I think this BBS skews Gen X/Boomer, in fact! 
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Maybe you wanted to do something at the end of Side A to encourage listeners to actually flip the record over and continue listening to Side B
The best example I’ve ever heard comes from the 78 RPM days, long before vinyl. Three minutes a side, give or take. The British band “Cheerful Charlie and his Stand-Easy Orchestra” ended the A-side of a record with the band chanting,
This is the end,
We don’t care!
Turn it on the other side–
More there!
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The Ramones’ debut album had a total playtime of 29:04.
The authors of these sorts of articles are searching for anything that they can link to current pop culture and make a bit of controversy to get the article to spread. If they can piss you off just enough to get you to share the link with your opinions attached, they’ve won the game you didn’t even realize you were playing.
Stop letting them win the game.
Why did you play?
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Billy Joel, 1974:
“It was a beautiful song but it ran too long
If you’re gonna have a hit you gotta make it fit
So they cut it down to 3:05”
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Thanks. I’m glad I’m not the only one.
As the author of the article, I’m genuinely unsure of what’s so controversial about it. “39 minute albums are not the result of TikTokification” and “music executives don’t understand how actual music works” are two of my more benign opinions…
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Or like when the band ‘Cub’ put 80 x 1 second tracks of a rocking chair squeaking, one track per squeak to mess with people who put the CD on shuffle.
I’m a bit confused by this post as well… You’re a musician, so I’m not surprised that a topic you’d be interested in writing about is the business of making and distributing music! You also write professionally, so of course you want people to read it… 
Also…
I doubt they were the only band to have a short debut album, either.
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Honestly I think this might be the main reason some artists started including a data track with weird macromedia presentations and/or quicktime videos on their CDs in the late 90s. Fill the space without having to record extra tracks in the studio.
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First thing that came to mind! Bravo! (and it’s a great song too!)
Was wondering about those the other day: how many of those tracks/games/etc. would still work (as-is, without a Win95 or OS9 emulator) if I put one in the CD drive?
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Everyone knows that the Ramone’s self-titled album was only 29 minutes to appease the TikTok crowd with Blitzkrieg Bop memes.
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As far as I’m aware though, Less Than Jake’s LOSING STREAK was the only album with a secret track before the first song.
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Very little of it, I would guess. At least you can still get a quicktime plugin for VLC though, so you could watch the very blocky lowres videos, at least.
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There’s an obscure Australian comedy album called “Aunty Jack Sings Wollongong”. Side one ends with Norman Gunston trying to repeatedly sing the final chorus of “Wollongong the Brave” while others are trying to interrupt him, explaining that they have to get onto the other side of the record. Their voices gradually fade as Norman is dragged away from the microphone and side one ends with a slamming door. Side 2 commences with the squeak of an opening door, followed by Norman approaching the microphone, still singing the chorus.
The opening lines of side one are:
Aunty Jack: Ow. Look where you’re putting that bloody needle. You just pronged me.
Thin Arthur: Don’t worry Aunty Jack. I’ll just push it out of the way.
(Sound effect of needle scratching across record.)
Side 2 ends with most of the cast being killed when another record falls on them from above.
“The Aunty Jack Show” was probably the nearest thing Australia had to Monty Python.
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“Did you hear they’ve brought back the death penalty for music company executives?”
“For what crime?”
“What do you mean, ‘crime’?”
I can’t manage to find original attribution for the quote, but I want to say The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy?
I remember thinking secret tracks were cool on my first player. Then I hated them when I moved to a changer, and loathed them when I converted my library to FLAC.
Although I still think hidden tracks on LPs are fun (locked or multi groves, under label etc…).
Right. I dunno if new releases are on average that long (74 minutes) but for sure I’ve seen a LOT of 90s albums that were originally released on CD only now being reissued (or rather issued for the first time) on vinyl. And they have to be double LPs.
I love vinyl (even though I know it’s mostly a novelty item). I personally don’t love having to keep flipping over and swapping out records to hear an album. It’s just so nice and tidy when an album fits on 2 sides of a single LP. It’s happening a lot because of those 90s records but I even get a little annoyed at the white album and all things must pass.
In my ideal world, automatic record changers would make a comeback and double records would be made with sides a and c on one record and sides b and d on the next. That way you could stack the records and only have to flip them once! I think some sets were made like that back in the day but it’s not super common. And I know vinyl purists will get mad at the potential damage my suggestion entails…
Not quite. They put a and d on one record and b and c on the next, otherwise you’d have to swap the order of the records when you flip them over.
