Has acceptable and desired song length changed?

[Pura Vida]

Even before radio was replaced with streaming, the 2.5-3 minute pop song format had plenty of exceptions. Punk rock clocks in at half that length, while many other genres regularly double those times (or longer; someone already mentioned the ABB). I think the song length is whatever it takes to tell your story... the time is just a number, if it's appropriate to the art.

[ljguitar]

Originally Posted by jim1960

Glenn specifically said for "airplay." I assumed that meant radio play, not internet play, given the context of the conversation when he made the comment. My comment about song times was specific to radio play also.

Hi jim
Thanks for clarifying…

[jim1960]

Originally Posted by Pura Vida

Even before radio was replaced with streaming, the 2.5-3 minute pop song format had plenty of exceptions. Punk rock clocks in at half that length, while many other genres regularly double those times (or longer; someone already mentioned the ABB). I think the song length is whatever it takes to tell your story... the time is just a number, if it's appropriate to the art.

I think the preference for <3:00 songs was really an AM format thing. When I started listening to FM stations in the mid-70s, there were plenty of songs that broke the 3-minute rule. By the early 80s, the only AM station any of us listened to in my area, WABC-NY, had switched to talk radio. I think at that point the 3-minute rule was essentially dead.

[Glennwillow]

Originally Posted by jim1960

Glenn, I know that was important 40+ years ago but does that matter today? I just checked the top 10 songs on Billboard's Hot 100 list for this week. These are the times from shortest to longest...
2:12
2:17
2:36
2:45
3:18
3:23
3:28
3:35
4:02
4:02

Only 4 of the 10 come in under the 3:00 mark that was pretty close to a prerequisite 40+ years ago. Six come in over 3:00 and two of those come in at over 4:00. I just don't think there's a penalty anymore for breaking the 3:00 barrier.

I agree Jim. Whether a song is 3 minutes or 4 minutes, for radio airplay today it probably isn't that important.

Larry's comments are interesting, as well, regarding streaming, Facebook and YouTube. I am so out of the loop on most of this stuff today that I probably have a very inaccurate perspective on this stuff. I listen to stuff on YouTube here and there, particularly when I am looking for a new idea on a piece of music to cover, but I generally listen to an entire song. I can't imagine jumping around every minute or two (or every 20 seconds!) to something else and never finishing anything.

- Glenn

[Brent Hahn]

Originally Posted by Glennwillow

... I generally listen to an entire song. I can't imagine jumping around every minute or two (or every 20 seconds!) to something else and never finishing anything.

- Glenn

Wow. I'm so the opposite -- attention span of a hummingbird.

I recall Silly Moustache saying in a post that he listened to one of my songs all the way to the end, and thinking it was the nicest thing anyone had ever said to me. But maybe he's the normal one and I'm the outlier, because he then ticked off a list of things I should have done differently. :-)

Being a bass player, I will let myself linger over a good groove. But AGF isn't where you go to find those.

[ljguitar]

Originally Posted by Glennwillow

…I listen to stuff on YouTube here and there, particularly when I am looking for a new idea on a piece of music to cover, but I generally listen to an entire song. I can't imagine jumping around every minute or two (or every 20 seconds!) to something else and never finishing anything.

Hi Glenn

I'm older (72 yrs as of April 2021).

On road trips my wife & I stream from Apple Music in the car. And we turn it down to a level we can live with, pretty much in the background.

In town, if we bother to turn it on, we're listening it's our latest play-list from Apple Music. But usually we're chatting.

I don't know if we are typical or not. Our local music stations have diminished in number, and size and play as many commercials as music we enjoy/recognize.

I wish to hold to the original intent of the thread…
It's rare that I sit and listen to full songs with the same attention and interest I did when I was 25 yrs old.

If I do, it's usually wearing very capable ear-gear, I'm listening to great recordings.

When the content is great, I listen to the whole thing. If not, I find something else to occupy my ears.

[12barBill]

Originally Posted by BoneDigger

As Jimmy Buffett said in his song "You'll Never Work in Dis Bidness Again":

"I won't make my music for money, no, I'm gonna make my music for me!"

