In terms of shortest songs, a recent single by Ocean Colour Scene is pretty good, only 2 minutes 7 seconds. Used it myself upto the news on a show last week.
Prior to our station having Myriad (in our RSL days), I always used to keep November Rain by Guns and Roses on standby incase I needed to go to the loo, indeed, on one occasion where I had played it, a listener rang in and said "have you just been in the toilet?"
I also once played the full length version of Autobahn by Kraftwerk, which is 28 minutes.
Only last night on HFM, our rock show presenter played a song that was 52 minutes long.
Indeed, one presenter used to have a feature called "The Long Song" but that usually meant he was going out for a smoke!
'Float on' by the Floaters (You'd never get away with that name nowadays! ) is a bit of a cheat.
The long version is simply the backing track tacked on to the regular disc twice. The join isn't even a proper edit, they just cover the fade out/fade in with cosmic sounds (maahn). I believe there's a bit of extra instumental stuff at the beginning too. An absolute pain if you're trying to talk up the vocals...:eek:
Radio Caroline played two Fela Kuti tracks that took up one side an LP each. They both came in at over 20 minutes.
Incidentally, how long is Alice's Restaurant'?
Afterthought....
Aren't the longest tracks played on the radio going to be Radio 3 fodder? A lot of that classical stuff goes on a bit when your not just cherry picking the popular bits out of it you know...
Adding on to my previous list others I recall for Shortest include
Jim croche -had to say I love you in a Song
Bread- I really want to see you tonight
Beatles-Eleanor Rigby
The Doors- People are Strange
Billy.J.Kramer- Bad To Me
The Chordettes- Mr Sandman
The Hollies-Bus Stop
Blur- Song 2
Lily Allen-Alfie
Aren't the longest tracks played on the radio going to be Radio 3 fodder? A lot of that classical stuff goes on a bit when your not just cherry picking the popular bits out of it you know...
Only last night on HFM, our rock show presenter played a song that was 52 minutes long.
I read this thread with interest and it has reminded me to dig out some of these classic long tracks for a listening session at home when I have plenty spare time on my hands. However it seems like not much concern is placed on retaining your listeners whilst some of these long tracks are aired and you have to wonder if the presenters self indulgence in playing something that was 52 mins long actually best served the radio station that he was representing.
We did some experiments a while back on Live365 which has a pretty neat listener statistics package that can actually tell you how many listeners aborted your stream during a particular track. Guess what..... Most listener terminations occured during the long tracks. Our longest was just over 12 mins so what effect your rock show man had on his audience playing 52 mins worth is anyones guess but I'd lay money that the listener figures took a big tumble. Shame for the poor sod who had to follow the rock show and start building audience again from the ground up.
Im not against marathon length tunes but in general Id have to say that they are best played by yourself on a CD at home when you are ready to hear them rather than forced on you as an non participating "want to hear the long version" listener.
One of the longest, if not the longest single release was Blue Room by The Orb. It's a 39 minute epic of a track, that they released just to get the title for longest single. It certainly hit the top 10 and was something to do with a change of chart rules at the time. Someone might know more, but there cannot be many singles with a run time of nearly 40 minutes!
Unsurprsingly, I've never played or heard the full version on air. :rolleyes:
It's nice to know these charitably and publicly-funded radio stations are making such great use of the airwaves given to them. I wish Ofcom would go round and content-sample a few of these outfits at random.
And what do you think Ofcom would say if they content-sample a few of these outfits at random? "OK on the community news, integration with local organisations, training of local people, but we're going to take away your licence because you played a long song at lunchtime"?
I've seen you knocking community radio in other threads. Bad experience? Axe to grind?
Adding on to my previous list others I recall for Shortest include
Jim croche -had to say I love you in a Song
Bread- I really want to see you tonight
Beatles-Eleanor Rigby
The Doors- People are Strange
Billy.J.Kramer- Bad To Me
The Chordettes- Mr Sandman
The Hollies-Bus Stop
Blur- Song 2
Lily Allen-Alfie
Shortest one I can think of is "Tell Laura I Love Her" by Ricky Valance (UK) and Ray Peterson (US) - 45 seconds or so if memory serves.
Also, PhilEngland - I'm trying to reply to your PM, but I can't 'cos you turned messaging off!
Comments
Prior to our station having Myriad (in our RSL days), I always used to keep November Rain by Guns and Roses on standby incase I needed to go to the loo, indeed, on one occasion where I had played it, a listener rang in and said "have you just been in the toilet?"
I also once played the full length version of Autobahn by Kraftwerk, which is 28 minutes.
Only last night on HFM, our rock show presenter played a song that was 52 minutes long.
Indeed, one presenter used to have a feature called "The Long Song" but that usually meant he was going out for a smoke!
The long version is simply the backing track tacked on to the regular disc twice. The join isn't even a proper edit, they just cover the fade out/fade in with cosmic sounds (maahn). I believe there's a bit of extra instumental stuff at the beginning too. An absolute pain if you're trying to talk up the vocals...:eek:
Radio Caroline played two Fela Kuti tracks that took up one side an LP each. They both came in at over 20 minutes.
Incidentally, how long is Alice's Restaurant'?
Afterthought....
Aren't the longest tracks played on the radio going to be Radio 3 fodder? A lot of that classical stuff goes on a bit when your not just cherry picking the popular bits out of it you know...
Jim croche -had to say I love you in a Song
Bread- I really want to see you tonight
Beatles-Eleanor Rigby
The Doors- People are Strange
Billy.J.Kramer- Bad To Me
The Chordettes- Mr Sandman
The Hollies-Bus Stop
Blur- Song 2
Lily Allen-Alfie
I did say pop or rock tracks in my original post.
I read this thread with interest and it has reminded me to dig out some of these classic long tracks for a listening session at home when I have plenty spare time on my hands. However it seems like not much concern is placed on retaining your listeners whilst some of these long tracks are aired and you have to wonder if the presenters self indulgence in playing something that was 52 mins long actually best served the radio station that he was representing.
We did some experiments a while back on Live365 which has a pretty neat listener statistics package that can actually tell you how many listeners aborted your stream during a particular track. Guess what..... Most listener terminations occured during the long tracks. Our longest was just over 12 mins so what effect your rock show man had on his audience playing 52 mins worth is anyones guess but I'd lay money that the listener figures took a big tumble. Shame for the poor sod who had to follow the rock show and start building audience again from the ground up.
Im not against marathon length tunes but in general Id have to say that they are best played by yourself on a CD at home when you are ready to hear them rather than forced on you as an non participating "want to hear the long version" listener.
Unsurprsingly, I've never played or heard the full version on air. :rolleyes:
Must dig it out when I get home.
And what do you think Ofcom would say if they content-sample a few of these outfits at random? "OK on the community news, integration with local organisations, training of local people, but we're going to take away your licence because you played a long song at lunchtime"?
I've seen you knocking community radio in other threads. Bad experience? Axe to grind?
Shortest one I can think of is "Tell Laura I Love Her" by Ricky Valance (UK) and Ray Peterson (US) - 45 seconds or so if memory serves.
Also, PhilEngland - I'm trying to reply to your PM, but I can't 'cos you turned messaging off!
DP