Chromatica length is revealed on Google Music Store

[JustJames 903]

We are Gaga fans on a Gaga fan forum; I’m SO sick of having to feel bad about discussing my feelings - whether positive/negative or rational/irrational - here! No, we won’t “complain about anything.” We are fans who were excitedly awaiting our favorites next album and we just found out the length of it. It shouldn’t be surprising that opinions are going to vary - should we just sit silent until the 29th?

The idea of an album being totally digestible and cohesive so that streamers can listen to them in one setting is so myopic. An album isn’t made to cater to instant gratification and short attention spans traditionally; it is made as a commercial product that explores the artists evolution through a variety of sounds/lengths/influences/songstructures. 

Are people really going to tear apart Bad Romance or Edge of Glory? Sure, many BTW tracks had intros or outros that could’ve been trimmed, but we’d WILL never get complex storytelling like Gypsy, variations in tempo and instruments like Edge of Glory, or iconic climactic bridges like Bad Romance in 3 minutes. 

There isn’t a bridge to be found on Future Nostalgia or most Top 40 songs. Gaga herself said 3:30 was the ideal length for fitting in all of the elements of a pop song. 

The days of exceeding 4:30 on tracks aimed at commercial success are over; but for an artist like Gaga, 3:30 for singles and a mix of 3:00 and 4:00 for the remaining would be enough to fit her legendary songwriting into an album while mixing in shorter cute bops.

[PartySick 154,759]

1 minute ago, U-GO-BOY said:

 

please go listen to songs from the 50s and 60s. some of them were hardly over 2 minutes long

Because they had to fit on vinyl. Then cassettes (to a degree) and CD's came around and people made longer songs.

Now streaming success is geared towards shorter songs so we're returning to that.

Truly the 80s, 90s, and 00s will forever be remembered as a time where every song was a feast

[roy 1,216]

ARTPOP and born this way are 55 mins...

BUT WE'RE HERE FOR IT QUALITY OVER QUANTITY

[Miel 15,009]

Hey, the songs will do great on Tik Tok platforms. You could practically fit a whole Chromatica song in one of those little videos 

[Jed 7,716]

56 minutes ago, Maleficent said:

there are 16 tracks. period. also. if you don’t count interludes, 13 tracks 

Dude I just meant if you added up the time of the three interludes it would add up to another song so characterizing it as 16 tracks is disingenuous. That was all that I was saying. You can close your ****ing gif folder and go quote someone else 

[Maleficent 6]

7 minutes ago, Jed said:

Dude I just meant if you added up the time of the three interludes it would add up to another song so characterizing it as 16 tracks is disingenuous. That was all that I was saying. You can close your ****ing gif folder and go quote someone else 

okay i’ve clearly hit a nerve here but my point was that we shouldn’t discredit Gagas artistry by saying “well it’s not really 16 tracks bc....”

[Maleficent 6]

21 minutes ago, PartySick said:

Because they had to fit on vinyl. Then cassettes (to a degree) and CD's came around and people made longer songs.

Now streaming success is geared towards shorter songs so we're returning to that.

Truly the 80s, 90s, and 00s will forever be remembered as a time where every song was a feast

but the good thing is now so many more ppl have the opportunity to put their own music out there without having to pay the costs of vinyl and mass production! it’s just become harder to get recognized perhaps 

[Guest]

The lenght is really an issue here? If the song is good, the song is good, periodt  There's bad long songs and gold short songs 

And most of you want this album to top the charts, so here, you have streamable songs, you should be happy 

[Matt 455]

With Love Me Right, probably another 3 mins! And we still don’t know about the extra Japan track yet, or do we? Haha

[Daylight Jokers 14,958]

36 minutes ago, U-GO-BOY said:

 

please go listen to songs from the 50s and 60s. some of them were hardly over 2 minutes long

I know that, but let's not pretend the majority of songs from the 70's to the early 2010's aren't over 3 to 4 minutes. This trend of making short songs came back in the streaming era because people's attention spans have become short as they are now able to play songs from other artists whenever they want to easily.

[hijadeputa 3,897]

Why does it matter? Quality before quantity and I’m sure Gaga will deliever this time! I mean look at Billie’s album, it’s under 43 mins and it won an AOTY Grammy so 

[Reginald 13,840]

Other users have already summarized my thoughts about how the trend of popular artists writing shorter songs for longer/more frequent commercials, and higher stream frequency, has been coming for years.  

