Longest and shortest albums ever?

Metallica's And Justice for All was a double LP on vinyl... I have it : )

However, there were quite a few late 80's-early 90's single LPs well over an hour... the Time's Pandemonium, the aforementioned Hysteria and Back for the Attack, the Cure's Disintegration, Public Enemy's Fear of a Black Planet (although this was also released as a THREE LP set!), and numerous others.

The longest commecial CD I've seen to date is Valeri Gergiev's recording of Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker... 81:20! Um, The Wall and Quadrophenia have NO excuse now for being double sets.

As for the shortest, nobody's topped my pick of the Misfits yet, but Elvis had a ton of soundtrack albums that were sub-twenty minutes.

-Matt

PS: Shouldn't that Klaus Schultze box set count as a compilation? It may have been all unreleased, but I really doubt it was all recorded at the same time...

 

According to the liner notes, the Gershwin was originally released as a complete set, then broken up into volumes a few months later. The bonus EP (with two Nelson Riddle instrumental medleys) was only available as part of the set.

-Matt

 

True... but he has done a 10-CD box set of all-new recordings. And more than once, I might add. Seems that all he does now are these massive box sets, which is why I gave up trying to keep up.

 

Don't forget the soundtrack to "Nuts"! 13 minutes of Streisand composed solo-piano bliss !

And, yes, the Dwarves classic "Blood, Guts & *****" is a streamlined 13:13.
Both classics in my collection!

James

 

Antonio Carlos Jobim's "Wave" clocks in at a taut 31 and a half minutes.

 

If I remember, there were complaints that Van Halen's "Diver Down" was a very short album, when it was initially released.

Just checked on half.com, it clocks in at a mere 29 minutes!

 

Some of my favorite short ones:

DRI - Dirty Rotten LP - 22 songs, 17 minutes
Circle Jerks - Group Sex - 14 songs, 16 minutes
Minutemen - The Punch Line - 18 songs, 15 minutes

 

I remember when Get Happy came out and had TWENTY tracks on it! Wonderful. Till the Rykodisc CD came out with 30 listed tracks and one bonus track. Still one of the best listens I own.

I remember reading an interview with Nick Lowe at the time talking about how difficult it was to cram so much music into that vinyl.

-BZync

 

"Nashville Skyline" is under 30 minutes - But I still like it!

 

Seems to me that at least one of the "Weird Scenes Inside The Gold Mine" discs was pretty long; 23 minutes each side, if failing memory serves.


Shortest one I ever had was DC5, I think it was the one that included "Any Way You Want It".

 

short CDs came up a while back in rec.music.rock-pop-r+b.1970s

google search found:

http://groups.google.com/[email protected]&rnum=12

http://groups.google.com/[email protected]&rnum=1

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The shortest time for a Rock & Roll album I've heard of is the soundtrack for
the Elvis movie King Creole, which one book I read claims clocks in at slightly more than 19 minutes.

http://groups.google.com/[email protected]&rnum=2
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Well, if you're going to go outside the restrictions in the original post of
albums from the 60's & 70's, then the all time champion has to be The Dwarves
1990 album Blood Guts & *****: Thirteen songs in 14 minutes.

http://groups.google.com/[email protected]&rnum=3

--

 

The Rod Stewart LP, Sing It Again Rod (yeah the one shaped like a whiskey glass), the original copies carried a sticker saying this album contains 51 minutes of music.

 

Mission of Burma released a cd on Ryko that was almost
82 minutes long and a lot of players freaked out and wouldn't play it.

as for short lp's but Ringo's 'Blast From the Past' and
Neil Young's 'Everybody's Rockin' ran roughly 24 mins. apiece.

at least in Neil's case it was trax his fans did not already own.

 

I've been playing all the Van Halen HDCD remasters over the last couple of days. All of them, from the first through 1984, track at around 30 minutes, give or take a minute.

 

Elvis Costello released a couple packed LPs, GET HAPPY and TAKING LIBERTIES. Pretty thin-sounding when they try to cram ten songs a side. When I bought the Rykodisc CD, it was like I was hearing GET HAPPY for the first time!

I remember Paul McCartney released a couple albums that were pretty long, too. WINGS GREATEST and BACK TO THE EGG, maybe TUG OF WAR?

Someone already mentioned Neil Young's EVERYBODY'S ROCKIN'. Some of the Hi label soul classics from Al Green and Ann Peebles were awfully short, certainly sub-thirty minutes. And country music labels were notorious for putting the finger on the scale during the seventies. I remember complaints about Dolly Parton's albums having some very short timings.

 

In the 70s, there was a series of import LPs called "Golden Hour of..." that contained 60 mins. of music. I think they were on the Pye label, I had "Golden Hour of the Kinks" (still do, just too lazy to dig it out right now).

 

The Ramones first album clocks in at 28:53, according to allmusic.com

Longest? How 'bout any one of the newer alt-rock and/or nu-metal bands that pack their CD's full to the very last possible minute, leaving about ten minutes of good music and seventy minutes of filler

 

Yeah, the food sucks but the portions are great!

 

I think side four of Second Winter by Johnny Winter might have that beat.

 

Side four of Graham Parker's The Parkerilla is about six minutes IIRC... the "bonus" studio cut on a three-sided live album.

 

S & G's Bookends is pretty short

 

A couple recent mainstream sub-thirty minute records (and both good ones to boot)...

The Hives- Veni Vidi Vicious (28:02)
Weezer- The Green Album (28:29)

Hate to Say I Told You So,
Matt

 

3 of my all-time favorite CD's:

Sonic Youth - "Daydream Nation" - ~71 min
The Cure - "Disintegration" - ~72 min
Tool - "Lateralus" - ~79 min

And I love almost every second of all of 'em. I have no problem with lengthy albums, as long as I think they're good. I can sit down, listen, and float away.