Lately, I’ve been listening to a lot of Jazz and Al Stewart’s Year of the Cat album.  In fact, I had been listening to that album so much that I had to stop before I got tired of it, put it away and didn’t listen to it for another decade.  This, of course, led me to listen to the song “Time Passages.”  This song and “Year of the Cat” were his two big hits.  Both were huge sellers, both were over six minutes long, and Stewart initially thought that “Year of the Cat” was going to flop.  Part of his reasoning was the length of the song which made me think about standard times for songs and albums.

In the Sixties, the Beatles (until Sgt. Pepper’s) released two versions of every one of their albums.  The British version was 40+ minutes and the American version clocked in at just under 30 minutes.  Very often, they also had a different song order.  The discrepancy in time span was due to their perception of American attention span.  For some reason they were convinced that Americans couldn’t sit through a record that was more than a half hour long.  It seems that thinking would be more appropriate now than before.  It’s kind of weird that until Bob Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone” the standard time for a single was three minutes.  “Light My Fire” by the Doors was even edited to three minutes for the single version so it would receive more airplay.  Ironically, the full seven-minute version got more airplay than the single.  In fact, no one plays the three-minute version anymore.

Nowadays, very few albums (since the advent of CD’s and the digital age) are less than an hour.  Our movies are less commonly an hour and a half, many of them go well over two hours. Yet, the same people who watch these movies and listen to these CD’s, seemingly, can’t go two seconds without checking their cell phones and computers going from page to page.  Are we really in an ADD age?  Frankly, I’m not really sure.  Actually, I doubt it.

I really think it goes down to training and content.  We are trained by the media companies to expect certain things.  They are the laziest group I know of.  Yeah, they work hard.  They work the 50+ hour week.  But what do these companies really accomplish?  Movies tend to be more and more surface.  The comedies have a tendency to be base and shallow, other movies try to top each other for special effects.  It’s spectacle over substance.  And, if they’re really lazy, they remake an older successful film but cut out, completely change or water down the storyline.  This, to me, is Laziness (note the capital L).  But this is what the people want, right?  I’m not convinced.

There are lot reasons why there are many kids that say they don’t make any good music nowadays.  It’s mainly because you’ve got to dig for it.  It’s out there but the industry is not going to give it to you because they don’t want take any chances.  To them, art doesn’t exist unless you get a big monetary return.  Rather than respond to people’s taste, it’s safer to shape their taste so that they will take whatever is given to them.  When there are fewer companies (many names but many of them are owned by the same people), there are less choices.  Capitalism and free market economies are only as good as the amount of competition.  When you set up the rules so you always win there is no competition.  You don’t have to make things with substance if you make the standard based on distraction.

The more rushed you are, the less time you have to think (or relax for that matter).  So two hour movies are acceptable as long as you have enough loud noises, gore or flashing colours to distract you.  Hour long CD’s are acceptable if you can use them as background.  There’s nothing wrong with this occasionally but if this is your entire diet, your standard bearer, then there is no nutrition.  It all just simply passes blithely past.  Next please!  Nothing is special, nothing has any distinction or unique value.  Setting aside time to watch a movie or listen to a piece of music attentively has given me more than passively have something wash by.

Background is nice but having something that challenges you, that makes you think or concentrate, is infinitely more rewarding.  I’m not saying that one has to have these things all the time.  After a long day of work, rude people and insanity, it’s nice to have something to whiz past you.  It’s called comfort.  There different kinds of comfort just as there are different kinds of challenges,  what kind you choose depends on your mood.  But not having any challenges softens your mind.  Then you find yourself dissatisfied without knowing why.  There’s something missing.  We don’t all have to be geniuses but we are thinking creatures.  We hunger for things to ponder.  We desire to luxuriate in worlds not commonly visited.

Distraction can give some relief but too much is either being controlled or just insufficiently filling a void, in my opinion.

“It is only Knock and Know-All but I like it.” – Peter Gabriel