My favorite song right now is 6 and a half minutes long, so I'm like  Support your favorite independent artists making non-corporate music, as well

[Doot 2]

2 hours ago, erikaisamonster said:

gaga had a blast making it

um.

[Dayman 6,128]

23 minutes ago, JustJames said:

We are Gaga fans on a Gaga fan forum; I’m SO sick of having to feel bad about discussing my feelings - whether positive/negative or rational/irrational - here! No, we won’t “complain about anything.” We are fans who were excitedly awaiting our favorites next album and we just found out the length of it. It shouldn’t be surprising that opinions are going to vary - should we just sit silent until the 29th?

The idea of an album being totally digestible and cohesive so that streamers can listen to them in one setting is so myopic. An album isn’t made to cater to instant gratification and short attention spans traditionally; it is made as a commercial product that explores the artists evolution through a variety of sounds/lengths/influences/songstructures. 

Are people really going to tear apart Bad Romance or Edge of Glory? Sure, many BTW tracks had intros or outros that could’ve been trimmed, but we’d WILL never get complex storytelling like Gypsy, variations in tempo and instruments like Edge of Glory, or iconic climactic bridges like Bad Romance in 3 minutes. 

There isn’t a bridge to be found on Future Nostalgia or most Top 40 songs. Gaga herself said 3:30 was the ideal length for fitting in all of the elements of a pop song. 

The days of exceeding 4:30 on tracks aimed at commercial success are over; but for an artist like Gaga, 3:30 for singles and a mix of 3:00 and 4:00 for the remaining would be enough to fit her legendary songwriting into an album while mixing in shorter cute bops.

    Valid points, it definitely has got me thinking though.

 

   Radio edits of Bad Romance and The Edge of Glory are shorter and only negligibly missing parts [BR 4:21 and EoG 4:19]. They are a bit abrupt at points, but that's more due to the cut and splice job that happens during radio edits. Also Gypsy is only about 4 minutes long - that's still a length we still will see regularly. When a song is made from the start to be on the shorter side it means less will be cut and make it seem out of place when streaming or on the radio. Just look at Bad Romance and TEoG, there are no elements that are totally lost. If stems leak fans could extend a song into similar fashion and when live shows happen the songs absolutely can be lengthened to have more drawn out parts.

 

   Also there's TONS of short songs in her catalog with GREAT story telling progression. Diamond Heart is only 3:30 and just listen to that bridge alone - it's such a wonderful start to the album. Grigio Girls manages to tell a full and complete story in its lyrics with a full structure at only around 3 minutes. Perfect Illusion - I'll admit still feels short to me - but it has such a meaty bridge and breakdown at the end. Joanne was only 3:17 and is one of her most heartfelt and complete songs. Aura has significant structure change as the song goes on and rejects standard pop construction and is only 3:56. Some other fantastic songs under 4:00 are as follows.

Dope - 3:42

Black Jesus - 3:36

Sexxx Dreams - 3:35

Beautiful Dirty Rich - 2:52

Vanity - 2:56

Look What I Found - 2:55

Is That Alright - 3:11

Boys Boys Boys - 3:21

Paparazzi - 3:28

Angel Down - 3:49 [work tape 2:20 and arguably better and not missing any story telling of the final song]

Do What U Want ft Xtina - 3:36

The Fame - 3:42

 

 

On the flip side you also have a lot of songs that are quite long and could use some trimming down and it wouldn't be awful

Swine, one of her longest at 4:29, if the build up to the drops were cut in half each nothing would be lost and the time of the song would decrease greatly - she even performed it as such.

Highway Unicorn - 4:16. Shave off the first 15 seconds and the start would be more impactful I think and then the last 40 seconds are just instrumental that kinda can be trimmed and still have impact.

Government Hooker - 4:14. The first 33 seconds could have arguably just been an interlude before the song.

 

So the point being, with the use of interludes and shorter songs, we likely can get just as equally strong story telling as we always have and there's nothing to fear, if a song NEEDS the extra length she still can do it. If she wanted she could have trashed the interludes and extended out songs for the time on the album potentially to keep the run time about the same. We just gotta trust her, she's been doing this long enough I think we can handle that.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Gaga is Life 101]

Well as long as we get intros, pre-chorus, banger of a chorus (eg not just "I want your Stupid Love Love *beat plays*"), post-chorus, complex bridges and outros.

I have no doubt the noise being made will make me feel some quite nice things but it just won't be the same without what I mentioned above. Long live 4-5 minute songs.