A few days ago, I was checking the Spinnin’ catalogue on SoundCloud, looking for some interesting songs to review, and a little detail caught my eye. The one thing about SoundCloud that is different from Spotify is that SoundCloud displays the track durations without having to click on them. So while I was browsing, I noticed that a large number of tracks lasted less than 3 minutes… Which is strange since EDM has historically has had tracks ranging from 4-5 minutes and even longer if we consider the extended mixes.
Well, analyzing Spinnin’ releases in the last 30 days, the average duration is 2:59 minutes, right under the 3 minutes mark. I compared it with Spinnin’ releases from three years ago (Quintino & R3HAB “Freak”, for example, was 3:54, and “SEX” by Cheat Codes, which was rather poppish, was 5:15), and looked at more DJ-focused labels like Revealed. The results are clear: Spinnin’ releases in 2016, even considering the high percentage of commercial tracks (take a look if you want), lasted 3:57 on average, while current Revealed tunes averaged around 3:53.
Then, for a final result, I checked our dear friend R3HAB, who is notorious for releasing junk tracks and maximizing Spotify/Apple Music revenues. I use it as a “money-grubbing” base unit, obviously just for a statistical reason. Our friends’ latest tracks are around 2:31 in duration, and all under 3 minutes except for his “Polaroid” remix (3:03).
It’s evident that a connection between duration and Spotify-friendly productions exists. The reason is simple: a 2:30 track can be played 24 times in an hour by a user, while a 3:30 one only 17,14 times, which is a big difference when numbers are high. “Cutting” a minute of music, for a big artist or a label, can mean a difference of thousands of dollars in revenues. Comparing two Spotify playlists (always using the previous example durations), a user will listen to 29% more songs, which is 29% more revenues, if they are 1 minute shorter. This is just insane.
It’s really sad seeing artists producing tasteless and shorter music just to earn more money. At the same time, it’s fascinating to see how much streaming services are changing the industry. As a result, the market is not only saturated by tons of releases, but they are also shorter and with less “substance”. We know, we know, artists have to eat, but we are romantic people and we prefer producers who focus on quality rather than in quantity and length…
If you have ever wondered why tracks are shorter in duration, now you know why.
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What do you think?
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