Why Are Songs Getting Shorter?

Once upon a time — say, in 1990 — you could close your bedroom door, put on a chart-topping song, and expect to lose yourself in music for about 4 minutes and 22 seconds. Maybe you’d hit repeat. Maybe you’d rewind a cassette tape with a pencil (Remember those times?). Whatever your ritual, you had time to settle in.

Fast-forward to 2025, and the average number-one hit clocks in at just 3 minutes and 34 seconds; a full 18% shorter than its 1990 ancestor, according to a recent Economist analysis of ~1,200 number-one hits I just read. That might not sound dramatic on paper, but in the space of a three-minute pop song, every second counts. And this isn’t just an artistic shift — it’s economic, cultural, and deeply technological.

Don’t Bore Us, Get to the Chorus

Ariana Grande’s “Yes, And?” doesn’t dawdle. Neither does Lil Nas X. Their hits race to the chorus in under 15 seconds, which is no accident. In the streaming age, songs are designed less for live performance or slow-burn radio and more for survival in a battlefield of endless swipes, skips, and skips again.

Why? Spotify and other streamers only pay artists if a listener sticks around for 30 seconds. If you don’t grab attention by then, you don’t get paid. It’s music’s version of speed dating: impress or get ghosted.

Compare that to the 1980s, when the average song intro lasted 21 seconds. By the 2010s, it had dropped to just 12 seconds; a 43% decline. The economic pressures of streaming have turned choruses into clickbait, and intros into an endangered species.

From Shellac to Spotify

But this trend isn’t exactly new. In fact, the length of a song has always been chained to the technology that delivers it.

Back in the early 20th century, shellac records could only hold about 3–5 minutes per side. So if you were writing a symphony, you either edited it down or sold it in parts. These constraints birthed the “three-minute pop song” we now associate with radio hits.

Then came cassette tapes in the 1960s and CDs in the 1980s, freeing artists to stretch out. Enter epic tracks like Don McLean’s “American Pie”, which rolled on for 8 minutes and 37 seconds and still hit #1. In fact, the long song became a badge of seriousness, a mark of artistic ambition. Albums like The Wall or Purple Rain weren’t just music, they were journeys.

But that was before streaming. Before TikTok. Before the age of the scroll.

TikTok Made Me Do It

Attention is the new oil, and apps like TikTok have turned the pop song into a soundbite. Viral success now favors hooks you can dance to in 15 seconds. Even the structure of songs has changed: forget verse-chorus-verse. Today’s hits often start with the hook, repeat it, and get out before boredom sets in.

Consider this: in 2023, over 80% of TikTok’s most-used audio clips came from songs under three minutes. Artists are now crafting songs not just for the radio or Spotify, but for looping TikToks and Instagram Reels. Some even release multiple “sped-up” versions of the same track, hoping one goes viral. Does anyone remember CKay’s Love Nwantiti?

Shorter Songs, Bigger Paychecks?

There’s another twist: shorter songs mean more plays per hour, and more plays mean more revenue. A two-and-a-half-minute track can earn as much per listener as a four-minute one, but it can be played nearly twice as often.

This has led to a curious paradox: while we complain that songs don’t “mean” as much anymore, artists are packing more punch into less time. In this economy, being concise is king.

Even Sabrina Carpenter’s album is titled “Short n’ Sweet”, and whether intentional or not, it’s a fitting description of today’s music ethos.

The Art of the Pop Snack

Are we losing something in this rush to the chorus? Probably. There’s less room for slow builds. But we’re also gaining something: cleverness, replayability. Music today is less a three-course meal, more a perfectly executed appetizer.

So the next time you tap play on a track and it ends before your coffee’s finished brewing, remember: that brevity isn’t laziness. It’s evolution.

And can you bet against the fact that somewhere, in a recording booth, an artist is trying to write the world’s next 2-minute masterpiece?