In the past decades, songs have been "losing weight". From 1990 to 2020 or so, the average duration of the top 100 popular songs reduced from over four minutes to about three minutes, reported The Washington Post. In the summer of 2023, Super Shy, a K-pop song by New Jeans, swept TikTok with its uncommonly short duration— two minutes and 34seconds.
What has caused this change? The widespread use of TikTok and streaming music media might be the top triggers. It is no exaggeration that these two influences have changed the way hit songs are made and publicized, as well as the way we find music, noted Billboard.
On streaming platforms like Spotify, artists only get paid when their songs are played for 30 seconds or more. The often-skipped songs will be less likely to be recommended by the platform. Therefore, artists try to get their songs played longer to enhance their earnings and visibility （关注度）.
According to research, 25 percent of listeners will skip the song they are listening to in the first five seconds. One theory holds that a concise （简洁的） track is more likely to get more listens. "There's a charm to a short song because the person hits repeat —play it again, play it again, " Mitch Allan, a longtime writer-producer, told Billboard.
On TikTok, however, users prefer even simpler versions of these short songs —snippets（片段）. "To a lot of people, I think the snippet they encounter on TikTok is the song. They rarely have the interest in getting the full picture of the song, not to mention the background or the inspiration behind the song. " said vocal producer Bart Schoudel to Billboard.
This series of changes has also reshaped songwriting. The Guardian reported that research has found lyrics of pop songs are becoming simpler and angrier than ever.
For many, lyrics are a form of literature, weaving imagery and emotion into their content. US songwriter Bob Dylan was even awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for his lyrics in 2016. With all these changes, will lyrics still be regarded as literature in the future?
