Weekly Track Roundup 2/21/23: Long Songs

Long songs for our longest roundup of the year so far. I made a fake post-rock album cover for the header graphic - sorry, Tortoise! (for the superficial layout similarities)

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Unknown Mortal Orchestra - “SB-09”

A long song needs a justification-- and dreamy instrumentals that sway between symphonic, dramatic, and simple make SB-09 worthwhile in its length.
-Liam Waldman

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Erykah Badu - “Green Eyes”

If you’ve ever felt insecure, you’ll love this song. It has so many moving parts and they coalesce beautifully.
-Jake Gale

this song has everything. denial? check. jealousy? check. one of the greatest mood switch-ups of all time? check. the unexpected old-timey jazz intro followed by Erykah Badu’s iconic neo-soul sound makes this one of her most standout songs.
-Kennady Cox

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Prefab Sprout - “I Trawl the Megahertz”

It's like a beautiful spoken word poem song that takes you on a journey. So so so beautiful and emotional and used to be my older sisters favorite song and named her DJ because of it.
-Julia Augustyn

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SpaceGhostPurrp - “Terror Gang” (ft. Kane Grocerys, Black Kray, Pollari, Fauni, SPLURGE)

This is one of the hardest trap songs of all time. LEGENDARY innovators like Black Kray, Purrp, and Kane Grocerys and more lay down slick flows and entertaining verses over a hypnotic beat (produced by Purrp). This is probably my favorite posse cut of all time.
-Lily Lazar

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Daft Punk - “Giorgio by Moroder”

It’s epic
-Oliver Sahlman

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Between the Buried and Me - “Human is Hell (Another One With Love)”

With everything from chugging tech-death riffs, to classic prog-inspired synth work, to thematic and narrative lyrics, to blast beats, to ethereal clean sections, to extended odd-time instrumental sections, to a dramatic, piano-driven chorus, Human is Hell has all you want in a modern prog-death epic. The classic BTBAM sound shines through in this gorgeous conclusion to the Colors II album. It will always have a special place in my heart.
-Raine Rosenblatt

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Kendrick Lamar - “FEAR.”

This song is a glorious feat of why Hip-Hop at its core is poetry. Kendrick uses literary devices and intricate schemes to describe what fear is and was to him throughout his life perfectly. I love this song and it’s one of many where Kendrick truly flexes his lyricism.
-Emmett Favreau

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Lana Del Rey - “Venice Bitch”

With a long song, the most important part is maintaining a sustainable energy. Venice Bitch does this perfectly by adding variety and trance. It barely feels like its length of nine minutes. Just sit back and enjoy my passenger seat princesses.
-Alexandra Taylor

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MGMT - “Siberian Breaks”

This song is an odyssey, and yet feels like it passes by in a moment. Every time I listen to it, I feel like I'm in a dream, taken away to another world. By far my favorite MGMT song. It's also twelve minutes long and that's cool.
-Elijah Davis

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Squid - “Narrator” (ft. Martha Skye Murphy)

post-punk ? more like wow this is a good song
-Lukas Shvetsov

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Billy Joel - “Scenes from an Italian Restaurant”

Three things about this song: 1) I love that it starts and ends the same way but goes somewhere totally different in the middle, 2) the way Billy Joel follows up "and they just didn't count on the tears" with "rock and roll!" is absolutely hilarious, and 3) it always reminds me of one of my best friends, so I can't not love it
-Maisie Wrubel

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Genesis - “Supper’s Ready”

i need boomer validation. also peter gabriel>
-Cecilia Dondorful-Amos

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Underworld - “Juanita : Kiteless : To Dream of Love”

17 minutes of heavy breakbeats, sharp synths, and pure sweat. absolute classic trance
-Max Levin

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King Crimson - “Starless”

This is one of my favorite songs of all time, and it has a quality that is only achievable through an extended runtime. The main verse/chorus is an extremely emotional, depressive passage, guided by interplay between a Soprano Sax and Guitar, underlined with a mellotron, and punctuated by interesting drum fills. It pans out like a normal song. Then comes the breakdown. This section in 13/4 starts with a simple, slow, plodding bassline and guitar plucking the same note over and over again. But as time goes on, drums begin getting sprinkled here and there, the bass becomes more overdriven, the guitar goes up a half step. Two minutes later we finally get a groove going, more percussion is added, and some beautifully unconventional drum fills pave the way for a chromatic walk up to the most disgusting, gnarliest, corroded piece of music in this universe at roughly the 8 minute mark. This build up creates the strongest involuntary stank face of my music listening career and I implore you to listen to this song and give it your full attention.
-Terry Brannigan

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Flyysoulja - “Head”

Travis Scott could never
-Cassandra Weigle