Tom Rosenthal is a master of brevity. His 2015 album, Bolu, comprises 16 tracks and clocks in at just 39 minutes.
16 tracks in 39 minutes. That’s an average of less than two and a half minutes per track.
For comparison, 39 minutes wouldn’t even get you halfway through the Beatles’ White Album. Listening to the Led Zeppelin song Stairway to Heaven five times takes longer than listening to all sixteen tracks on Bolu. If you started playing Bolu on repeat at the same time that a friend started watching the “Lord of the Rings” movies, you could listen to Rosenthal’s album fourteen times before your friend was finished.
I could go on, but in the interest of brevity, I won’t.
What makes this a beautiful song:
1. The richness of the piano provides the majesty of a much longer song.
2. The hurried picking of the guitar acts like a stopwatch, as if to remind Rosenthal not to go overtime.
3. Rosenthal’s soft falsetto seems unhurried by the constant 16th notes in the piano and guitar.
Recommended listening activity:
Getting to the point.