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The Economics of Streaming is Making Songs Shorter (qz.com)
Popular music is shrinking. From 2013 to 2018, the average song on the Billboard Hot 100 fell from 3 minutes and 50 seconds to about 3 minutes and 30 seconds. From a report: Six percent of hit songs were 2 minutes 30 seconds or shorter in 2018, up from just 1% five years before. Take Kendrick Lamar. One of the world's most popular musicians right now. The average track length on Lamar's breakout 2013 album good kid, m.A.A.d city is 5 minutes 37 seconds. All are 3 minutes 30 seconds or longer. On Lamar's most recent album DAMN., the average song is 3 minutes and 57 seconds. DAMN. won the Pulitzer Prize for music, going to show that this trend isn't necessarily lowering the quality of music. It's not just Lamar. The trend can be seen in albums of music's biggest stars, like the rapper and singer Drake, perhaps pop music's most dominant force.
In the hey day of AM radio the songs aimed for 2 min 30 seconds. It's not economics. And on top of that, comparing averages to individual songs is also silly. Half fo them will be longer than the median. Lastly Album oriented music tends to be longer than radio/stream oriented music because the former has a larger story telling context and the latter is about a catchy vibe.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
I think if you give this some thought you will see that it is exactly the format that has always driven the length of recordings.
From the 20's 78 RPM records were limited to about 3:10 by the size of the disk and almost all were less than 3:00.
When AM radio playing 45 RPM records became popular for music songs were 3:00 because that made the number of ads constant.
When LP's and FM radio gained popularity in the later 60's and into the 70's songs got longer as the contemporary styles were no longer constrained by the length of the recording media at the single song level.
CD's were essentially digital LP's and songs continued to grow overall but also MTV drove a need for songs that were "video length".
While I do not know what effect streaming has had, I do expect the change in format to affect the length of songs. That it always has in the past is a reasonably good indicator of what to expect in the present.
The popular singles may be getting shorter, and streaming may be becoming more common, but where's the proven connection? Perhaps shorter songs are simply more "attractive" to the demographic with a reduced attention span, and artists and their record companies are aiming for that market?
Streaming has changed modern music - but it is the song introduction that has changed, not the duration. A song has to "hook" people within the first 15 seconds or else the listener will hit next. When this happens, the streaming service does not have to pay the artist. With traditional radio, songs could start up slowly. This gave artists had more flexibility in how the music was presented. With streaming, artists have around 15 seconds to sell their tune. It is limiting - but the price one has to pay for the way streaming currently operates.
**Note; I have forgotten the exact time so 15 seconds might be off. But it is close to 15.
"You think songs are about message?"
Only the truly great songs. Regardless of length.
If there's no message, it's just fluff.
And fluff is just fine, fluff becomes the filler in-between, and must outnumber songs with a message in order for those songs to transcend the mundane and become the great songs in the first place.
Without the fluff, the meanings would just be lost in the noise.
It is hardly infantile.
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