The 10 second song

Why are we not seeing 10 second songs these days? I ask this because I recently observed a youth listening to music and skiping to a new song about every 10 seconds or so. This continued for quite some time. Is this normal behavior today for music listening or was it just a fluke of nature?

If this is now the norm I am not pleased, in fact write we down for being depressed. As an amatuer musician I can appreciate with some degree of expertise what goes into to the creation of a piece of music and the total production. Its a lot of work. It is one thing to not like the music but you should at least give it more than a 10 second chance!

Back when vinyl was the medium of choice skipping around was much harder. I enjoyed the experience of chilling out and listening to an entire album while reading the album cover and looking at the album art. You could say the skipping process started back with car radio when you could scan stations or maybe before that with 8 track tapes when you would push the program button and go into the middle of the next song. It was also hard to skip with cassettes but I did have a cassete deck that you could push the FF button and it would search the next blank space. I loved that deck!

Steven Spielburg delayed the release of ET on videotape for this very reason. He didn't want to put his hard work on videotape only to have it rewound or FF to another scene. He meant it to be enjoyed in its entirety like a piece of Art. But alas along came DVD's which made this worse.

I understand the argument that record companies may be to blame by selling albums with just one good song while you are stuck with 9 other trash tunes. I don't know. I always enjoyed "mining" albums for obscure tunes that I liked that didn't get that much radio play.

I'm not crazy with remixing either. These Frankenstein tunes are devoid of all soul.

If you have recently sat down and listened to an entire album or CD I applaud you!

If you have to skip through something try skipping through some video boardgame reviews. HA!

I listened to Love's Forever Changes this morning on vinyl in it's entirety. Easily one of my favorite albums. No need to skip around on this one.

huh? isn't the real question how come the kid managed to listen to that shit for 10 seconds at a time without knifing his own ears off. I doubt I could listen to more than a second at a time at some of the shit that seems to be passing off as "music" these days

ldsd "bah humbug*" bomber

* no tank top, but i'm trying to get into Steve Averys club

Short Music for Short People

MattLoter wrote: Short Music for Short People

Short people got no reason to live

I appreciate albums, I really do, but sometimes I sit in front of my digitalized music collection, trying to find out what to listen to, by skipping and jumping around songs aimlessly.

Steve Weeks wrote: Is this normal behavior today for music listening or was it just a fluke of nature?

Unfortunately,I think this has indeed become "normal" behavior. I see it all the time with kids and teens and it drives me crazy. Another example of technology destroying kids ability to maintain focus for anything that does not provide constantly changing stimulation. Even YouTube videos are watched for seconds before changing to the next one.

I have also been noticing that modern "popular" music often does not follow the standard "verse chorus" structure but instead is a continuously evolving and changing shape. I wonder if this is because "the kids" will switch it off if it repeats. Why listen to the chorus again when you JUST HEARD IT?

I generally only listen to music by the album. I'm a 20th century child so I am accustomed to the album as the medium for music releases. I still to this day buy 2-4 albums a month.

But it is a false one created by recording technology. Previous to that technology people wrote music on paper for whatever length they wanted. You have a 20 minute idea or a 12 hour one you can do that. The album forced our muscians to create music in a very particular format. The digital revolution has changed that. It has brought us back to the pencil and paper approach where you can do an idea of any length without any contraints once again and it is valid. The album is dead. Does it mean kids will listen only to singles.. .possibly a good chunck of them but I'm sure many will still go past that. The kids I teach are a varied bunch and some love albums but others just listen to ring tones essentially. A few key phrases is all they need. My hope is that one day people will see the net for what it can be, a vehicle to release music in any format you want at any length you want.

Bjork made an interesting move this year by releasing her new album as an ap as well as an album. The ap has game like aspects for each song where you can play around with touch sensitive things while the music plays. It's a really cool idea and a great answer to what we do next... at least for the time being but we need a more sturdy medium then that. Ap's date quickly whereas the album can last essentially as long as we do. I want bands or composeres to release their music digitally at whatever length suits their needs. I'm still seeing musicians talk in terms of album releases and looking at each product they release as something that should be 40-75 minutes long.

Why?

Unforutunately this digital revolution has pretty much just made people look at the possibilties for singles. That's a shame, but I hope that one day that will pass as more intertesting artists look at the true possibilities and react accordingly. The album was just a construct based around limitations, let's loose all that crap.

That said, attention spans are definitely decreasing. I saw a really interesting study on CBC not too long ago about how kids today have, on average, higher IQ's then ever before. But much lower attention spans. A great combo for mental disorders.

I wonder if kids are smoking less weed these days. Weed definitely helped my teen self develop an appreciation for long songs that you can lose yourself in.

Yeah, they go straight for the hard shit now.

Nice hard rocking tune but it seems to drag right around the chorus.

You might want to spark a spliff to be able to sit through this tune start to finish.

tscook wrote: You might want to spark a spliff to be able to sit through this tune start to finish.

Actually, the violence, explosions, blood and death was enough to keep my attention for well over 30 seconds.

Residents-Commercial Album