Todd, that would be from Buffett's song "Makin' Music For Money" from the A1A album.

[Glennwillow]

Well, after reading reactions to my comments about listening to entire songs, I have to admit that if the music I have clicked on is not of interest, I move on.

But I am not a grazer. I rarely jump around looking for music that might appeal to me. I go to listen to music for a specific purpose. Such as, I want to learn to play that specific song or I'm looking for how different people play a specific song.

Sometimes folks on the AGF suggest a specific song, so I often will go listen to that. I would guess that about 60% of the time I don't care for the suggested song and back out of it. So again, there's a case where I don't listen very long. But if I like the piece, I listen to the entire recording. I want to learn from music I like.

I mostly listen to music I already have purchased and we have a great deal. I stream very little music and the only radio I listen to is for news and very little of that now that I'm retired and not commuting back and forth to a job.

So I am probably the outlier regarding my listening habits. Probably I'm just getting old (73).

- Glenn

[jim1960]

I like this subforum because at 60 I'm a young whippersnapper around all you old sages.

[BoneDigger]

Originally Posted by 12barBill

Todd, that would be from Buffett's song "Makin' Music For Money" from the A1A album.

Ah yes, that could very well be. I'm getting too old to remember them all!

[Steev]

I thought it had to do with the physical capacity of a 7" 45.

[jim1960]

Originally Posted by Steev

I thought it had to do with the physical capacity of a 7" 45.

No, there's enough room on a 45 for songs as long as 5 minutes.

https://peakvinyl.com/record-playtimes/

[FrankHudson]

I have sort of the same is-it-possible suspicions about song lengths increasing as the OP, but first a bit of explanation of the scope of my suspicions.

I'm an old guy, and a musical eclectic. I like jazz in several forms, I like composed orchestral music, I like many threads of American folk music, I listened to Top 40 and AOR FM back in the day, I'm fairly au fait with 20th century R&B (less so for this century). I listen to a smattering of modern top charting pop music. I listen to a little electronica/modern dance music too.

Besides a life of listening, I've spent the past 5 years furiously composing musical pieces.

Expectations of length over history are all over the place for all of those genres. But what I think we're talking about here is more at the either pop music side of things or singer-songwriters Indie/Alternative or Roots areas.*

I get a sense that song lengths are increasing. When I sample a new Indie act or singer-songwriter album I now expect many songs to exceed 4 minutes these days, and for 5-plus minute songs to be not special or remarkable. I myself, when composing songs with lyrics, want to be under 4 minutes, and like to be between 2 and 3. Obviously one can create a compelling 5 minute song, and a boring 2 minute song -- but for many singer-songwriters taking on the burden for them as music composers, arrangers, musicians, and singers (some, like me, would carry the burden of all those different roles directly) the odds are stacked against them in a longer song.

With that belief both as a songwriter and listener, it's also possible that I'm sensing that song lengths in this area are increasing, when it's my patience and appreciation that is making them seem longer, or too long, more often.

If this is really happening I'd suspect a substantial cause is the increasing amount of self-production and the increasing ease of modern digital recording which means there may not be some experienced hand telling the artist to make it tighter and to remove extraneous stuff.

I also think writing that even pretends to be pop music or references it has gotten even more "hooky" -- that is, more emphasis on chorus or even short one line or two refrains.



*Of course such labels are arbitrary and inexact.

[BoneDigger]

To clarify, I am a singer-singwriter but my listening and writing preferences lean toward the folk or Americana side of the spectrum. But even in the Americana (I know that's a broad label) I listen too, it seems like songs have routinely gotten longer.

[Brent Hahn]

Maybe the whole thing is a side effect of the process being entirely DIY. People slave over the lyrics to all those verses, and they're all so personal and meaningful, and there's nobody at a record label with both the authority and the experience to step in and say, "Enough already -- get rid of it."

I mean... I don't know about the country where you live, but mine has a National Anthem with at least three verses, and the lyricist no doubt tried really hard on all of them. But after one verse, I've totally gotten the point and I'm ready for the ballgame to start.

If I had had an editor for this post, the previous paragraph wouldn't be there and you still would have totally gotten the point.