Why are songs between 3 and 5 minutes long? This is the curious answer.

Have you ever wondered why almost all songs are around three minutes long ? While you might think it's a kind of unwritten rule, the reasons are associated with historical, technological, and commercial factors that have influenced the way music has developed.

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Imagine that music is like water and that it adapts to the container in which it is placed.

Well, at the beginning of the industry, back in the 1920s, shellac records were not only the primary format for storing songs, but they also had a capacity of three minutes per side. So, content was kept short, keeping these limitations in mind.

Added to this is the fact that radio stations, in order to maximize the number of advertisements they could broadcast, preferred short songs.

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Musical revolution

The point is that not all music follows this type of standard, and that's because over the years, even with obstacles, formats can be expanded to adapt to trends.

For example, in jazz, musicians realized that live performances required lengthening their songs , so they began to improvise. This led to the creation of LPs, which could hold about 20-25 minutes of music per side, depending on the playback speed.

Vinyl records had another peculiarity: it was harder to skip tracks, since the needle kept spinning between tracks. This led artists to start creating concept albums so that all the content was related and it was easier to get into.

This is how works such as the iconic 'Abbey Road' by the Beatles and the great progressive rock albums were born.

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The Internet Effect

Later, MTV emerged, a cable television channel that originally focused on broadcasting music videos 24 hours a day. With music videos as the predominant format, singles regained the spotlight.

However, the turning point was the internet. The arrival of this network allowed us to overcome the limitations of formats and introduced new features that impacted the music listening experience, including shuffle mode and TikTok videos.

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