Remember when Richard Harris released “MacArthur Park” and The Beatles released “Hey Jude”? Remember when Don McLean released “American Pie”? Top 40 radio had an unwritten but universally held law, that a Pop song should not exceed 3 minutes in duration.
Less than 3 was preferable but if it was more than 30 seconds over, it had virtually no chance of airplay.
A couple of years earlier, Phil Spector dared to poke the beast with a stick by releasing The Righteous Brothers’ single, “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling”. Employing all the guile of a snake oil salesman, he printed a duration of 3:05 on the label when in truth, it ran a full 40 seconds longer.
Radio was suckered and allegedly never forgave him for it, despite it being a number-one hit.
I can distinctly remember one station in Adelaide introducing what it had the brass to call, “Hey Jude – Part One”, and simply fading-out the 7-minute, globe-rodgering epic just as Macca’s “Na-na-na-nah” refrain was reaching its climactic pitch. Such sacrilege wasn’t about to wash with Beatles fans, however. Radio’s psychological 3-minute threshold was universally relaxed, soon after. The path made clear for future epics like “American Pie” and “Stairway To Heaven” to be played in their entirety.
In the ‘70s, long tracks were the stamp of credibility for any self-respecting Prog band. Everyone knew about “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” back in the day but then, Jethro Tull came up with their first landmark, “Thick As A Brick”.
Ostensibly, one song, but because of the limitations of the vinyl format, split in half over a single LP record. It was innovative, sure, but not unique. “Tubular Bells”? Don’t even get me started.
The next time such a major forward step would be made, was in 1985. Driven by my infatuation with Eno’s, “Music For Airports”, I picked up a copy of “Thursday Afternoon” the week it came out. The remarkable thing about it was that Eno (Rock Music’s own ‘Man from the Future’) had released a single track on the then still infant CD format, which ran, uninterrupted, for 60 minutes. Like most of Eno’s Ambient works, though, “Thursday Afternoon” was music to inhabit rather than experience, and in 1985, only the audiophiles and trainspotters showed any interest.
Today, I discovered that all those flexing attempts at pushing the boundaries of duration (and audience tolerance) have been rendered utterly redundant. Even John Cage, with his audacious 1952 composition, “4’33” cannot match the extraordinary reach of what I am listening to, right now.
Where John Cage was moved to filter his concept of Minimalism through muslin the equivalent of a Black Hole to arrive at a composition in three movements comprising 4 minutes and 33 seconds of complete silence, Wayne Coyne has achieved the unthinkable.
His band, The Flaming Lips, have just released their fifth EP for the year. It’s called, ‘Strobo Trip’ and it has 3 tracks on it. The most astonishing (and I do not use the word frivolously) thing about it is that the second track, “I Found A Star On The Ground” is 6 hours long.
Are you still with me?
Yeah, read that again.
I’ve been listening to it all evening, and I’ve just hit the halfway mark. It is, without a doubt, the most overconfident musical expression I will hear this year and probably, next year as well. You may never get to hear “I Found A Star On The Ground”. Perhaps you wouldn’t wish to. But know that it’s out there.
No doubt, I’ll have more to say when it’s over but like the song, the length of this post, may also be testing the boundaries.
And it’s been so long since the last one.
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