A medium number of words (with one short playlist) about Very Short Songs

Recently, there has been a very large number of Very Short Songs. Recently in my awareness, at least. And every time I encounter one of these Very Short Songs, I think to myself, “Neat!…but, oh, the audacity!”

I feel, or am used to feeling, that pop songs should be at least 3 minutes long. Longer if they were created by a long-haired rock band in the 70’s. Somewhere, deep in my programming, it just feels very wrong to consider Very Short Songs as singles, as simulacrums of an artist’s identify. I’m used to Very Short Songs being the opening and ending tracks of albums, bookending a proper collection of 10-12 tracks of at least 3 minutes in length.

(In my teens, I kept a running index of the Very Short Songs on the CDs I owned, because they were perfect for filling out the awkward silences at the ends of sides A and B of mixtapes).

But, that was a long time ago.

Shawn Reynaldo @ShawnReynaldo

I love albums. I grew up on albums. But in a time where we're all constantly bombarded with content, and even successful LPs routinely fail to hold our collective attention for more than a day or two, it's worth asking: Does this format really make sense for most artists? 1/4

When I’m talking about Very Short Songs, I’m talking about a single, representative of an artist, that is under two minutes long. Very Short Songs are, I think, emblematic of the way we listen to music now. They’re so very … Spotify. They’re good for playlists because they’re good for playlist curators, who listen to many, many tracks to find the ones that fit their playlists. They’re good for playlists, which are often listened to in the background while listeners do other tasks, because if you don’t like the song you’re listening to now, don’t worry, it’s only 90 seconds long and by the time you’ve realized you don’t like it, it’s pretty much over and on to the next song.

And, Very Short Songs are good for artists because short songs are quicker to make and quicker to churn out and feed The Algorithm.

patten @patttten

Do u feel like we're approaching a kind of singularity in the speed music is digested? Like, the streaming setup rn feels like music has a kind of 7 day refresh rate & albums are almost becoming a 'one pass' media like films. WDYT?

And before we begin wailing and gnashing our teeth but how Music Used to Be Better, there’s a good argument that a good pop song was always a Very Short Song. I remember reading a statistical overview of the duration of historic hits, and the authors determined that 2:44 was the perfect length for a perfect pop song. However, this is may be for very practical reasons instead of artistic: when music was mostly released via records as singles, the most affordable records could only hold about 3 minutes on each side.

Also, shorter songs are easy to program on radio stations, who plan their playlists around station ID’s and commercials.

But, 3 minutes is almost twice the length of these Very Short Songs. I played some songs I like for the students I teach, and they thought the intros to the song were the actual song. (“There’s nothing happening! There’s just one instrument playing!”). The idea of an intro - or waiting through an intro - was foreign to many of them. Maybe intros will become a thing of the past, like key changes.

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Want to hear some of the Very Short Songs that I like? Want more of less? I assembled all the Very Short Songs I’ve heard and liked since this summer and presented them in this playlist for you to enjoy - it won’t take long to listen to the whole thing, I promise!

(A Bandcamp version of this playlist is coming soon.)

I’m toying with the idea of writing some Very Short Songs, although I have to admit that I’m rather uncomfortable with it! Which probably means I should do it, right?

Next week I’ll post some analyses of some of my favorite Very Short Songs from this playlist, and I’ll use the analyses to inform some music that I’ll share the following week.

How about you? Any opinions on short songs? Have you written any? If you’ve created any, or if you have a favorite that others have created, I’d love to hear it! Drop me a line or leave a comment!