Listening to the genius is attending to something. Some thing alive, with a soul. With a story of its own that I felt drawn into. I’m grieving the sudden death of someone very close to me and this song was surprisingly healing. Thank you for sharing it with us.
Punk band Subhumans did an album called "From the Cradle... to the Grave" around 1983. Their title track was like 16 minutes, and it helped me understand that it was okay to go against the mainstream, even the counter-cultural norms! Typical punk songs were like a minute and a half.
Broad sweeping proclamations in the "nobody/everybody/wants/does/listens" fashion is something that irks me. In general, the masses aren't looking for long songs. But that doesn't mean there isn't a significant portion of music listeners that are thrilled by ten-plus minute pieces, as long as the music, themes, and use of time are convincing. Staying in the modern jazz realm like "The Genius," no one has used a three-hour listening experience better than Kamasi Washington in 2015's "The Epic." I can't keep count of how many times I've listened to this record over the past eight years, but once it takes off, you can't help but be hooked on the journey. Seeing Washington and his band on that album's tour is still one of the best music experiences I've ever had.
While it does suck that the Tik Tok of It All™ is driving the shorter run times of modern pop music, let's not forget that before albums like 'Dark Side of the Moon,' Billboard charting pop songs were on average two and a half minutes long through the fifties and sixties because of the way people consumed them via 45s on a jukebox. I may not like it, but Tik Tok is that jukebox in 2023. History repeats itself.
Alright, I'm off my soapbox - there are some enjoyable parts to this song and I dig it!✌️
Well said: we lost our ability to focus and be patient. That’s why I’m so much into vinyl, because among many other things, it works as a reaction against this impulse to skip/thia inability to sit down and listen.
She's an anomaly I know, but Taylor Swift's 10-minute version of All Too Well is great and crushed it. Not sure how much radio play it got.
Listening to the genius is attending to something. Some thing alive, with a soul. With a story of its own that I felt drawn into. I’m grieving the sudden death of someone very close to me and this song was surprisingly healing. Thank you for sharing it with us.
Punk band Subhumans did an album called "From the Cradle... to the Grave" around 1983. Their title track was like 16 minutes, and it helped me understand that it was okay to go against the mainstream, even the counter-cultural norms! Typical punk songs were like a minute and a half.
Broad sweeping proclamations in the "nobody/everybody/wants/does/listens" fashion is something that irks me. In general, the masses aren't looking for long songs. But that doesn't mean there isn't a significant portion of music listeners that are thrilled by ten-plus minute pieces, as long as the music, themes, and use of time are convincing. Staying in the modern jazz realm like "The Genius," no one has used a three-hour listening experience better than Kamasi Washington in 2015's "The Epic." I can't keep count of how many times I've listened to this record over the past eight years, but once it takes off, you can't help but be hooked on the journey. Seeing Washington and his band on that album's tour is still one of the best music experiences I've ever had.
While it does suck that the Tik Tok of It All™ is driving the shorter run times of modern pop music, let's not forget that before albums like 'Dark Side of the Moon,' Billboard charting pop songs were on average two and a half minutes long through the fifties and sixties because of the way people consumed them via 45s on a jukebox. I may not like it, but Tik Tok is that jukebox in 2023. History repeats itself.
Alright, I'm off my soapbox - there are some enjoyable parts to this song and I dig it!✌️
I'm intrigued by the chutzpah...will listen!
Alright, I tried, found it lurched a bit from banal to irritating...made it to 15 minutes and turned it off. Sorry! Back to tiktok ;-)
Well said: we lost our ability to focus and be patient. That’s why I’m so much into vinyl, because among many other things, it works as a reaction against this impulse to skip/thia inability to sit down and listen.
A 30-minute song!? That is like a 4-hour movie.
In other words: You have my attention. Going to give this a listen.