What is the Ideal Length of an Album?

At midnight on April 29th, Drake’s new album, Views, dropped.

Like most people, I stayed up that night listening to the record in full. But when it finally ended, some time around 2 AM, about 90 minutes after I’d pressed play, I thought — gee, what a long album.

A few months back, I was listening to an Isley Brothers LP— the one with their famous hit “That Lady Pt. 1 & 2” (recently reworked for the Kendrick Lamar single “I”)— and after about thirty-five minutes, less time than it would take to watch a new episode of House of Cards, the album came to an end.

I thought — gee, that’s a pretty short album.

3+3 was released on Epic Records in 1973, and while the sound certainly reflects the year, as this was still the time of afros, sequins and soul power, the duration also reflects the technology of its day. Back then, you could only hear an album on a 33 1/2 LP record, which could technically only hold 45 minutes of audio, split between two sides.

So, artists those days were limited by the delivery mechanisms available to them. The content fit the container. Without extra space, every track really counted. There…