Three Minutes and Thirty Seconds
[Alexandre Moreau]
By: Joy Ye
The average length of pop songs has reached over 3 minutes and 30 seconds again for the first time in years. Why did the songs shrink in the first place? Why is the length up again?
Music permeates our daily lives. You hear it on the radio, at a grocery store, on an elevator, in the background of an advertisement, at a restaurant, or even from someone’s phone while you’re walking outside. It’s everywhere. Because of how prevalent it is, it makes sense that new music being produced, specifically pop music, would follow recent trends. The way this has shown up within the past few years is song length getting shorter.
Over the past half decade, the length of pop songs have drastically decreased from what it used to be. In the 1990s, the average song length was over four minutes. Heading into the 2000s, it dropped to slightly under the four minute mark. While it got shorter than the previous decade, there was nothing like the steep drop seen in 2019. It dropped to three minutes and twelve seconds in that year, according to the BBC. More recently, a large number of hit pop songs are even under the three minute mark.
What caused this to happen in the first place? Entering the 2000s, pop music had shortened to slightly under four minutes to appeal more for radio streaming, which remained steady throughout the 2010s. However, there wasn’t the dramatic decline we saw going into 2020. The steep drop in track duration may be attributed to the rising popularity of the short-form content platform, TikTok. At the time, TikTok was rapidly gaining popularity; songs and artists that were successful on the platform gained new listeners and found more success than they had before. To appeal to this type of audience, artists started making songsthat would fit the short video format better. Features like catchy intros, clippable sound bites, and lyrics that would make a good video became more common. Notably, song bridges, a section that was audibly and lyrically distinct from the rest of the song, went missing from many songs to keep the length shorter. The typical formula of pop music in earlier years of verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, chorus, was disrupted.
As people got more used to short-form content, consumption of media on other platforms changed as well. Attention spans throughout shortened, and if something did not interest the audience within the first few seconds, they would skip it. This also contributed to shorter song lengths. Songs had to be catchy and quick to catch a listener’s attention. Most streaming platforms only pay their artists if a listener stays for a specific amount of time. For example, Spotify only adds to the song stream count if a listener plays the song for at least 30 seconds. While that may seem like a short amount of time, the average length of short form content tends to be under this 30 second time stamp. If an artist cannot catch the attention of their listener within the first few seconds, and make them want to listen to the whole song, they do not get paid. Shorter songs are also good for streaming in general. When a song is shorter, it can get more streams in a short amount of time when repeated.
Now, data has shown that within the first half of 2025, songs are trending back up; the average length has been stated to be around 3 minutes and 34 seconds by BBC and Billboard. This trend, however, may not seem to make sense. Short form content is still extremely popular and dominating multiple social media apps. So why is it that pop songs are rising in duration again?
It may be because of the state of the world around us. With the current political situation, where people from all kinds of demographics worry for their families, safety, and rights, people want a distraction. During times of crisis, people have been seen to turn to entertainment to escape from what is going on around them, which is where music comes in. Longer music means more time someone can spend focusing on what they’re listening to; it gives more time to get lost into the escape that the song provides the listener. Along with this, more artistry is coming back to pop. Performances are becoming grander, more fun, and eye-catching. Artists like Lady Gaga have been known for this, but it seems to be a rising trend within recent hits. Longer music gives these artists more to work with, which captures the audience’s attention.
It may also be that people are turning to entertainment to give voice to thoughts and feelings they are not able to voice. This is nothing new, as many musicians in the past have written about deep emotions of love, despair, and many others that encompass the human experience. However, the recent social climate has been more chaotic than ever. It is important to have someone say, or in this case, sing, what is important. Artists like Chappel Roan openly speak about queerness and incorporate it into their music. This is important in a social climate where queerness is being shunned. Others speak of feelings of despair. Many people may be feeling this way. For someone to say these out loud may give relief and be an outlet for listeners.
Whether it’s fun, feel-good music, or thoughtful music, more artistry is coming back into the pop industry. People want to see this kind of creativity and energy put back into pop. They want soul in what they listen to instead of songs clearly manufactured to be put onto the charts. It’s great that we can see artists be passionate about their work once more given the drought of emotion driven songs with something important to say. While the re-emergence of longer songs have been spearheaded by artists who, in the past, have put passion into their work, new artists have been rising to that level too. It’s a trend that I, and many others, hope to see continue as we go further into the decade.