Not voting for any song longer than six minutes OR shorter than two and a half minutes.

I hereby win the discourse.

I have no qualms skipping a track before it’s finished. Some pieces just really are not your cuppa and that’s ok, not everything is gonna be. You don’t have to force yourself to sit through something you clearly hate, regardless of if it’s 2 mins or 20 mins.

There’s no points or rewards for sitting and suffering through every second of every track

I’m torn - I like to listen to songs multiple times before I make a decision but I don’t really have the time to do that in full. So I do tend to listen to half the song and eliminate songs so I can do full listens towards the end

I would join more listen throughs but as someone who sends mostly pop (and I have mentioned this before) the comments can be quite demoralising

38 minutes ago, Herbs said:

I’m torn - I like to listen to songs multiple times before I make a decision but I don’t really have the time to do that in full. So I do tend to listen to half the song and eliminate songs so I can do full listens towards the end

I would join more listen throughs but as someone who sends mostly pop (and I have mentioned this before) the comments can be quite demoralising

I wouldn't let it discourage you too much. Remember, listen sessions usually represent only around a quarter of the participants at most, so they're not necessarily representative of how the contest as a whole will vote!!!

Tbh if a song doesn't catch my attention in a minute or 2, I skip ahead to see if it gets better and then usually remove it form my list No need to ban them, just skip through them.

But I am all here for dragging the long songs, keep going popsisters

if y’all want to feel vaguely disappointed by 2 minutes of fleeting pleasure just open up Grindr

Edited Tuesday at 04:523 days by dhwe

10 hours ago, Herbs said:

I would join more listen throughs but as someone who sends mostly pop (and I have mentioned this before) the comments can be quite demoralising

Lots of pop songs are praised during listenthroughs.

That poor underrepresented niche genre the kids call pop.

8 minutes ago, pavi said:

Lots of pop songs are praised during listenthroughs.

That poor underrepresented niche genre the kids call pop.

I’m my experience I haven’t got that feeling! But each to their own

Sorry for being annoying but I’m switching, get ready for a very Porter/Ninajirachi sounding song

if I’m gonna DNQ at least I’ll do it with some personality

Just now, Herbs said:

I’m my experience I haven’t got that feeling! But each to their own

How many sessions have you attended though? Apart from an occasional ‘omg this is bad’ comment from me, people are extremely polite with what they say there. The worst you would get is ‘this is not for me’.

If more of the fellow pop hoes join then maybe it wouldn’t feel as skewed. It definitely doesn’t feel this way in the votes.

13 hours ago, Iz様 🌟 said:

A song being judged by its length is a little odd,

"It's not the length, it's what you do with it"

1 minute ago, J00prstar said:

"It's not the length, it's what you do with it"

And what Elëdan will do with it is 8 minutes of ambient drone noises followed by 5 minutes of melody-free vocals over a repetitive unchanging dance beat

+18
+18
+18
+18
+18
+18
+18
+18
+18

should i be extra rude in listenthrough

This thread has become too long since I last read it

(maybe another coffee will help with reading it - certainly seems like a valuable discussion)

I don’t think there’s really any doubt about this in the first place but just to quite simply shut this off as a mod - we will never be blocking songs from being sent because of their length and I don’t think any of us would sign that off.

I think policing what people send (outside of the veto system which is simply to do with perceived fairness rather than taste) is not a direction any of us would want for the contest.

And in the same breath - nobody needs to feel guilty for skipping through songs that they don’t enjoy. I certainly don’t, it’s my time to choose what I want to do with it 😂

If a long song doesn't hold my attention in the first minute or so then I skip it, I guess that's the risk the sender takes knowing a lot of people won't be willing to give it the full duration. Knowing there's a long song coming up does make me dread it a little rbh. That being said, I do think some people send long songs so they're intentionally taking up a chunk of the run time or just to be different. It sometimes feels like a contest on who can send the longest song. Each to their own etc but I wouldn't be opposed to capping songs at 5/6 minutes as then I could fairly listen to everything and overall run time of the semis/final would be reasonable.

Guys chill out please 😭

I'm only aware of one very long song being entered so far and while the rest will of course be fully randomised, I'm minded to put it at the end of the running order of whichever semi it's allocated to for the purposes of the listenthrough. I believe that's what's been done before.

We've had an 11 minute winner before. I don't think any participant known for entering long songs really does so consistently. I think how well they do and indeed whether they are entered at all is really judged on the merit of the song rather than on the length in its own rite. I'm perhaps a bit biased this time because I know and love the long song that you will find out about on Thursday evening (hopefully).

The only qualms I have about long songs are ones that are made up of entirely separate sections that are so disparate that they aren't really cohesive, at which point it may as well be an album or a mixtape, but I can't even think of an example here. And you have wonderful long songs that are the opposite of that like Sufjan's Impossible Soul which has lots of varied sections while bringing back so many recurring elements in a way that could only work as a long song.

9 minutes ago, uhsting said:

should i be extra rude in listenthrough

"this is not very gen z"

25 minutes ago, Harve said:

I'm only aware of one very long song being entered so far...

And if you want to veto me for it that's fine too! (In fairness it doesn't need to be that long it could have been shorter). I might reconfirm.

Whilst I do think people should submit songs they love or mean a lot to them, there is obviously a small part of the contest which is people sending stuff to deliberately be subversive and in occasions like that it's obtuse. Not pointing the finger at anybody specifically in general/this contest but it is something I've noticed in the past that a few nations like the shock value/edgy/pretentious sort of thing to show off.