Why do songs seem different these days?
Unpacking the structure of the modern, streaming-friendly song
I am writing this from the international terminal at JFK where I am about to board a flight to Switzerland. I’ve realized that without the academic calendar to mark time, I’ve built in my own ways of breaking things up. Taking a week to travel in June seems to stand in for end of school year events. This is a far away trip with friends who now live far away. I’m excited.
Recently, I wrote about my love for music and the role it plays in my life. While that was more of a personal take, I thought I’d re-visit the topic to discuss a business side of it.
The music industry has been heavily disrupted by the rise of streaming. But most interestingly, the structure of the song has entirely shifted as well. Today, the pay-per-play revenue model put forth by streaming has shifted the incentive structure to reward volume. For artists to make the most money through streaming, they are best off encouraging as many plays across as many songs as possible. To do this, they’ve entirely shifted the structure of the songs they put out. Here are the three most impactful changes:
1. Song intros are nearly obsolete
The artist’s priority today is to capture the listener’s attention as fast as possible. The result is a song that is quick to get to the point. In the mid 1980s, intros before songs ran 20 to 25 seconds long on average. By 2015, intros had shrunk to an average of five seconds, marking an 80% decrease across thirty years.
2. Songs are shorter
Probably helped by the lack of an intro, song lengths have rapidly declined in the age of streaming. The median song length on Billboard’s Hot 100 song list was over four minutes in 2000, dropped to 3.5 minutes in 2018 and recently came down to 2.5 minutes. Over the years, artists have rapidly cut down the lengths of their own songs. The tracks on Drake’s 2018 album Scorpion are 11% shorter than the tracks on his 2016 album Views. Out of all genres, Rap has seen the greatest decline in music length.
3. There are more songs per album
A good thing about streaming is that, unlike Vinyl which can only hold 15-22 minutes of sound per side, digital albums have no song or length limitations. Today, artists have begun crafting albums with far more songs than was previously typical, a phenomenon called “track creep”. They do this because 1) the songs are shorter so they have the capacity to create more in a shorter timeframe and 2) more songs on an album means more potential plays. While 10-12 tracks per album used to be the norm, recent albums have blown through those numbers. Morgan Wallen’s most recent album One Thing at a Time includes 36 songs across 1 hour and 52 minutes of listening length.
While these shifts may point to an over-simplification of music, streaming and the influence of the internet have also increased accessibility to all types of music and artists, a factor that has rewarded creativity. Before streaming, songs were known to be all about the chorus as that promoted the radio-friendly sounds. While this is still true, now, chorus-less songs created by artists like Bon Iver or Post Malone have been able to find popularity. In addition, the internet and streaming have not only driven discovery of popular artists like Billie Eilish (discovered on Soundcloud) or Justin Beiber (on YouTube) but have also made it easier for more people to have their music heard. Although making a living off of streaming is hard, streaming makes making any money from music significantly easier.