Eight minutes

I'm a bit fixated on songs longer than eight minutes. I don't know why, but it seems like an important threshold (in my music collection anyway).

Songs over eight minutes can achieve a spacey groove that eludes shorter songs. The song structure isn't confined to verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-solo-chorus. There's musical and thematic breathing room, so to speak. I could go on.

Anyway, I put together a playlist of the best long songs from my catalogue. I tried to follow these rules while assembling the list: no repeat artists (because it would be easy to have multiple Mogwai or Yo La Tengo songs), a limit of 10 songs in total, and (of course) no song under eight minutes.

I was also trying to hit the two-hour mark, but I couldn't manage it without a sacrifice in quality (e.g. I would've had to include Tony Robbins' "Get the Edge Day Two, Creating Unstoppable Self Confidence").

The playlist is 1 hour 47 minutes in total. The songs, including length, are:

1. The Frigid, Frigid, Frigid Body of Dr. T. J. Eckleberg - Yume Bitsu (18:29)
2. Spectral Mornings - Cornershop (14:24)
3. Spec Bebop - Yo La Tengo (10:40)
4. Milano - Sigur Ros (10:24)
5. California One Youth and Beauty Brigade - The Decemberists (9:50)
6. 2 Rights Make 1 Wrong - Mogwai (9:31)
7. There's No Fucking Rules, Dude - !!! (8:49)
8. Return to Patagonia - Lemon Jelly (8:41)
9. Protection (Radiation Ruling the Nation) - Massive Attack v. Mad Professor (8:34)
10. Stay Home - American Football (8:10)

You can get seven of the 10 songs as an iMix, or for a limited time you can download them here (Zip, 150 MB).