Does anyone know if there is an industry standard for setting the length of songs?
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POLICE (
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December 21st, 2009
It seems there is an industry standard of length of time a song is. Most are 2½–3½ minutes long with some exceptions. Is there a standard? and if so, who decided it?
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24 Answers
I would assume the big dogs in the music recording industry decided how long the attention span of the general public is. Personally, I listen to jazz, and one of my favorite songs by Miles Davis tops out at 32 minutes.
Early rock music was sold on 45’s, and they couldn’t play a song much longer than 3½ minutes.
When the Beatles released Hey Jude, which clocked at over 7 minutes, it stood the industry on its ear.
Since then, there have been many songs that go on for 20 minutes.
Well I don’t know who decided it but back in the classical period some symphonies were up to 45 minutes long and divided into separate movements. I know some salsa music can be up to 7 or 8 minutes long too. It might just depend on the type of music it is. Maybe the record labels have something to do with it too.
The industry standard also helps with radio/broadcasting. There is a plan for each hour on the radio of how many and when songs play so they need to take up a generally recognizable time frame. If there wasn’t a standard, radio station managers would explode.
Why, Police, are you getting fed up with those annoying Christmas carolers? ; )
While not a direct answer, But I also learned at a trivia night that CDs hold the approximate 50 minutes that they do because that’s how much records could hold so they figured that it did not make sense to change it – even though I thinks Cds can hold more.
It was based on what could fit on one side of a 45 rpm disc. Earlier than that, it was also the length of play of the old Edison cylinders.
Yes it’s standardized at 2–3 minutes. Look back at almost all the Beatles hits and you’ll see they fall in that category as do almost all top ten pop music hits. It works and makes money so they have no interest in changing that formula. The band is just fantastic
@emma193
I think the most I put on a burned mp3 disc was 110 songs. It has to do with higher bit rates and compression, so yeah…they could if they wanted too!...lol
@XOIIO
damn…if i had a dime for evertime I heard that…I’d be retired by now!...lol
@Vintage55
uh…why did you hear something????...I swear…uh THEY fell onto my baton!
I don’t know for sure, but most of my favourite artists produce songs in the 4½ to 6 minute range. But then I struggle to see any artistic value in pop music. I have a number of songs over 10 minutes, and one of my favourites (A Change of Seasons by Dream Theatre) is 23 minutes long.
The amount of music on a CD was determined by a Sony engineer in the late 1970s. His criteria was that all of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony fit on a single disc.
Most of my songs average around 4 minutes, but then, you’ll never see any of my CDs in a bin at Best Buy.
Don’t forget, radio stations want to sell ads.
And the shorter the songs, the more ads they can play.
That’s why you’d have a “radio edit” version of a song. It’s a tad shorter than the album cut. That serves two purposes. You don’t want to alienate a listener who doesn’t care for that particular song. If he/she knows it won’t be on for very long, he/she is less apt to change stations.
And of course, it gives the station more room for ads.
The “industry standard” has to do with radio play.
There isn’t much of a “standard” for bands that don’t get radio play. For example, Opeth’s songs average 10–12 minutes, and Fate’s Warning has an entire album that is one song broken into segments: “A Pleasant Shade of Gray” – 43 minutes.
And not that I have any opinion on it, but that may be one of the reasons that 99 out of 100 people surveyed have no clue who Opeth or Fate’s Warning are.
@SeventhSense There are people out there who don’t know Opeth? Isn’t that like not knowing where Mongolia is?
A CD can hold up to 72 minutes. I have several classical CDs that have that much on them.
@SeventhSense
And 100 out of 100 people that know who Opeth and Fate’s Warning are, wouldn’t listen to radio shite if it were forcibly injected into their aural receptors.
@Seek_Kolinahr
Which are of course pointed on your average Homo Sapien? ~_~
Welcome to earth Fluther. :P
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