Pop songs are getting shorter, but it’s about a lot more than lower attention spans

https://inews.co.uk/opinion/pop-songs-getting-shorter-about-more-than-attention-spans-1704396

Excerpts:

There has been a lot of chatter about whether pop songs are getting shorter lately. Music fans, musicians and publications all seem to be talking about the increasingly popular format, with Swedish pop star Tove Styrke recently complaining she’s “sick of everything being the exact same formula” because “everything is 2:30”.

From established acts such as Harry Styles to breakthrough artists such as R&B singer Chloe Bailey, artists do seem to be keeping their songs lean and mean as we hurtle into the summer of 2022. But why? With the cultural dominance of music streaming and short-form social media such as TikTok, are we all forgetting how to concentrate for more than three minutes at a time?

Research conducted by Microsoft has found that our attention span has indeed reduced from 12 seconds in 2000 to eight seconds in 2015. While that may be true, it doesn’t entirely explain this dramatic shift in the length of pop hits. But to understand the reasons behind song formats changing so much over the years, we first have to look back through history.

Data scientists from UCLA have tracked the reduction in song lengths back to 1990 – average duration four minutes and 19 seconds – using information taken from a 160K Spotify tracks dataset. They report that from 1930 to 1990 “there was a steady increase in mean song duration (3 minutes 15 seconds to 4 minutes 19 seconds),” and that in 2020, lengths of new releases on Spotify came in at 3 minutes and 17 seconds. A study by Manchester-based digital label Ostereo found that the average duration of number one songs in the UK in 1998 was 4 minutes 16 seconds. In 2019, that average was down to 3 minutes and 3 seconds with 2018 being the year when the biggest drop occurred despite the lack of physical constraints on duration for digital releases. And pop song analysts Hit Songs Deconstructed have also shown that in the first three quarters of 2021, 37 per cent of all USA Hot 100 Top 10 hits came in at less than 3 minutes.

Pop songwriting has changed fundamentally since the rise of streaming with the focus now being on songs being constructed from an endless succession of “hooks”, simple “ear-worms” that through repetition give the listener an easy route to song and artist brand recognition. According to Hit Songs Deconstructed, most hit songs are written by teams of five or more writers with “topliners” being drafted in to write those killer “hooks”. This modular approach to songwriting is very different to the methods used in the classic pop era of the 1960s and 70s when a song would take you on a melodic, harmonic and lyrical journey that would culminate at the chorus section in a joyous release of tension.

The recent success of Kate Bush’s hit from 1985 “Running Up That Hill” (4 minutes 59 seconds) seems to buck this trend towards shorter durations. The song has reached Number One on the UK and USA singles chart following its appearance in the latest season of Stranger Things, giving the reclusive artist her biggest ever global hit. Has its success been driven by nostalgia for a past that seemed simpler and better or are we simply getting bored with being bored and looking for a more enriching experience from our pop songs than many recent hits provide? With Harry Styles’ “As It Was” (2 minutes 47 seconds) also topping the charts at the moment, it seems that audiences want to have their cake and eat it, creating a pop diet that can contain both the fast food of Styles and Bad Bunny alongside Bush’s more nutritious fare.

Interesting that you mentions the sixties as an example of an era with longer songs. The early sixties definitely weren’t. Many songs by The Beatles (and other Mersey sound groups) were around 2 and a half to 3 minutes in length.

One difference I have noticed is that more modern songs seem to be verse chorus, same verse again chorus, chorus chorus. You might occasionally get a second verse, but the song structure and development seems to be lacking in many pop songs.

I remember a time back in The 1970's disco songs were quite long and most of them were about 10-20 minutes and some of them included Donna Summer, her song "Love To Love You" was nearly 20 minutes.

I LOVE this recent change, no more choruses being repeated more times than needed & no more forced bridges

Interesting that you mentions the sixties as an example of an era with longer songs. The early sixties definitely weren’t. Many songs by The Beatles (and other Mersey sound groups) were around 2 and a half to 3 minutes in length.

One difference I have noticed is that more modern songs seem to be verse chorus, same verse again chorus, chorus chorus. You might occasionally get a second verse, but the song structure and development seems to be lacking in many pop songs.


I was just gonna say, the average 60s hit was under 3 minutes in length.

It depends on the song, but some songs are good if the chorus is repeated, but for the most part, it gets old fast and you're like "Is the song over yet?" lol