- Music
- 23 Feb 18
Hip-hop superstars' latest effort hindered by excessive length.
Back in 2014, as more and more people moved away from buying or downloading to streaming albums, Billboard revised its ranking methodology for the charts. Now, the generally accepted system is that 1,500 streams of any artist’s song will equate to one album sale. The result is that musicians with an eye for commercial success have begun to package and produce their music in a different way. No longer are people talking in terms of easily digestible LPs with 10 or 12 songs – there’s a new numbers game to play.
The effect is that music production is geared more than ever towards being ear-catching (a song must be streamed for at least 30 seconds to count as a ‘play’, so there’s rarely much dilly-dallying with boring intros). The downside, however, is bloated albums that do little to merit excessive running times. For example, Chris Brown’s most recent album, Heartbreak On A Full Moon, has 40 tracks and clocks in at a ludicrous 135 minutes.
Culture II, the third release from torch-carrying hip-hop trio Migos, features 24 songs (no skits) and runs well over the 100-minute mark. And while, yes, it’s a powerful testament to their work ethic, it’s also painfully long. Indeed, for every storming tune, there’s another that should’ve been left on the cutting room floor.