Long Songs vs. Short Songs

[Demilich]

Music can be a lot of things:
art, entertainment, a vehicle for ideology, an expression of emotion...

I guess to some degree it's all of these, but it depends on what the band intends.

 

[RavenousDaemon]

You forgot "a way of making easy money."

 

[Demilich]

You know, you're right. But I never said my list was comprehensive. There are bound to be a ton of different motivations out there that I wouldn't even think to consider.

 

[Super Mahrio]

long songs (like someone already mentioned) depends on the style of music....most early hard rock had long songs...Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, etc, they all had lengthy songs..of course that was during a period where rock music was being experiemented with...
but nowadays long songs usually are written by metal artists or progressive artists...i havent seen a song written by a rock band that was over 6 minutes long in years....many have already explained why people write songs so long...to go from one end of the spectrum to the other in one go...
the reason I write songs that happen to be long is because theres alot i come up with that belongs in one song...to put it in another song would make me too redundant...also its an experimental thing...how would this fit with that?

 

[spigot]

I like epic songs. These are usualy long, by definition.

But if you try to lengthen thrash, you end up making a great song boring.

It depends entirely on what you're trying to acheive.

Case in point; Iced Earth - The Coming Curse.

 

[deliverance]

i used to be into IE a lot, but..i listen to them once in a blue moon now. hardly ever.

 

[Crimson Velvet]

If there's a lot of musical territory to explore, make a long song. If not, don't. Opeth writes riffs and melodies that are interresting enough to make into long songs. If, say, Cannibal Corpse attempted the same, the result would be disasterous. And I think they are disasterous anough already.