Why are songs getting shorter

valuewalk.com

The economic principle I am researching is supply and demand In the music industry and how it both drives and shapes the music industry as a whole.In today's blog post I will discuss why songs are getting gradually shorter.

 In recent years there has been a trend for songs moving from 8 minute sagas to shorter songs. According to Fortune.com, in the last 5 years the average song length has shortened by about 20 seconds, and considerable margin. The reason for this trend is music streaming companies; because streaming companies pay artists by the number of streams their song gets, a shorter song is less work for the artist and the label and also makes the same profit.

Now instead of stretching songs out to fill up as many albums as they can, as the physical mediums(CD´s) encouraged artists to do, shorter songs reap the same reward as shorter songs.

 Personally I do not see this as a problem artists have always adapted their songs to fit the medium they are using. In the 50s artists were forced to make their songs very short, all about 2-3 minutes because 33s and 45s records only allowed a limited number of songs. In order to make consumers think they are getting the most bang out of their buck they tried to fit as many songs as they could on each album.

 In my next blog post I will explore how demand shaped the development of music genres.