The pop song is a strange creature.
It's varied in length throughout the ages, often with wild disregard for the radio-friendly rules, a generally consistent measure of 3 minutes shifting to all kinds of obscene degrees - Don McLean's "American Pie" stretched an epic 8:33 and Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel's "Sebastian", much to the frustration of Joy Division & New Order bassist Peter Hook, had to be flipped halfway through, running for 6:58. Indeed others, most notoriously George Michael, don't actually seem capable of churning out a hit that comes in under 5 minutes. It's even seemed fashionable on some occasions to run-over running-time conventions for the fun of it - Oasis were beginning to take the biscuit with nearly 10 minutes of "All Around The World", and most recently, The Hoosiers recorded "Stop Giving Me Verses" a 45-minute rendition of their single "Choices". And then there's prog-rock - don't even...
Time then to commemorate the true punk-rockers - those who put two fingers up to exasperating and mind-numbing length and spat out these over-before-you-know-it wonders, all of which clock-in at under two minutes and all of which are personal favourites of mine, because whilst there's certainly something anti-establishment about a song lasting four LP sides, there's admittedly something a little cleverer and stated about a skittish snapshots whose aftermath is the first chance you get to process the punch on the nose that was hearing it...
It's varied in length throughout the ages, often with wild disregard for the radio-friendly rules, a generally consistent measure of 3 minutes shifting to all kinds of obscene degrees - Don McLean's "American Pie" stretched an epic 8:33 and Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel's "Sebastian", much to the frustration of Joy Division & New Order bassist Peter Hook, had to be flipped halfway through, running for 6:58. Indeed others, most notoriously George Michael, don't actually seem capable of churning out a hit that comes in under 5 minutes. It's even seemed fashionable on some occasions to run-over running-time conventions for the fun of it - Oasis were beginning to take the biscuit with nearly 10 minutes of "All Around The World", and most recently, The Hoosiers recorded "Stop Giving Me Verses" a 45-minute rendition of their single "Choices". And then there's prog-rock - don't even...
Time then to commemorate the true punk-rockers - those who put two fingers up to exasperating and mind-numbing length and spat out these over-before-you-know-it wonders, all of which clock-in at under two minutes and all of which are personal favourites of mine, because whilst there's certainly something anti-establishment about a song lasting four LP sides, there's admittedly something a little cleverer and stated about a skittish snapshots whose aftermath is the first chance you get to process the punch on the nose that was hearing it...