many metaphors, and stories that are too abstract to understand just what the hell he’s so pissed off about.  Ah, but then he offers us a respite in a song like “Painted from Memory,” co-written by Burt Bacharach, and you have – in my mind – lyric perfection: simple, meaningful, relatable:

Such a picture of loveliness
Didn’t you notice the resemblance?
Doesn’t it look like she could speak?
Those eyes I tried to capture
They are lost to me now forever
They smile for someone else

And that’s often what it takes: simplicity and directness, not only for the lyric, but for the tune.  Sometimes the simplest forms of human expression are the most pure and most effective.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go and listen to my favorite power pop album, On by Off Broadway, and sing along to the deeply moving “Full Moon Turn My Head Around”:

We got a beat, we got a good good beat, we got a good beat.
We got a band, we got a good good band, we got a good band.