When did the standard length of a song become approximately 3-5 minutes?

Question

Was there a time where songs were a lot longer or shorter?

Answer 1

Interesting question.

A lot of country and blues and early rock and roll songs--in fact the vast majority of them--recorded and played on radio between the 1920s and the 1950s were under three minutes.

Prior to the Victrola/phonograph and mass recordings being made widely available, the songs were both longer and shorter in that they weren't standardized. Classical pieces, of course, could be quite long, well beyond 10 minutes per movement. Even hymns sung in church could last 5 minutes easily if all verses were sung.

The same goes for folk songs, particularly the oldest songs that had developed dozens of verses.

But the 3-5 minute song probably started happening in the 1960s when folks raised on standardized 2-3 minute songs began to expand the range of what a pop song could be (e.g. think the Beatles, etc).

And, yeah, one of your other answers mentioned the prog rock folks from the 1970s that added operatic and classical dimensions to pop music that significantly expanded song length.

Answer 2

The idea for the 3-minute pop-song came about when in the 50's and 60's one of the few places kids could hear new releases was on the old Juke boxes in diners.
The ever savvy record producers, and record company bosses knew that the shorter the record, the more money the juke-box would make.
Hence 3 minutes or less became the norm.

Answer 3

The 3 to 5 minute song limit was more or let set by music producers and the industry. Billy Joel has said this in interviews.When a song is made by the artist it is scrutinized by the industry,it is made shorter if possible to acommodate radioplay.Its all done for the almighty dollar.

Answer 4

in the 60's people like The Beatles had shorter songs - less than 3 minutes.

In the 20's when Jazz was popular songs were longer than 10-20 mintues.

I personally, however, think that when songs all become the same length, everyone's trying to replicate eachother. and it takes away from the artstic view of the music.

artists that actually play music for their own musical expression i.e early metallica, pink floyd, black sabbath, led zeppelin, the grateful dead, guns n' roses, iron maiden all had fairly long songs and still today many death metal artists have longer songs and punk artists usually have songs less than 2 minutes.

peace & love
t-par & stella

Answer 5

Ho MAN! For *longer* songs, you'd do very well to listen to some good 70s prog rock.

eg:

Yes
Pink Floyd
Jethro Tull
Rush
Van Der Graaf Generator
Genesis
ELP

etc...

few songs under 8 mins...

Answer 6

late 70s before than songs were shorter,because of FCC rules
and radio play,they could only be a certain length so the stations could play them,and if i remember right, songs before that had to be 3min. or shorter,before they would play them on the radio stations

Answer 7

demanding- enter Shikari (my commonplace music) Spitting video games- Snow Patrol status contained in the Rain- Billy skills red is the recent Black- Funeral For a pal No money- military Arcade been listening to them plenty at present

Answer 8

THE SONG " OLD MACDONALD HAD A FARM " USED TO GO ON AND ON AND ON ETC. MAYBE THAT HAD AN INFLUENCE ON MAKING SONGS SHORTER! ! IF IT DIDNT IT SHOULD HAVE ! ! ! !