Why Songs Are Getting Shorter Nowadays
If you love music to the point that you pro-actively search for new artists, bands, genres, and you like to check music from different eras, then you might have noticed a peculiar thing. I am talking about the fact that songs are getting shorter today compared to previous decades. It’s rare to see a track that is much longer than 3 minutes nowadays. It’s super rare to hear a song that is 5 minutes or more.
So why are songs getting shorter and shorter? The answer is multilayered of course, as there are several factors that play into this shortening trend. But the simple answer is this.
The music industry of today is designed to favor shorter songs. Music platforms and social media giants created a system that focuses on high replayability. The more times any given song is played in an hour the more beneficial it is both for the platforms and artists. From financial and popularity standpoint.
But it’s not only huge platforms life Spotify, YouTube, TikTok and others, who are responsible for the songs’ length getting cut. Artists are the ones who help drive this trend as well. After all they are the one who write and compose the tracks we end up listening to.
So how noticeable is this trend? Ans is it bad that modern music make cuts with each year?
How Much Shorter Are Songs Nowadays?
The songs are getting shorter, especially in the recent years. That’s a fact. There was a study that looked into the popular songs from 30s and till 2020s, analyzing the duration of tracks. The results show that:
- The average length of songs was increasing from 1930s (195 seconds) up until 1990s (259 seconds).
- From 1990s the duration of songs began to decrease. From 259 seconds to 243 seconds in 2010s.
- The most significant decrease took place from 2010s (243 seconds) to 2020s (197 seconds).
As the study pointed out the difference between popular hits in the 90s compared to modern tracks is very noticeable. It used to be 4 minutes 31 seconds, but now the average track is only 3 minutes 28 seconds.
That’s a whole minute gone. Cut and thrown away. Just imagine what magnificent sounds got tossed out of the window to accommodate to this shorter duration!
But in all seriousness, this is a considerable change and you might wonder what caused it.
The Reasons For Shorter Tracks
There are multiple reasons that lead to songs becoming shorter. The cultural trends, technology progress, industry standards, artist preferences. But the major two are music streaming platforms and artists themselves.
Streaming Services and Platforms
The main reason today’s songs getting slimmer and slimmer is because of the way music industry overall has changed. To be fair it always preferred shorter tracks if we look at history. The radio stations never liked longer compositions and short songs were more popular on the rotations.
So unless you were THE Band or THE Artist of your time, you had to cut the original song to make it more radio-friendly. That’s why when you go through someone’s discography you might stumble upon different versions of the same song. One would be a full-length version and the other a radio edition. The latter was always less lengthy. Radio stations typically aimed for 3 minutes, so that’s what most radio edits are around.
But when the internet became a steady part of our lives and streaming services overtook the leading role of how music is distributed and played, things began to change even more. People could easily jump from one track to another, skip the track. So it became essential to grab listener’s attention very fast and don’t make it long. Because the probability to lose the listener increased.
You may think skipping is not such a big deal. But studies show it is. Here’s some fascinating data from this research:
As you can see half of the songs are never listened till the end. And almost half are skipped in the first 30 seconds. And that directly effects the paycheck of record companies and artists. Because on platforms like Spotify if the song is played less than 30 seconds, it will not count as a “play”, therefore the royalties are not applied.
Many users when they hear a song which is long may choose to skip it right away. With ever more progressing short attention span of most internet users, this is a very real situation. So it was only natural that companies tried to adapt and maximize earning potential with short songs.
Artists
Artists realized that change as well, obviously. And many chose to adapt to the shifting market by making their music more marketable and more “consumer friendly”. After all they are part of the business and want to make money with their work.
It doesn’t mean that this is a very strict requirement and everybody follows it. But many do keep the track length in mind when writing lyrics and composing music. Especially if producers are constantly pushing for shorter songs.
Some artists are actually happy to embrace this attitude. The shorter the song, the less effort goes into writing them. Plus with how repetitive lyrics become there’s no point in adding the same verse a few more times.
Exceptions From the Rule
Of course the trend is not an iron rule. There will always be exceptions. Mainly among musicians who are not ready to compromise the integrity of their music for the sake of its run-time, or the chances of their music getting more air time.
Also big music stars and popular bands can afford to spend as much time playing the song as they want. Earning max amount of cash per each song may not be their highest priority.
Some genres also seem to be less influenced by this trend. Take Rock for example. Rock bands often have long songs. Unlike pop genre where artists are often more heavily controlled by labels and producers, rock industry tends to be less regulated.
Is This Trend Bad For The Music?
No one says short songs are bad or worse than longer ones. There are thousands of iconic hits that are under 3 minutes. Just as there are plenty of unnecessary long songs that are not really worth the time. It all depends on the particular artist and particular song.
But as soon as the artist artificially makes the song shorter by sacrificing the lyrics or the musical structure, then the song’s quality starts to suffer. And we as music fans are getting screwed.
When the artists focus on their artistic expressions and don’t prioritize play duration, we are fine. If they think a short 2 minute song delivers all they want to say, that’s OK. If they believe 10 minutes are need to fully express themselves, that’s also OK. In the end we, the fans have the power to decide what we listen and thus give the ultimate feedback.
Here are some examples of songs that last way more than 3 minutes, and yet it did not prevent them from becoming iconic hits beloved by millions. On YouTube alone these songs were viewed hundreds of millions of times, sometimes Billions.
Adele – Rolling in the Deep – 2,507,235,414 views
Ed Sheeran – Perfect – 3,728,197,524 views
Metallica: Nothing Else Matters – 1,366,076,515 views
Conclusion
Music is an ever-evolving art. It has always been a way to express and share one’s emotions and thoughts with others. And while it is true that music industry has changed a lot, especially in the last 20 years. And it is a fact that it did become more profit-oriented and commercialized. But the art of music remains the same in its core. It’s up to the artists and us the listeners how we react to these changes.
