Songs Too Long
In a previous post, I espoused my affection for Beck's Deadweight. The nostalgia it filled me with led me to purchase it on iTunes. From the music video, the song is about 4.5 minutes long, but iTunes' only version is 6+ minutes long from extra material in the re-release of Odelay. Oooo, more song for my listening pleasure. Sadly no, the extra minutes is the song trailing off in bloops and bleeps ruining a wonderful experience.I find this aspect of the digital age depressing. When we were analog and copying our music onto cassette tapes, we had control of the process. A song too long can be shortened with the simple press of the button or a fade to silence. Fade ins and cross fades were done easily. The addition of snippets of other audio materials was easy as well. Yet, with digital music all that is gone or at least suppressed in a process that takes some time to set up, understand, and learn. We are stuck with hard boundaries in our music — a track.In other songs I've purchased, there are extraneous bits that I would not like to hear. This is prevalent with rap music and the skits between songs. Somehow the music distributors mash one track with the skits. This sucks as I just want the music, and I am forced to hit next to avoid listening to the crappy skit. I don't need no crappy skits. If I had wanted it, I would've kept the cassette running.Anyone hate this too?
4 Replies to “Songs Too Long”
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I don't know. I'm one of the rare ones that actually prefers the digital age of editable mix tapes and songs. I can be more precise and fine tune mixes with ease.
The one thing that sux though is the loss of the "A" and "B" side art of making mixes. You had 45 minutes for each side so you had to manage your mix properly. I kinda miss that restraint and art of A and B side flow. Also sending a cassette tape in the mail with your own artwork is long gone too. I miss that.
Other than that, I'm a huge fan of the digital age.
I don't mind the digital age.
I hate that I need several tools to make it work for me.
Consider: Making play lists easy. Editing the songs in that song list so that annoying skits and extraneous stupid sounds are not part of it tough.
I was listening to Missy Elliot's "Joy" and the first 1:35 is the crappiest skit. It inspired me to search for people who hate lame rapping skits as much as I do.
It seems like rap artists have been doing this since De La Soul successfully did it with 3ft High and Rising. I think what happens is these rappers hang out with people who tell them they're so dynamic, funny, and awesome and they should show off all their talents on their CD (which normally consists of bad impressions of Asian people, inside jokes, and saying muthaf**er every few seconds.)
They should honestly just stick to making music, or for the love of music, put the skit on its own track.
Thanks for stopping by Eric.
I don't really hate rap skits, although they are annoying, but rather hate rap skits that end up taking up minutes of an mp3. It's terribly difficult to remove that from such a good song. Or I'm to lazy to remove it.
I agree. Just get it off the one track I'm listening to, and make it its own track.