10 Best Rock Music Albums Under Half An Hour Long
Only got 30 minutes of time to spare? Fear not! These albums are perfect for you!
It's conventional wisdom that an album should be somewhere between 40 minutes and an hour long. In fact, 40 minutes was all an old vinyl LP could handle. CDs could do more, but the trend had already been established by that point.
Any single record over an hour can drag a bit. That's not to say there haven't been great albums over 60 minutes, but this is generally considered to be a bit self-indulgent. Equally, people can feel a bit short-changed if an album comes in at just over 30 minutes, especially if it costs the same as a record nearly twice the length.
Despite all of this, there are some fantastic albums out there that are all over and done with in less than a half an hour. One certain genre is the main culprit of this phenomenon - it stars with a "P" and rhymes with "chunk" - but that doesn't mean other subsections of rock music aren't allowed to get in on the fun.
If you're short on time, then why not try these albums that are epic in quality, not in length.
10. !!!Here Are The Sonics!!! - The Sonics
The Sonics are one of those bands who didn't get nearly enough love in their own time.
They achieved very little in the way of commercial success during their original 1960s run, falling apart towards the end of the decade when its members left to pursue other interests. In fact, Rob Lind, their saxophonist, decided he'd rather be a pilot in the Vietnam War than play with the band anymore.
However, sometimes genius takes a little while to be appreciated, and that's precisely what happened with The Sonics. Their hard-hitting, aggressive style of playing served as an inspiration for early punk acts, and groups like The Hives, LCD Soundsystem, and The White Stripes have all praised them more recently.
The group only released three albums during its original lifespan, the first of which being !!!Here Are The Sonics!!! from 1965. Yes, that's actually how the title was written. Mostly a collection of blues and R&B standards, the record also features the song The Witch, which was a very minor hit.
At just 28 minutes and 48 seconds long, it won't take you much time to indulge in this little piece of rock history.