Are songs under 3 minutes the new industry standard?

[Chromatography 9,530]

i wish we would stop conflating length with quality.

[QueenGaga 3,447]

4 hours ago, MadreMonster said:

You should be blaming the generation that created streaming and not the generation simply using the tools they grew up with.

I’m not criticising or blaming Gen Z because I’m barely 19 myself. What i meant to say was the previous gen created the tools for it and this gen pretty much finished the music industry. I hope for change

[Sneaky Oliver 20,083]

Well, sometimes the artist can create this "complete" feel to a 2min-long song yet sometimes they do feel like something's missing. I've noticed that songs barely have intros anymore...like as soon as the song starts, the artist is already singing the first verse which's very annoying to me. 

[PsychoMaxcara 814]

2 hours ago, Sneaky Oliver said:

Well, sometimes the artist can create this "complete" feel to a 2min-long song yet sometimes they do feel like something's missing. I've noticed that songs barely have intros anymore...like as soon as the song starts, the artist is already singing the first verse which's very annoying to me. 

Exactly. I don't find the fact some songs happen to be 2 minutes long problematic if that's truly what the artist intended and that's the length that was required to get the message across... then so be it. But the moment all artists start making songs that are a certain length just so they are easy to stream -- that's the point when I feel like music was pretty much murdered and had the art sucked out of it.

Yes, not all 3+ minute songs are art and not all under 3 minute songs are commercial, but there's clearly a push toward making songs that hook the attention of the listeners straight away and get them from point A to B in an extremely short duration of time. It is very apparent to me on positions. A lot of the songs feel undercooked and underdeveloped because they suffer from having no real intro / a good bridge or killer ending. The entire album just kind of flows from one short song to another. Now, there's nothing wrong about liking this format, but personally, I'm not a fan.

[Lona Delery 7,177]

i hate this so much. what happened to intros, outros, bridges or even just a chorus? all stuff that seems to be missing lately, and Gaga is also following that trend. Songs that are shorter than 3:15 or something are just too short imo, they tend to lack somwthing special

[Curunir 7,510]

I don't think length affects a song's quality. Chromatica is also part of this trend in a way, yet the quality doesn't take a hit anywhere. 911, Sour Candy and Babylon hit the sweet spot in part due to their length 

[nickkoko 918]

Honestly I hope not. Sour Candy is a good example of a song that ended too soon and always leaves you wanting more. Songs should be > 3min I think.

[StrawberryBlond 13,279]

It looks like it won't change any time soon, the more that streaming becomes the way. Long songs are a turn off for many. Admittedly, even when it's an artist I like, when I see the tracklist is filled with songs well over the 4 minute mark, I do kinda grit my teeth a bit. I do amateur album reviews also, so I frequently listen to music by artists I'm not that familiar with and who I don't even like, but I do it for the love of music and to find hidden gems. Seeing long tracklists with long songs is intimidating and a bit tedious. Katy Perry once said something like how she hates seeing an artist has a new album out with 20 tracks at 1.5 hours long and thinks: "I've gotta go to work, not everything's about you, sweetheart!" and I'm inclined to agree. Chris Brown has made a habit recently of releasing albums consisting of over 30 songs, totalling around 2 hours in length. That's just arrogance. And no, I wouldn't like it if my faves did that, it's too much to take in and remember. So, in a sense, I welcome this new trend, it means that an album doesn't outstay its welcome if it's already not doing it for me, mercifully short and all that.

But at the same time, the ones I like are also succumbing to the shorter song trend. I wouldn't mind if it was just for a few songs but a whole album like this? I've frequently heard short songs that could have quite easily been longer, it clearly needs another verse or an intro/outro or an instrumental solo. It feels like something was taken out, if anything and it feels lazy. And there are some artists who make a point of making every song reasonably short. Meghan Trainor was the first one I noticed doing this - it's rare to find any song of hers that is 4 minutes or longer, same for Ava Max. And before he died, all xxxtentacion's tracks were super short, some were like 1:24 and suchlike. And they weren't intros, they were full-blown songs. His album, ?, had 18 tracks at just over 37 minutes long altogether. That's not my style at all but he at least revolutionised how long a song needs to be to be considered a song as opposed to an interlude. And I think this has definitely proved that TFM needs to be considered an album at this point. I have seen too many albums released by singers in the last decade of 8/9/10 tracks and total just over half an hour in length and they have no problem being called albums but TFM's status is still debated and after much to-ing and fro-ing is now officially listed as a re-issue/EP on Wikipedia, not an album. Ridiculous. Especially when Chromatica makes a point of stating on the promo as "Lady Gaga's 6th album."

Don't set out to make long or short songs. Just make them the length they need to be. If you want to follow this trend to make your singles take off in the streaming age, fine, but don't do it to all your album tracks. That's fine for casual listeners but your fans have waited too long for an album that barely clocks in at half an hour. Cue the classic joke: "I've had bowel movements that lasted longer than that!"