What I mean is this: For bands that I actively listen to that are putting out albums nowadays, like DT, Neal Morse, Transatlantic, Epica, etc., it seems like those bands not only put out LONGER albums, but also have more CONSISTENT albums with less songs that feel like just "filler." It is common to pick up a DT album, for example, and really like well over half, feel like more than a quarter of it is solid, and only feel lukewarm to less than a quarter of it.
"Back in the day," a good album had 10 tracks, of which 2-3 would be really strong, 2-3 would be solid, middle-of-the-road tracks, and the remaining almost half of the album would be weaker "filler" that was just there, in most cases.
There are definitely exceptions to the rule on both sides of my arbitrary dividing line. But it was just an observation from a lot of what I listen to now that it just seems like we more frequently get more bang for our buck with more consistently solid albums nowadays.
The tangent that got me off on this line of thinking, for what it's worth, is when I was scrolling through my music player this morning and got to Lacuna Coil's latest album. And I started thinking to myself, "You know, they are a good 'hits' band. I can go through most of their albums and pick a small handful of songs that I actively want to listen to at any given time, and the rest of the album bores me. THAT'S SUCH AN '80S THING!" So...just thought I'd throw this poll out there for you all to vote in while I'm busy here making my Lacuna Coil mix tape.