On 13-4-2010 10:36, Invisible wrote:
> As some of you may know, I bought myself a crapload of CDs for my 
> birthday, containing a selection of the very best music from the 1950s 
> and later. And let me tell you, some of this music is very, *very* good. 
> But hey, what do you expect from a deliberately unrepresentative sample? 
> ;-)
> 
> I've noticed several things while listening to this stuff. Probably the 
> most striking thing is the track times. For example, take an iconic 
> track such as Darin's "Dream Lover". It's so well-known that "almost 
> everybody" who was alive at the appropriate time has surely heard it and 
> would instantly recognise it. But did you know... from the opening chord 
> to the final fade out, the entire masterwork is less than 120 *seconds* 
> long? (A quick Google search states that it's 1 minute and 57 seconds in 
> length, and that's probably including a brief silence at both ends.)
> 
> Last night I transcoded 4 hours of this stuff, and I could barely find a 
> track that was longer than 3 minutes. Almost all of them are two minutes 
> and something, and a few aren't even two minutes long. A vanishingly 
> small number exceed 3 minutes, and not one single one reaches to 4 
> minutes. And yet, these are (almost) all iconic era-defining 
> masterpieces of popular music, instantly recognisible to anyone who has 
> heard them.

I noticed more or less the same with Tom Lehrer (mid 50s- mid 60s and 
some a bit later), but I did not think of posting to get feedback.
E.g. the sort of still relevant 'Send the Marines' is only 1:46 and the 
'Hunting Song' comes in three versions: an orchestrated one of 1:49, one 
with an introduction of 1:59, but also one of only 1:19. OTOH 'New Math' 
is 4:30 though that also includes an introduction.

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