# I Hate Beatles Fans **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [November 28, 2011, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-beatles-fans/604334 "2011-11-28T13:12:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 179
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2011, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-beatles-fans/604334/179 "2011-11-30T20:42:25Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > I think this phenomenon deserves its own thread, but something to bear in mind is that modern records are far longer than those released in the 1960s and 70s. > > _My Generation_ was 36 minutes long. _Sgt. Pepper’s_ was 39 minutes long. > > Nobody except punk and post-punk bands release records that short now. \*Both \*of Guns and Roses’ _Use Your Illusion_ albums clocked in at over 75 minutes. The much more raw _Appetite for Destruction_ was itself 53 minutes. The Black Album/_Metallica_ is 62 minutes. > > Maybe the easiest way to look at the phenomenon is to look at albums released by bands who recorded then and now. The Rolling Stones’ self-titled album was 33 minutes long. _A Bigger Bang_ and _Bridges to Babylon_ are both more than 60 minutes long. The Who’s _Endless Wire_ is 52 minutes. That’s a very good point. Once albums were no longer limited to what could be squeezed onto a 33 rpm LP, much longer albums became possible. And I’ll take your word that they’ve become the norm, so fewer albums doesn’t necessarily mean less music. I hadn’t really noticed this, because I’ve bought very little new music on CD in the past 20 years. Not that I haven’t been listening, but once we could purchase individual tracks over the Internet, that’s how I’ve been buying my music. Especially because before that point, when the record companies could still charge $16.95 per CD, it was too often the case that I’d buy a CD of a band that had gotten 3-4 songs on the radio, and I’d find that that was all of the CD that was worth listening to. (Think Third Eye Blind’s eponymous album, or the Wallflowers’ _Bringing Down the Horse_.) A few instances of that, and I became very reluctant to buy CDs of current music. So the questions I’d ask would be: 1. Does longer albums by the good bands of recent years mean more good music? Or does it mean an increase in the amount of music on their albums that’s basically filler? 2. As people buy fewer CDs and buy more music straight off the Internet, is anyone listening to the music that doesn’t get airplay? (If a band includes a song on the album, but nobody downloads that track, does it make a sound? :)) But I’m not taking a side on these questions; I’m not in a position to do more than speculate about the answers. Hopefully you young folks (once you get off my lawn, dammit!) can weigh in in a more knowledgeable fashion than I’d be able to. --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-beatles-fans/604334)._