Double Albums

[cwr]

It's interesting that EC has made a point of emphasizing that National Ransom is a double LP-- in a smart bit of salesmanship, he'a using the line that he's "tricked" the powers that be into releasing a double album at the price of a single. Not a bad strategy in these cash-strapped times.

But it occurred to me that this is, in fact, his SECOND double album in less than a decade-- 2002's When I Was Cruel was also a double album, issued on 2 LPs. As much as I genuinely enjoy WIWC, National Ransom I think will end up with a much higher placement in the Costello canon when all is said and done.

I think Brutal Youth would have also been a double album, but unfortunately it's one of only three EC albums that never got a vinyl release (Kojak Variety and Painted From Memory are the other two. I wish EC would make it happen.)

Am I missing any others?

[jardine]

momofukufueku was double vinyl

[bronxapostle]

yeah, why not....YEP ROC just released the three NICK LOWE albums never released on vinyl previously: IMPOSSIBLE BIRD, DIG MY MOOD and CONVINCER! yeah, those three you mention are the only ORIGINAL RELEASES that i believe never made it to vinyl. also, CRUEL SMILE and MY FLAME BURNS BLUE if you'd agree to include these. FOR THE STARS also was pressed on vinyl, but NEVER appears. i wish it would appear in my house along with BRUTAL, KOJAK and PFM!

[bronxapostle]

momofukufueku was double vinyl

and RIVER IN REVERSE and DELIVERY MAN!

[cwr]

My god, you're right! Can't believe it slipped my mind how many of those records were double LPs!

I guess it's because WIWC made such a huge impression on me when I ordered the vinyl-- wow, Elvis made a DOUBLE album!-- whereas I don't really remember having much of a reaction when TDM, TRIR and Momofuku came out on two platters...

And I forgot another 2LP set: Secret, Profane & Sugarcane!

So this is EC's THIRD double album in less than three years!! And it was released on the same day as a 4-song EP and an iTunes bonus track. (And you just KNOW that there is at least another EP's worth of material from these sessions that will no doubt emerge in some form or another...)

[Jeremy Dylan]

He's Got You hasn't surfaced anywhere - are there any other offcuts from the T-Bone session that we're aware of?

[sulky lad]

I'm not sure I agree about the last three albums being double albums
Only heavyweight prog rock bands in the 70s released double albums with 3 tracks or less on each side of vinyl. The real judgment as to what's a double album should surely be about length of album. After all, most "hi-fi" aficionados would probably say both Get Happy and Taking Liberties ( at 20 tracks each should have been doubles ( as my promo "EPs" for GH testify !)

[jardine]

time-wise, the beatles white double was around 92 minutes. and the single sgt. peppers was 34.

remember when get happy!!came out and the word was that they were putting too much info. per side of the l.p.? used to be 15, 16 minutes max., and i think g.h. was 20ish

n.r. is what, 63 minutes total? which is just over 15 minutes a side. but back in the day, songs were rarely over 3 minutes, so 7 a side was usual for beatles lps. i guess that is why this doesn't quite seem double in terms of numbers of songs, but does in terms of playing time...??

[cwr]

Actually, a quick gander at the running times listed on the Costello wiki reveals that-- and I would not have guessed this-- EC's longest studio album is:

SPIKE, at 64:29!

Followed by WIWC in 2nd place (63:02), TJL in 3rd (62:50) and National Ransom rounding out the top 4 at 62:34.

TDM, BY and KOA all edge close to the hour mark, but Momofuku, TRIR and SP&SC are all under 55 minutes. Even Get Happy!! is on the short side, about the same length as ATUB, which surprised me.

Unless my recollection is faulty (and judging by this thread, it likely is), I think both Spike and The Juliet Letters were issued at single vinyl releases, weren't they?

I guess the most important factor in this, then, is whether Costello envisions the album as split into four sides or not.

[jardine]

spike was certainly a single. never bought letters in vinyl

[And No Coffee Table]

The Spike CD is 64:29, but the vinyl is "only" 61:10, since "Coal-Train Robberies" was a CD/cassette bonus track.

[jardine]

p.s. that makes spike almost double the length of revolver.

i remember when mc.cartney started doing solo stuff, the real issue for me at the time was that sometimes his songs were pretty good even though the quality certainly did dip, but they were 4 minutes long or 5, so i'd get through two verses and a chorus and there would be two more verses and another chorus to go before the song was over. Eleanor Rigby was 2:08, For No One was 2:01. i remember when three minutes was considered "long" and A Day in the Life at over 5 minutes was consider EXTRAORDINARILY long.

[cwr]

Of course! Well-remembered, ANCT!

I supposed Spike is one of those rare instances in EC's catalog where the vinyl edition is not the definitive version of the album! (Spike without "Coal Train Robberies" is simply NOT Spike to me. Without it there between "Any King's Shilling" and "Last Boat Leaving" the end of the album is too dirge-like...)

When EC gets around to issuing Brutal Youth, Kojak Variety and Painted From Memory on vinyl for the first time, I guess he can also put out Spike as a double LP with "Coal Train Robberies" reinstated!

[wordnat]

the concept of a "double album" no longer applies, and hasn't for years -- album length (or 45rpm song length, etc.) has always been dictated primarily by format. if CDs would have been around in 1966, "Revolver" would've been an hour long, and the white album would've run nearly three hours a la "Use Your Illusion" or some other similarly bloated, indulgent mess....

so to call WIWC or TJL "double albums" is inaccurate -- they're merely "CD-length" releases.

[cwr]

Well, to a certain extent, the concept of a SINGLE album no longer exists-- more often than not, people are listening to everything in "shuffle" mode.

I say if EC conceives of an album as having four "sides", then it's a double album. But it means less than it used to, because most people aren't listening to it that way.

There's no question that once we get into the CD era, Costello's albums get longer, and that was dictated by format more than anything. But it's not "inaccurate" to think of WIWC as a double album-- it was sequenced to have four sides, and if you buy it on vinyl that's how it plays... Having said that, I have no idea where side 1 ends and side 2 begins on most of my CDs of albums from the vinyl era, so it's more a bit of trivia than anything meaningful in terms of how I listen to those songs...

[Poor Deportee]

I'm not into vinyl, mostly for reasons of pocketbook - I do think much was lost as well as gained in the lurch to CDs and beyond - but I'd actually defend the shorter running-times of the albums of yesteryear. There is something to said for the contraint imposed upon artists by the old-time limits of what, 40-50 minutes or thereabouts; it can serve as a barrier to them stuffing a record with material they're fond of, for whatever reason, but which doesn't really come up to standard when viewed more objectively. (The tedium of the two 'Dusts' on WIWC, or the bloated extended mix of 'Alibi', would be good cases in point). The constraints force them into some virtuous hard choices. Then again, one need only consider the ravages that Dylan wreaked upon albums like 'Shot of Love' and 'Infidels' to know that the process can also have perverse effects. Still, I frankly find most albums these days too damned long. (I have the same feeling about song length incidentally. Nothing I love more than a tune that does what it has to do and pisses off in, say, 2:30! - that says urgency and pop discipline to me, as a rule).

[wordnat]

well said, PD!

[sulky lad]

Yeh, PD,I agree, get to the point in 2 minutes 59 as The Clash said on Hitsville UK

[Top balcony]

Although incomparable (got my retaliation in first there) for comparison The Ramones would - Hussein Bolt style - routinely cross the line in under two minutes.

Colin TB

[krm]

Although incomparable (got my retaliation in first there) for comparison The Ramones would - Hussein Bolt style - routinely cross the line in under two minutes.

Colin TB

*big smile*