My Short List of Long Songs, From Mastodon to Iggy & the Stooges
Unless we are talking about something from the Ramones or other to-the-point smithereens, three-minute songs written for the sake of getting on the radio are mostly damn lame, in my humble opinion. In this dumb music age where pop and rock radio has dictated so much to the artist, let me introduce to you, some epic long jams that fly in the face of this dictate.
Iggy Pop Duff McKagan's column runs every Thursday on Reverb. He writes about what music is circulating through his space every Monday.
"The Last Baron" (Crack The Skye), Mastodon: Clocking in at 13 minutes, TLB is a grand-scale rock vision quest. I for one am glad that Mastodon will be out this fall with Alice in Chains and the Deftones. Three bands that could all give a crap about a three-minute song.
"Three Days" (Ritual do lo Habitual), Jane's Addiction: This song, written about a three-day drug binge, has everything that an epic rock song SHOULD have: Spoken word, guitar solo, drum break, fast parts, slow parts, and of course... a bass guitar break!
"Fun House" (Fun House), Iggy and the Stooges: Then of course, there is the rollicking, 8-minute jam put there just to make a record long enough so that a band can get out of its record contract...
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