In a world where albums contain more music than we may have dared to dream of many years ago, there still remains the ability for artists to write really short songs. The “ideal” length is around 3 minutes as that seems to fit nicely with airplay concerns for radio DJs. That hasn’t stopped there being monster length songs like Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody mind you which comes in just shy of 6 minutes.
The Chemical Brothers’ No Path to Follow which contains repetitive “lyrics” which become clearer in its 1 minute 4 second life is pretty short by any standards. There’s little merit to it either. That song wasn’t a hit by itself but it is the opening track on the We Are The Night album which entered the charts at Number 1.
Brevity is not a new tack taken for singles. The song All I Can Do from The Carpenters comes in at under 2 minutes. Maybe that, 2 minutes, should be the bar, a little musical pun there, by which we measure (ok, ok no more). I did say it was not uncommon and in fact It’s Not Unusual. Performed by Tom Jones for just 1 minute 58 seconds long it was a massive hit and remains very popular today. Short can be sweet!
Others include The White Stripes – Fell in Love With a Girl, The Beatles – I’m Happy Just To Dance With You and The Rolling Stones with Not Fade Away. Some great songs there proving we love quality and not quantity.
