What grabbed my attention, as I held one CD in each hand from different eras of rock, was the fact that the 11 songs on Nickelback's "Dark Horse" range in length from 3:28 to 4:34. On the other hand, the Led Zeppelin album contains 9 songs that range in length from 2:13 to 8:28. Here's graph of the distribution of relative song lengths on these two popular rock albums from different eras.
This was a shocking revelation to me. Although this is far from a scientific analysis of how rock song lengths have varied over the years, it is still insightful. And, to me, it's an important indicator of how creative (or not) the two bands are in their song compositions.
This simple analysis begs the questions....how creative is the music you listen to (or write)? How many things stay the same, from song to song to song? How much is your music taste (from the standpoint of a listener or a song writer) locked in to the "same old same old"?
In this analysis, I measure one attribute: song length. There are many attributes of songs. But how many aspects of your songs are the same? The same style? The same verse/chorus/verse/chorus formula? The same key? The same tempo? The same 4/4 pattern?
I took a brief look at two representative albums and at one single aspect of their respective songs, the length. Obviously, songs can be measured on many different levels. Song length is just one of them. There are obviously many other important aspects of music. Hopefully, you'll start thinking about all the other aspects of music, too. Creativity is all about breaking boundaries, exploring new territory. It's not about doing the same old, same old. If you're listening to (or writing) songs of a similar length, then you've got your music blinders on. Open up. Think beyond the typical song structures. Don't get trapped in the same old, same old. Think beyond the boundaries.
Copyright ©2010 W.A. Blevins
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