i came to dance: track lengths part 2

September 15, 2010 · by · in , ,

In my previous post, I talked about track lengths from 1970 to 1990. Now let’s look at 1995 to the present, in a few different ways.

First off, by DJ: Carl Cox and John Digweed are kind of out of favour right now, but they’re both very good and very evergreen. I took averages of three of their tracks from various years, taken from their Top 10s:

Carl Cox:
1995 // 6:17

  • Laurent Garnier – Astral Dreams (Carl Cox Remix): 7:08
  • Slam – Step Back: 6:30
  • Dave Clarke – Thunder: 5:12

2005 // 7:17

  • Cohen vs. Deluxe – Just Kick! (Carl Cox Remix): 6:41
  • Hiroki Esashika – Kazane: 5:49
  • Nick & Danny Chatelain – Is Killing Me: 9:22

2009 // 8:42

  • Sharam – Say Yeah: 9:17
  • Nic Fanciulli – 20%: 9:11
  • Steve Mac & Paul Harris – Dizzy Heights: 7:39

John Digweed:
1994/96 // 9:42

  • Bedrock – For What You Dream Of: 10:44
  • Morgan King – I’m Free: 8:00
  • Underworld – Dark & Long: 10:28

2000 // 11:54

  • Bedrock – Heaven Scent: 10:28
  • Science Department – Persuasion: 10:41
  • Raff ‘n’ Freddy – Listen: 12:39

2004 // 8:58

  • Dousk – Pa-Dida: 10:08
  • Spektrum – Kinda New (Tiefschwarz Dub): 8:15
  • Way Out West – Apollo: 8:32

2004 // 9:51

  • Giorgio Roma – Every Possible Mistake: 11:39
  • Bedrock – Aquatonic: 8:19
  • Maetrik – Choose Your System (Adam Beyer Remix): 9:37

This is more interesting: you can see Digweed going to town during progressive houses’ glory years, and you can see Cox slowing down from his frenetic 3-deck work as a rave DJ. Cox’s track length increases as well, which belies my previous thesis. On the other hand, John “Not a boring DJ” Digweed is back to his just-shy-of-ten-minutes length. So we have no conclusion here; more data would probably solve it.

But here’s more data!

Jungle Lengths // 6:38

  • Lennie D Ice – We Are IE: 7:45 (1991)
  • UK Apache / Shy FX – Original Nuttah: 5:10 (1994)
  • Renegade feat. Ray Keith – Terrorist: 6:16 (1994)

Dubstep Lengths // 5:29

  • Burial – Southern Comfort: 5:02 (2006)
  • Skream – Midnght Request Line: 5:04 (2005)
  • Digital Mystikz – Anti War Dub: 6:22 (2006)

Dubstep tracks are shorter than jungle tracks. Interesting, but perhaps obvious. Importantly, both averages are within the 5:30 to 6:30 range that the averages from 1970 to 1990 supported. One last point of data:

Daft Punk: Homework (1997) // 4:36 (75:53 overall)
Justice: Cross (2007) // 4:38 (48:13 overall)

TWO SECONDS difference in the average. This, for me, is the kicker. Attention span has never been that long, I just happened to get interested in dance music during the John Digweed 12-minute track period. But people have been freaking out to two and a half minute jams and twelve-minute epics since 1970, and will continue to do so.