track durations on promo material
Printed From: Top 40 Music on CD
Category: Top 40 Music On Compact Disc
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URL: https://top40musiconcd.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=9618
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Topic: track durations on promo material
Posted By: promojunkie
Subject: track durations on promo material
Date Posted: 18 June 2021 at 3:44pm
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There may have already been a thread on this topic. I've
often wondered why record labels often mis-timed the length of a track on promotional 45, 12" and cd singles. I'm not referring to one or one or two seconds off but big timing errors. A random example would be a radio edit track listed as 3:47 but the track was really 4:15. Was this intentional or just really bad attention to detail? Certain labels were more notorious than others. Anyone have theories or inside info? I've spent countless hours trying to track down certain edits only to find out it they don't exist... ------------- Rick |
Replies:
Posted By: thecdguy
Date Posted: 18 June 2021 at 4:12pm
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I imagine a shorter running time would be more attractive
to radio programmers because it would allow more time for advertising. There was a story about how The Righteous Brothers' "You've Lost That Lovin'Feelin'" was labelled as running 3:05 on the 45, and when it began to be noticed that it actually ran considerably longer, it was already a hit. ------------- Dan In Philly |
Posted By: Hykker
Date Posted: 19 June 2021 at 4:19am
Let's put to rest the notion that radio played edits (or pitched songs) to "fit in more commercials". They didn't. Why? It would be just as easy to play one less song. Top 40 has always been a fast-paced formats, and long songs can slow down the momentum. As far as mis-timed records (and commercial copies were mis-timed as well), I'm sure some of it was deliberate, other times a mistake. Then there were the songs (Fakin' It-Simon & Garfunkel immediately comes to mind) where the time was listed in an odd manner...in that case listed time was 2:74. Pitching is a different story...it was done to brighten up the sound, and make a given song sound "draggy" elsewhere. Of course that didn't stop stations (particularly in the 70s) from getting into "pitch wars", resulting into an all Chipmunks all the time scenario. |
thecdguy wrote:Posted By: PopArchivist
Date Posted: 19 June 2021 at 4:58pm
This happened more prior to the CD single. Though I have seen some CD singles contain listed times that clearly are way off. Billy Joel (the Entertainer if I recall) once commented essentially the perfect pop song is 3:05. If you will notice anything over 5 minutes usually has a label edit or a custom edit. Most recently songs are right around that 3:05 sweet spot they don't run long at all. The most recent Jonas Brothers, Ariana etc hit the charts between 2:45 and 3:00. Songs are not getting longer they are getting shorter. I also think back then if you said a single was 3:59 and it was 4:18 the DJ's might play it since it was under 4 minutes the theory goes. All I know is that I agree it makes it hard sometimes to know what the actual time is, unless you time the 45, cd single or source... ------------- Favorite two expressions to live by on this board: "You can't download vinyl" and "Not everything is available on CD." |
Posted By: torcan
Date Posted: 19 June 2021 at 9:46pm
I think that's definitely true. As a 45 collector, there were a LOT of singles released with a 3:59 printed timing during the '80s. I guess 4:00 was still a bit of a barrier back then. Interesting that songs were getting longer all through the '70s and '80s, and they're getting shorter again today. (Maybe "American Top 40" could go back to three hours again! :) ) |
Posted By: crapfromthepast
Date Posted: 25 June 2021 at 5:35am
A listener (reader?) from Italy sent the following info to me, regarding track durations on promo singles:
------------- There's a lot of crap on the radio, but there's only one http://www.crapfromthepast.com" rel="nofollow - Crap From The Past . |
Posted By: garye
Date Posted: 06 July 2021 at 10:15pm
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Most music directors at hit stations weren't fooled very
much by any label miss timing because when they added a song and carted it up, if the timing was wrong and the cart stopped before done recording, the reps would hear about that next time they would drop by the station. And most stations would time the song themselves before adding it. It might have worked with Juke Boxes, but usually not radio. Still never figured out why some did that, because it basically fooled no one. |