Three and a half minutes. For decades, this was pretty much the standard length of a top-50 song. Long enough to set up a melody, a chorus multiplied by two or three, a bridge and the occasional solo. Today, this format is almost a rarity in the charts. On Spotify or TikTok, tracks are getting shorter by the minute. Some hit songs barely exceed two minutes. Others start directly with the chorus, with no intro or gradual build-up. Even artists renowned for their conceptual albums sometimes condense. So, is this just a passing fad or a profound transformation in the way we listen to music? Spoiler: a bit of both.
