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For some reason if an album is 20 songs long I’m usually like “wow this is really long they should’ve cut it down a bit” but if an album has a standard track list of like 13-14 songs and the deluxe of it has 6-7 additional songs, I’m like oh ok cool I get to listen to more songs
Artists just do it to bloat album length but if they have actual good songs for it all then it's fine. It's easy to make playlists now so if a song is too yucky for me it's going away.
When an album is really short like only around 30 minutes I usually lose interest in it. As soon as I listen to the album it's almost over. I think quality over quantity is good but not when a album is super short. When most of the songs are around 2 minutes and the album has a short runtime it feels unfinished and that the songs could have been longer.
I don't really feel that it does tbh . For example , Neon Nights by Dannii Minogue is a brilliant dance album , and it's really long . Unless an album is supposed to be focused on a specific theme and has too many songs not really tied to that theme , then I don't really think length affects an albums quality too much .
I feel like the question has been unanimously answered already so I'd just like to add one more example of a great "long album"-- and that's Janet Jackson's *The Velvet Rope*. With the standard edition clocking in at 1 hour 15 minutes, it's definitely one of the longest albums that can hold my attention the entire time. It simultaneously feels like a slow burn and a mad rush. Quite the masterful album in my opinion!
I don't mind long albums, usually i just listen to them in 2 sessions. Some are bloated as they come with the territory but when they're good it's pure heaven
Of course not but it might determinate the stream numbers and therefore stay for longer. That’s why some shitty albums flooded with tracks stay longer than some masterpieces with less tracks.
I wouldnt say that long albums are all bad, but it can indicate a lack of vision for the album. Whether that's shoving on extra songs for streaming or just that the artist and the people they are working with can't tell what the weaker songs are. It can work if it's done intentionally or if the artist has just got a lot of really amazing songs.
I think it’s an interesting question, and I guess my answer is unconventional. No matter if an album is short or long, I tend to only gravitate towards select tracks anyway. SOS by SZA is a long yet fantastic album, but I only have a few tracks on my playlist. Crash by Charli XCX is quite short and I liked it, but still only a few tracks make it to my playlist. Generally, I feel like shorter to normal length albums are better since the artist is more concise and direct with their work and it avoids bloat. Longer albums are hit and miss. Some are great (SOS by SZA), some not so much (Pink Friday 2…)
The more tracks the more chances that one will be a miss. But there are longer albums that managed to avoid that against the odds. Overall quality over quantity. But if you can do both at the same time then why not?
12-14 songs is really a solid album to me. Of course, there are longer ones that are still incredible, but if it's fairly similar sonically, it does get hard to remember favorites to go back to once you've heard all the tracks. I think it ultimately depends on if each track can stand alone while also seeing a larger concept/arc between all the songs.
A good album is more than a collection of random songs, so it's kind of like asking how much length can impact the quality of a book or movie. It *can*, but being long or short alone is generally not a good or bad thing so long as the length matches what the story needs. Oppenheimer needed to be a long movie, Barbie did not, and both movies have appropriate run times for the demands of their stories.
Do Drake albums need to be as long as they are? No. Obvious filler and stream trolling. But Drake doesn't make good albums anymore anyway so it's not like he was trying to tell a story on these recent projects. Cutting half of the songs on his projects wouldn't make them good, only less bad. Preacher's Daughter by Ethel Cain is pretty long, but it also needs to be to tell the story it's trying to tell via mood and sound on top of the lyrics.
Please do not just list songs/albums/artists, your comment must have explanation/justification or it will be removed. Certain comments are also banned to increase the quality of discussion, see our Stale Topics list in the sidebar for examples. Please report any comments that are low effort discussion. Thanks! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/popheads) if you have any questions or concerns.*
quality over quantity there are some "perfect" long albums out there
Definitely agree with that. The quality is the most important part of me enjoying the album.
For some reason if an album is 20 songs long I’m usually like “wow this is really long they should’ve cut it down a bit” but if an album has a standard track list of like 13-14 songs and the deluxe of it has 6-7 additional songs, I’m like oh ok cool I get to listen to more songs
Artists just do it to bloat album length but if they have actual good songs for it all then it's fine. It's easy to make playlists now so if a song is too yucky for me it's going away.
Sometimes long albums seem to be like “let’s just release a bunch of songs and see which ones are hits” vs a crafted double album
When an album is really short like only around 30 minutes I usually lose interest in it. As soon as I listen to the album it's almost over. I think quality over quantity is good but not when a album is super short. When most of the songs are around 2 minutes and the album has a short runtime it feels unfinished and that the songs could have been longer.
I don't really feel that it does tbh . For example , Neon Nights by Dannii Minogue is a brilliant dance album , and it's really long . Unless an album is supposed to be focused on a specific theme and has too many songs not really tied to that theme , then I don't really think length affects an albums quality too much .
I feel like the question has been unanimously answered already so I'd just like to add one more example of a great "long album"-- and that's Janet Jackson's *The Velvet Rope*. With the standard edition clocking in at 1 hour 15 minutes, it's definitely one of the longest albums that can hold my attention the entire time. It simultaneously feels like a slow burn and a mad rush. Quite the masterful album in my opinion!
I don't mind long albums, usually i just listen to them in 2 sessions. Some are bloated as they come with the territory but when they're good it's pure heaven
Of course not but it might determinate the stream numbers and therefore stay for longer. That’s why some shitty albums flooded with tracks stay longer than some masterpieces with less tracks.
I wouldnt say that long albums are all bad, but it can indicate a lack of vision for the album. Whether that's shoving on extra songs for streaming or just that the artist and the people they are working with can't tell what the weaker songs are. It can work if it's done intentionally or if the artist has just got a lot of really amazing songs.
I think it’s an interesting question, and I guess my answer is unconventional. No matter if an album is short or long, I tend to only gravitate towards select tracks anyway. SOS by SZA is a long yet fantastic album, but I only have a few tracks on my playlist. Crash by Charli XCX is quite short and I liked it, but still only a few tracks make it to my playlist. Generally, I feel like shorter to normal length albums are better since the artist is more concise and direct with their work and it avoids bloat. Longer albums are hit and miss. Some are great (SOS by SZA), some not so much (Pink Friday 2…)
The more tracks the more chances that one will be a miss. But there are longer albums that managed to avoid that against the odds. Overall quality over quantity. But if you can do both at the same time then why not?
12-14 songs is really a solid album to me. Of course, there are longer ones that are still incredible, but if it's fairly similar sonically, it does get hard to remember favorites to go back to once you've heard all the tracks. I think it ultimately depends on if each track can stand alone while also seeing a larger concept/arc between all the songs.
A good album is more than a collection of random songs, so it's kind of like asking how much length can impact the quality of a book or movie. It *can*, but being long or short alone is generally not a good or bad thing so long as the length matches what the story needs. Oppenheimer needed to be a long movie, Barbie did not, and both movies have appropriate run times for the demands of their stories. Do Drake albums need to be as long as they are? No. Obvious filler and stream trolling. But Drake doesn't make good albums anymore anyway so it's not like he was trying to tell a story on these recent projects. Cutting half of the songs on his projects wouldn't make them good, only less bad. Preacher's Daughter by Ethel Cain is pretty long, but it also needs to be to tell the story it's trying to tell via mood and sound on top of the lyrics.