Alright, so it's 2024 and for better or worse, there are shitloads of grind and gore releases coming out every month. That isn't what this rant is about, though - the target of today's whinge is the trend (hell, it's just the norm now) of newer bands releasing ever-shorter records, and why that's just no good.
Creatively, it just reeks of laziness. Integral to a solid record - whether it be a full length, split, EP or demo - is simply getting enough decent material together. Or is it? Doesn't seem the case half the time these days. I'm not gonna "name and shame", as the purpose of this is not to bring negative attention to any bands (haha, not like anyone's gonna read this anyway!) - I really like and actively support many of them that are guilty of this, which makes it all the more frustrating. Getting to it - it seems that a lot of newer bands' idea of how many minutes that make up a release of any kind has shrunk down to often below the bare minimum. How is it hard to understand that a grindcore full length shouldn't really be any less than 20 minutes? I'm not asking for metal-length albums, but c'mon... think of the best grind records from the beginning until around the late 2010s, and look at how long they were. It wasn't often that a solid full length only turned out to be 12-13 minutes. There are exceptions of course, but few called what'd fit on a 7" an album. The best records are mostly of a satisfying length, and it's not a particularly notable feature of them, it's just a given; part of the full package. Sure, that norm and expectation was established with the conventions and limitations of physical formats, but still - there's no reason to leave both sides of a split 7" half empty, or release a fucking 5 minute C-60 tape, especially nowadays when both vinyl and cassettes are shockingly expensive to manufacture and post (ESPECIALLY overseas). If you're going to put out something that's half the length of what everyone expects, at least do it on CD or CD-R so you can 1) get away with making them half the price (or less) of vinyl and tapes as they're dirt cheap to produce, and 2) it actually respects the DIY ethos by making music cheap and accessible to those who want it, as well as reducing reliance on the streaming giants. At a guess, I'd say all this came about because of the rapid influx of decent but cheap recording gear and being able to record something on a Saturday morning, then post it online and have it out to the world that afternoon. Maybe the temptation of having your stuff instantly available is greater than working on your record to completion now.
From a buyer's point of view - I am firmly millennial in age range and got into extreme music in the mid-'00s, so like the old guard, spent a shitload of money on trial and error music buys. Back then, a LOT of underground shit wasn't available online in mp3 form, so you still often had to take a gamble on whether the AU$20-30 CD (say $40-50 equivalent nowadays) was gonna be any good, and part of it was looking at the back cover, seeing whether it was an album or EP and whether that computed with the price sticker. On the internet, music was cheaper from distros, but for underground shit, you might only have an mp3 or two to go off - not like now, where you stream the whole thing before buying, to make sure you're getting your money's worth. This is not a point in itself but provides some context to the following - I feel like this trend of 12 minute albums, 3 minute per side 7"s and almost empty tapes is disrespectful to those of us (which, I like to think, constitutes the majority of the grindcore community) that actively support bands by not just buying t-shirts and merch (another rant for another time...), but buying the MUSIC, as on a dollar-per-minute level, we're getting shafted, especially if you have to import it, which is usually the case if you don't live in the US or larger European countries. Part of supporting underground music is NOT just listening to it on Spotify or YouTube (I think anyone regardless of their age could agree with this). All that shit is gonna go one day, and given that relatively few people even download mp3s anymore, it'll be worth having a collection that's not subject to the inevitable death of gigantic tech platforms. CD players, turntables and stereos are still in regular production and will outlast whatever service of the day that seemingly has everything (e.g. look at Bandcamp and its currently endangered status). So please, bands... put the effort in and make it worth us buying your shit.