I'm in a fantastic band that has great songs, musicians, and overall decent guys. Everyone in the band is in their early 20s...except me. I'm in my early 30s. We are in the process of having enough experience and material to push for a record deal and all the other things a young, excited band wants from the world.
One disagreement I'm having with them is the idea of investing time and money into tracking a 25 minute song. All of our songs at this point are in the 6-10 minute range (prog band,) but I'm opposed to putting this on an EP, for which we already have 5 songs coming in around 40 minutes, excluding this long one. I've reached out to my local musical mentors and they all have advised against it. The two tracks we have released independently are good, but even my fiancé says she doesn't listen to more than a couple of minutes of either song when it comes into her Spotify playlist. People are engaged with our live shows and we have sold well both putting on our own shows as well as opening for touring acts. We have received good feedback from touring bands that are, for lack of a better phrase, players in the game.
I feel the egos are getting in the way of progress. I'm worried someone who mixes a 25 minute song will get bored and half-ass it, and a label will view us as pretentious. I've been playing in bands for 16 years now and have made my mistakes, and I don't really want to make the 20 year old mistakes I made when I was 20 years old, when resources weren't as readily available. If I knew the answers, I wouldn't be asking, so if anyone has input that I can give back to my band, I'd appreciate it, since everything else I've presented regarding this hasn't been taken seriously. Thanks TB friends.
So when I was younger, I was one of the worst offenders of which you speak. This was my keyboard playing days, but the same rules apply.
Here's what I would do: Talk to your bandmates about doing a shortened version of the song on the album, then stretch it out live. Because, let's be honest, a lot of the 25 minute prog rock songs have a lot of great solos and stuff, but it's possible to condense it down for the track. It doesn't mean they'll listen, but it's easier to take than excluding the song altogether.
"musical masturbation" is what some producers called it when we would do stuff like that. And yeah, producers and engineers don't have the time or patience for such things most times.
Take a very "musically masturbatory" band ... the Grateful Dead. Live, it goes on and on and on ... and everybody's high and it's great. Now listen to an album of theirs, just a hits album, you'll hear all the songs but "the album version".
I know especially a lot of keyboardists get this idea from bands like Yes and Emmerson Lake and Palmer. I don't know if it's the keys player or who that wants to do the really long song. But you want to save the long stuff until you're already known.
As to your fiancé, yeah I understand that. My wife used to say we were "just being busy" when we'd take off and do some long song like that.
the tough thing about recording is you only have so long, just like she said, before people tuned out. Most people remember the hook, the melody, the chorus, maybe the bridge, and only other musicians really listen to all the cool fancy stuff where the guitar takes off for 8 minutes. That stuff really flies when you're playing live. But you check out someone like Joe Satriani or Eric Johnson, and even they, with some exceptions, have mostly "radio-length" songs of 3 to 4 minutes. Maybe 6 at the most, but not 25.
Just a few things to think about, from someone who was one of the worst offenders in my circle of musicians when I was a lot younger.
( long atmospheric intros are for MOVIE SOUNDTRACKS... )
