Back when music broadcasts had their heyday – think 50s and 60s – songs were usually constrained by a number of factors. Initially, when recording mediums were less developed, singles would be recorded onto 45rpm vinyl, which only allowed for about three to four minutes of song. Yeah, you could fit more, but that would result in significant loss of sound.
These, of course, were also the days before streaming, iPods, disc- or walkmen. That means that, apart from sales of LPs, radio rotations were the key moneymaker for artists and their labels. And since the radio zeitgeist was all about shuffling through short songs, another external set of restraints was indirectly placed on recording musicians when it came to timing their tracks.
Now, while pop songs often tended to hover around the same amount of play length, the evolution of recording mediums and, certainly, artistic sentiments meant that songs started to grow in duration. By the 70s, songs like Lynyrd Synyrd’s “Free Bird” (1973), aiming to achieve the most audacious guitar-solo, reached 9:07 minutes, while the epic “Child in Time” (1970) by Deep Purple unfolds across 10:13 minutes, to name a few.
“Hey!”, you might exclaim. “Songs today aren’t 20+ minutes in length! What gives?” And right you are, young padawan. While yes, there are exceptions to the rule, songs did not continue stretching ad infinitum. In fact, as radio became a thing of the past (sorry, radio, it’s nothing personal) and streaming took center stage, with royalties being paid according to individual streams, labels and artists became aware of the fact that shorter songs means more plays. (Check out The Best Birthday Song Band Ever for a look at what gaming this system looks like!) Arguably, shortening attention spans and a shift from the album to the AI(?)-curated playlist played into this, as well.
The same year that Spotify would first see the world, one fine April day, and set this latest development in motion, a Britpop band by the name of The Kooks put out their debut album “Inside In / Inside Out” (January 23rd, 2006). Apart from being catchy and sporting A+ heart-throb lyrics – especially, on opener “Seaside” – that won over the hearts and minds of teenagers across Europe, the average song length across the album came in below three minutes.
A harbinger of what would come? (Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road” (2019) closes out at 1:53 minutes) Who knows.
A fun album worth its ~41 minute run? I’d argue: yes.
kthxbye
Coryphe 