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
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.
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.
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.
