Once during my freshman year of college, I had a discussion with my roommate about CD's and their length.

This discussion took place not long after realizing that of the twenty country music CD's he owned, not one of them had a playing time longer than thirty-five minutes.

I was appalled. "What a rip!" I declared. I began a case study, using examples from my music collection. Soundgarden's Superunknown, for example, ran for 70 minutes. As did the Red Hot Chili Pepper's Blood Sugar Sex Magik. That his country music CD's cost the same yet had half as much music just seemed absurd.

His retort: "They're short but sweet."

I won't kid you, I thought that response was retarded. Especially when you factor in my roommate's Texan drawl.

But as the years have progressed, I've slowly begun to see his point. And, even more shocking, I'm starting to turn against the idea of the full-disc-length CD. I'm starting to think it's one of the things that's hurt modern rock in the last decade.

Dating back to the dawn of the modern music era, the concept was to use all of the available space in a music's format. And why not? The vinyl LP holds about forty-five minutes of music. (All but the longest "double-albums" of the day could easily fit today on one CD.)

In the days before I had a portable CD-player, I used to copy new CD's onto blank tapes to take with me on the road. And the 90 minute blank tape was always a frustration - you couldn't fit a whole album on one side. Usually, you'd end up with two or three songs on the second side, and have to figure out what other songs to throw on. It didn't dawn on me until later why the 90 minute blank tape became the standard. In the decades previous, most albums ran no longer than forty-five minutes. The 90 minute tape was perfect - two albums would fit perfectly on one tape.

With all of the sprawling opuses of the nineties, it was easy to forget that so many classic albums run about forty minutes. Most of the Beatles catalog, for example, runs less than forty. (The notable exceptions being the sprawling White Album, which runs over ninety, and Abbey Road. Even Sgt Pepper's comes in under forty.) My favorite R.E.M. record, Life's Rich Pageant, runs under forty, as do most of their eighties-era albums. Green Day's trillion-selling Dookie even comes in under forty.

In the sixties and seventies, it wasn't uncommon for an artist to put out a record every year. When you're writing records that run thirty-five to forty minutes, it's a significantly easier task. And an album a year is good for maintaining and/or developing a fanbase. In the seventies, if you were a Kiss fan, you knew you could expect a new album every year. R.E.M. did the same thing in the eighties, and it built them a very loyal fanbase.

There's an old industry legend that says the CD format was designed to be 74 minutes long specifically so it could hold all of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, a favorite of the wife of Sony founder Akio Morita. In the years since, artist after artist has tried their damnest to fill that space with something. It's there, might as well use it, right?

So instead of an album with two or three good songs and some filler, you get albums with two or three good songs and a whole ton of filler. Truthfully, I don't believe that the record buying audience would feel as ripped-off as they do now if the percentage of good versus fluff were higher. (I'm hoping that DVD-Audio won't catch on, simply to save us from someone making the first six-hour opus.)

The scary part for me is the realization of how few of the modern day ultra-length discs I really enjoy. I like Tool's Aenima, but half of its 70-minute-plus length is miscellaneous filler. And while I used Blood Sugar Sex Magik to defend my opinion back then, I can't say that I've ever really been able to listen to the entire thing all the way through. Even Superunknown has a few songs it doesn't need.

Most times, when it comes to really long discs, I end up getting used to the first half, then to the second half. Or some semblance thereof. And, to somedegree, that's not unlike having two records on one disc.

A multi-part article in today's USA Today comments that labels are having a tough time selling new bands to consumers. And why are the labels surprised? Bands now get one shot at making a record. If it succeeds, they get another chance. If it fails, goodbye. Their argument is that it's not worth throwing a ton of money at a band that isn't successful off the bat.

And why so many "sophomore slumps"? Bands usually have several years to amass an hour worth of material for their first record. When they get to their second hour-worth, they usually only have a year to put it together. So they pull out the songs that didn't fit the first record and write a bunch off-the-cuff. It's almost impossible for that process to produce an album as strong as the first.

My fix? Shorter records. Give new bands thirty-five minutes to fill. If the record bombs, give them another chance a year later. There's not nearly as much investment in the recording of the record, and it gives the band several chances to develop their sound. How many bands can really get it right on the first try in a real recording studio?

Plus, lower costs means lower prices at the store. Labels are currently losing money by charging $7.99 for CD's from new bands in an effort to get people to buy them. If the band takes off, they raise the price to make up the difference. If it never does, it's a complete loss. Lower production costs of a shorter CD would allow them to charge that little and not lose the farm in the process.

And it seems like shorter albums work for more than just new bands. The perfect example of this? Weezer. This year and last (on virtually the same day), they released albums that ran in the neighborhood of thirty-five minutes each. Thousands of music critics and college-age Chris Blackburn's cried foul. "What a rip!" And Weezer's laughing all the way to the arena. Their fanbase is bigger than it's ever been. And they're already planning the record that will come out next year.

At the same time, if a band wants to "experiment" with something completely different, the knowledge that another album is only a year away might keep a fan on board even if the experiment is a failure.

Which would you rather have? A new thirty-five minute record every year? Or a nearly hour-long one every other year? After all of these years of record-buying, I'm starting to lean towards the former. And, admittedly, I rarely notice when a good album is too short. But it's blisteringly obvious when a decent record is too long.

And while I might now concede my roommate that part of the original argument, I'm still not budging from the opinion that his taste in music sucked.