Well, I could have asked for the longest track ever released, and maybe we can settle that too in this thread, but I suspect some obscure band has sometime released a one-track 80 minutes CD just to break the record, so I put my question that way in the title.
The longest I know are “Mountain Jam” from the deluxe version of the Allman Brothers’ “Live At The Fillmore East”, clocking in at 33:39 minutes, and Motorpsycho’s “Un Chien D’Espace” (30:46) from “Roadwork, Vol. 5: Field Notes, Europe 2017 (The Fantastic Expedition of Järmyr, Ryan, Sæther & Lo)” as well as their “A K9 Suite” (30:46 too, don’t know if this was intentional) from “Roadwork, Vol. 1: Heavy Metall iz a poze, hardt rock iz a laifsteil” (have I told you how I love the titles of their live Roadwork albums? Vol. 4 is called “Intrepid Skronk”).
These are all live tracks first released on CD and wouldn’t even have fitted on an LP side (at least without serious losses in sound quality), so it would be also interesting which ultra-long tracks were released on LP. I only want to exclude classical symphonies, that’s too obvious.
From the vinyl era, Jethro Tull’s Thick as a Brick is one track 43:46 long over two album sides. But it’s also a sort-of joke.
The longest I know on one vinyl album side is Dazed and Confused from The Song Remains the Same. It is 26:53 and the pressing suffers for it. That’s too long for vinyl, but they did it anyway. I’ve never heard a vinyl version that didn’t have distortion right from the first play. The CD is much better.
You’re right, I also have the LP and always wondered about the quite lousy sound quality (I think the whole LP sounds bad and isn’t a good document of their stage qualities. “How The West Was One” is much much better.). Have to check the run times of the other 3 sides…
Jethro Tull’s “A Passion Play” clocks in at 45:07 over two sides, beating out “Thick As A Brick.”
Personally, I don’t count either one of them, because they are separate songs all blended together into one long take. By my standards, “Mountain Jam” is the clear leader as it is one song.
How would the OP classify say Beethoven’s 9th Symphony? It covers 3 sides on vinyl and is one composition after all. von Karajan’s take with the Berlin Philharmonic clocks in at 65:37.
Too late to edit: I knew about the length of the 9th by the anecdote/legend that the CEO of Sony ordered a capacity for the new CD of 70 minutes to fit the 9th.
Wild Love from Frank Zappa’s Halloween 77 album, the 31 October show features a rendition of Wild Love that clocks in at 30:12.
Guitar Trio Pt. 1, Chicago from Guitar Trio Is My Life! (one of the greatest compositions of all time, some of my favorite performances too) by the fantastic Rhys Chatham goes for 30:23.
The Local Fuzz by The Atomic Bitchwax is 42:16 of instrumental strung-together-without-stopping-because-we’re-rocking goodness. Straight up rock ‘n’ roll.
But the longest song I keep on my hard drive is, of course, Sleep’s Dopesmoker, which clocks in at 1:03:32 (63 minutes, 32 seconds).
You know I’m the greatest Lou Reed fan, but I only tried once to listen to the whole “Metal Machine Music”, so that I knew what everybody was talking about. But that was it, never again.
That reminds me of another “unhearable” one-track album of instrumental noise and feedback, Neil Young’s “Arc”. Though it’s a hard listen, it has a structure and you hear that it was laboriously crafted and edited. It runs 34:57.
Even if you include them, each movement is going to be a separate track on most recordings. Still, Mahler has a couple of symphony movements that clock in at over half an hour.
The younger me used have a bit of a ritual about getting ready for a big night out: shaved, showered and getting suited and booted within the playing time of the album version of Sister Ray. Roughly 17 and a half minutes. Clinical efficiency, and the right kind of mood-setting music.
These days it takes me about that length of time to find my glasses after a shower
