Welcome to the era of ‘blink and you’ll miss it’ bangers.
Pop music is undergoing a huge transformation, and it’s happening right under our ears. The culprit? A mix of streaming platforms, social media, and changes in listening behavior.
But this shift isn’t just changing song lengths—it’s reshaping the very structure of music as we know it.
The Trend of Shrinking Pop Songs
The data is clear: pop songs are getting shorter.
Since 1990, the average length of a song on the Billboard Hot 100 has gone down from over four minutes to around three minutes.
In fact, we saw this trend in full swing at the 2024 Grammy Awards. Here, out of 144 nominated tracks, 28 were under three minutes long.
Some examples are SZA’s “Kill Bill,” which clocks in at 2 minutes and 33 seconds. And if you thought that was brief, Nicki Minaj and Ice Spice’s “Barbie World” wraps up its plastic fantastic journey in just 1 minute and 50 seconds.
Even artists known for their storytelling prowess aren’t immune.
Taylor Swift, the queen of narrative songwriting, has seen her average track length shrink from 4 minutes and 47 seconds on 2010’s “Speak Now” to 3 minutes and 26 seconds on 2019’s “Lover.”
And this isn’t just happening in Western music.
Across the globe, K-pop sensation NewJeans captured TikTok’s heart with their summer hit “Super Shy,” a bite-sized bop lasting only 2 minutes and 34 seconds.
We can see these shorter tracks a lot on streaming platforms, too.
On Spotify’s 2023 hit list, half of the top songs are under three minutes, showing a big change in what we now think of as a “full” song.
Why Are Pop Songs Getting Shorter?
The rise of streaming platforms appears to be a significant factor in this shift.
Here’s the deal: on services like Spotify, artists only cash in if a listener sticks around for at least 30 seconds. This model has songwriters and producers scrambling to hook listeners faster than ever before.
It’s all about that instant gratification – catch their ear quickly or risk losing them to the skip button.
And speaking of skipping, the numbers are eye-opening.
About 24% of Spotify users hit next within the first five seconds, and nearly half bail before the song wraps up.
“A lot of songs don’t have bridges anymore, which is really disappointing for me because a bridge in a song is so special,” says Erika Nuri Taylor, a Grammy-nominated songwriter.
“Streaming music has definitely affected that.”
The way streaming services pay artists for each play has also made it profitable to make shorter songs. More replays mean more money, so artists are making short tracks that listeners are likely to play again.
But it’s not just streaming – social media, especially TikTok, is also changing how songs are made.
The rise of short-form videos has created a hunger for brief, catchy hooks that can easily fit into user-generated content.
Just look at Lil Yachty’s “Poland.” At a mere 83 seconds, it rode the TikTok wave right into the top half of the Billboard Hot 100 in 2022.
Other Changes in Song Structure and Composition
Music’s evolution doesn’t stop at length. The very DNA of pop songs is mutating before our ears.
Gone are the days of leisurely intros and meandering verses. Today’s tracks often dive headfirst into choruses, skipping the preamble in favor of instant hooks. It’s all about delivering the goods as quickly as possible in an increasingly crowded and fast-paced musical landscape.
Even the lyrics are also changing.
A study in Scientific Reports found that song lyrics have become more repetitive and emotional since the 1980s, with more angry words across all types of music.
Words about anger, sadness, disgust, and fear have increased in popular music, while joy has decreased since the 1950s.