Why are songs so short these days?

[Anderson123 42,220]

So you can listen to them twice.

 

[Controversiaga 15,339]

It’s been like this for the last 8 years .. you’re just noticing??

[Ladle Ghoulash 49,009]

50 minutes ago, Anderson123 said:

So you can listen to them twice.

 

Comes and goes so quickly without a single impression being made. Oh Sour Candy, the permanent sonic and compositional liminality you are!

Edited Saturday at 03:10 PM by Ladle Ghoulash

[MOT 3,570]

It's just how the world is these days. People have very short atten

[Hadrian 2,303]

To get more streams. 

Stan: "Hey, I like this song!"
Song: *ends*
Stan: *plays song again*

[bxr 1,944]

Not sure if they answer the question, but just a few sources for reference / consideration …

Spoiler

Lady Gaga fixes me with a withering stare.

I’ve just asked her a simple, but apparently impertinent, question: "What’s the perfect length for a pop song?"

"Whatever length the artist wants is the perfect length," she intones.

It's a fair answer, but the charts suggest otherwise.

Songs got drastically shorter in the streaming era. But new BBC research shows that trend is over... [ Source ]

 

Spoiler

Songs are becoming shorter as artists tailor their tracks to fit the algorithms of TikTok and Spotify, where quick hooks and replay-friendly formats drive plays and chart success.

“Artists, especially new young artists, are simply just creating hooks and trying to circulate those on TikTok,” professor Andrew Mall, who studies music and media at Northeastern University, told The Washington Times. “And if that moment seems to be grabbing people, producers just say: ‘Let’s flesh out the whole piece in that case.’ That’s what’s getting popular.”

A 2020 report by Samsung projected that the average hit song by 2030 may be roughly two minutes, half the length of a hit from the 1990s.

Experts say the shift toward brevity is driven primarily by two leading platforms: TikTok and Spotify. On TikTok, a 10-second snippet can launch a song onto the charts. On Spotify, payouts are tied to listeners exceeding the 30-second mark, a metric that shapes how songs are built.

“Spotify only pays royalties if a listener sticks with a song past 30 seconds,” Mr. Mall said. “Producers and songwriters … are strategizing around that. By putting the hooks at front, by making it really engaging musically.”

To survive, artists lead with the hook and ditch the slow build. The Lantern reported on one study that found the average intros had shrunk from more than 20 seconds in the 1980s to just five seconds.

The result is a flood of short, hook-heavy tracks designed more for virality than musical exploration. Audiences are adjusting, often skipping to the next track if the first few bars don’t deliver.

“If you don’t have the attention span to listen to the whole song … just play the few opening bars, and that’s the catchy part,” Mr. Dubnov said. “Who cares about the rest?”

The shift isn’t purely cultural; it’s technical. Streaming platforms use predictive algorithms that reward songs that match listener behavior. Short songs are played more, repeated more and recommended more, which encourages artists to keep trimming.

“It also allows us to build powerful predictive models [genre, mood, etc.],” said Dorien Herremans, music researcher and professor at Singapore University of Technology and Design. “This predicted metadata and the similarity metrics between songs can then be used in an analytics system to predict the kind of content that users like, as well as finding similar music for recommendation.”

Put simply, short songs fit the system better. They perform better, and they make more money. More people can create them, too.

“With TikTok and with AI tools, and with the idea that everyone can compose music and share music, it’s almost like … the consumer becomes the producer,” Mr. Dubnov said.

However, accessibility comes with trade-offs. Songs are shorter and simpler and often disappear into algorithm-crafted playlists rather than stand apart. [ Source ]

 

[Blackout19 15,329]

4 hours ago, Controversiaga said:

It’s been like this for the last 8 years .. you’re just noticing??

I've been busy promoting Free Woman

[StrawberryBlond 15,446]

Apart from labels encouraging artists to do this to appeal to audience's lower attention spans and to heighten replay value, a big part is simply that shorter songs require less effort to make. A lot of these short songs now are just a short verse then a chorus repeated twice and that's about it. Songs are containing fewer and fewer lyrics because they're written quickly and easily. You can just tell so many of these songs were written in a few minutes and were deemed good enough. Do that a few times over and you've got at least half an album's worth of material already. This work ethic then means albums can be churned out quicker, which means more money. It's all profit driven. The more things change, the more they stay the same. 70 years ago, these song lengths were normal, now the trend has come back around again. I can only hope it dies out again. It's such a disappointment when a song had so much potential but was sadly relegated to being merely mid because it just didn't have the time to develop into something better. 

[Junko Enoshima 4,411]

I’m looking at you, PINKPANTHERESS.

[Junko Enoshima 4,411]

All 8 minute-long songs I’ve listened to were all excellent and truly an experience, but I can’t say the same for -3:30 songs.

[Roughhouse Dandy 13,357]

A pop song shorter than 3 minutes isn't a song. It's an interlude. Bring back song making. 

Edited yesterday at 01:45 AM by Roughhouse Dandy

[Starmie25 22,373]

16 hours ago, Helxig said:

Music labels don't care about art they care about is what the data says, and money.

[Helxig 45,038]

I also have one more thing to say on this matter! I think it's not the length of the song that matters so much, but how long it feels to listen to, and mostly importantly, if it feels like a fully fleshed out song

My gripe with a lot of these 2 minute songs is that they feel incomplete. I can't stand the elimination of the bridge in modern pop songs. A song is generally supposed to go like this:

- Verse 1 gives you some story, chorus adds more complexity to the arrangement and is the 'hook' of the song that you remember, verse 2 gives you more story, chorus comes back again just when we want it, then we have a bridge which takes us somewhere new sonically and gives us a break so it isn't repetitive, and then finally we get one more chorus to bring it home! Maybe an intro, outro, pre-chorus etc thrown in for fun

That feels like a full song. That feels like a full story and a full experience that takes you places. It's interesting and captivating

When it's just verse, choruse, verse, chorus, end it feels so lacklustre. Imagine Perfect celebrity if it ended after the second chorus with ALL of this missing:

Spoiler

Na-na-na-na-na
Perfect celebrity
Na-na-na-na-na
Perfect celebrity
Ah-ah, na-na-na-na-na
Perfect celebrity
Na-na-na-na-na

Catch me as I rebound
Without a sound
Save me I'm underground
I can't be found
Hollywood's a ghost town
You love to hate me
I'm the perfect celebrity

So rip off my face in this photograph
Perfect celebrity
You make me money I'll make you laugh
Perfect celebrity
Show me your pretty
I'll show you mine
You love to hate me
You love to hate me

Na-na-na-na-na
Perfect celebrity
You hate me
Na-na-na-na-na
Perfect celebrity
Show me your pretty
I'll show you mine
You love to hate me
I'll be your perfect celebrity

I've become a notorious being

Now, if you can do all of that in 2 minutes 30 seconds and it feels full, interesting and complete, that's great! But it generally takes around 3-4 minutes

[whoopdeedoo 44]

5 hours ago, Roughhouse Dandy said:

A pop song shorter than 3 minutes isn't a song. It's an interlude. Bring back song making. 

That is not what that word means but I understand your point.

[Roughhouse Dandy 13,357]

Just now, whoopdeedoo said:

That is not what that word means but I understand your point.

That became the definition after I pressed post. My last name is Merriam-Webster Oxford.