[csch92]

i dont get it. some tracks are eighter outer trash or end when it is at its best. even when they try to sound somewhat oldschool, they suddendly swap to a hardstyle'ish melody. which can be eighter good or bad. i think something bad is happening with the music industry thanks to streaming

 

[Ghoostknight]

probably because its somewhat easier to make good short tracks then long tracks without them being too repetitive, specially in EDM

tho i personally havent saw this issue overall, of course there are some short tracks like in all genres but i havent found only short tracks in my tracklist

 

[Craft Ears]

I think it somehow went from one extreme to another. A lot of EDM tracks in the past used to be 6 - 8 minutes long with big intros and outros and now in the era of Tik Tok, Insta Stories and other things like that commercial tracks usually try to catch listener's attention as fast as possible. I observe that a lot in the music production industry and that kind of approach from people who make music results in more "condensed" songs that are usually much shorter.

 

[csch92]

Damn would love to hear some good long edm songs. Could you guys send me some?;

 

[71 dB]

i dont get it. some tracks are eighter outer trash or end when it is at its best. even when they try to sound somewhat oldschool, they suddendly swap to a hardstyle'ish melody. which can be eighter good or bad. i think something bad is happening with the music industry thanks to streaming

What a funny way to write either utter.

Streaming incentivises shorter tracks at the same time as younger people have shorter attention span than Goldfish.

 

[VNandor]

Damn would love to hear some good long edm songs. Could you guys send me some?;

Post some artists/tracks you like. You could try your luck in the music subforum as well but I noticed that EDM in general isn't popular among audiophiles, probably due to a combination of the typical age of an audiophile and the production value of typical EDM tracks.

 

[Corti]

Post some artists/tracks you like. You could try your luck in the music subforum as well but I noticed that EDM in general isn't popular among audiophiles, probably due to a combination of the typical age of an audiophile and the production value of typical EDM tracks.

Right, I’m a frequent poster in the Techno and Electro music thread (which has quite a high post-density lately) and there, tracks are definitely longer than the average music posted (probably around 7 mins on average). Also, everyone hates the term “EDM” in there

@csch92
Are you sure, you are not listening to promotion samples of tracks instead of the full versions? 2:30 min is an akward length.

 

[ftllens]

With attention spans diverging into ultra short or long forms, will it be either 45 seconds or 45 mins in the future?

 

[castleofargh]

There's been a bunch of work done on finding the ideal length of a song. Half of which are now just taking stats from spotify and making stuff up about how to interpret it. But even then, the results tend to gravitate in the same area, saying 2mn is not enough and 5 might already be too long.
There are still well accepted differences associated with music genres, but I could never be clear on why. Is it by tradition? Or is there really no way for similar stuff cut into about 3mn parts that would end up pleasing more people?
Some of my all time favorite tracks are over 5mn long, but they tend to be old stuff following the old ways, and TBH, most have clearly distinct parts/movements that could probably be successful on their own.

EDM, IDK, it could never get around what it is. In he beginning I thought it was simply the newer stuff after dance, techno, electro... but people end up calling almost anything and everything EDM. I’m just left mostly confused. I think I like rather long tracks but I also often feel like they just stretch thing too much. Like with some typical tricks, be it to get to full speed or to add all the ”sounds” and finally drop, something, someone, or bass. I like most of those tricks TBH, for a terrible example, I’ve always been a sucker for traditional Russian songs that go faster and faster, I love stuff like that, and slow progression. It changes from just looping the same stuff for 3.30mn as most tracks do(something that also works surprisingly well). But not if it13.37mn in the making.

 

[gregorio]

There are still well accepted differences associated with music genres, but I could never be clear on why. Is it by tradition?

You could say it’s by tradition but that implies an arbitrary reason rather than the actual reason which caused it to become a tradition. Market forces determined a duration, less than that duration was sub-optimal for many/most consumers and so was more. This didn’t just apply to music genres but to pretty much any commercial entertainment content, like films and TV programmes. Additional to what consumers prefer are the commercial considerations of the distributors/broadcasters, their scheduling and advertising slot requirements. The commercial popular music industry was for many years largely driven by radio broadcasts. Market research companies, such a Nielson, indicated appropriate slot duration, broadcasters set their schedules according to those slots and musicians/producers either created recordings which fit those slots or created a “radio edit” that did. Exceeding that slot time drastically reduced the likelihood of being broadcast and not being broadcast drastically reduced sales, a “tradition” was born! Queen had a very difficult task with Bohemian Rhapsody, they were strongly advised against such a long track by management and they couldn’t get it broadcast to start with. Of course, it eventually became so popular that the major broadcasters had to change their scheduling to accommodate it but typically they won’t do that.

Or is there really no way for similar stuff cut into about 3mn parts that would end up pleasing more people?

That depends on the genre. Typical/traditional pop and rock has an intro, outro, a bridge and several repeated verses and choruses. The intro, outro and bridge can sometimes/often be reduced without much impact and sometimes even the removal of one of the repeated verses or choruses is tolerable. Other genres though, rely very heavily on a more slowly evolving musical structure, some classical music and EDM (especially Trance) for example, or have a more complex/diverse structure and in either case, shortening the pieces will probably completely ruin this effect and the entire piece if it’s reliant on it.

EDM, IDK, it could never get around what it is. In he beginning I thought it was simply the newer stuff after dance, techno, electro... but people end up calling almost anything and everything EDM. I’m just left mostly confused.

EDM has it’s roots in the Rave scene in the 1980’s and was popularised in the 1990’s by the night club scene, particularly in vacation locations popular with British or European teens/young adults, Ibiza for example. What separated this from all other music recording genres was that it was created by one person (albeit from samples of others), which could only be done with electronics and that one person was neither necessarily a musician nor an engineer/producer, they were DJ’s, who were paid according to how many customers they could entice to enter the club, dance and buy drinks. Hence EDM.

For me personally, I don’t find the term EDM particularly confusing because I don’t use it as a definition of genre but as a definition of how and why it was created.

G

 

[bigshot]

The length of pop songs was originally dictated by the length of 78rpm records. A 10 inch record was between 3 and 4 minutes long and a 12 inch record was between 5 and 6 (usually for multi-disk classical sets). 45s mirrored 10 inch records. With LPs an album side was about 20 minutes, so albums were made with about 5 songs on a side, 10 total.

 

[gregorio]

The length of pop songs was originally dictated by the length of 78rpm records.

I’m not sure that’s entirely correct? It’s well before my time and even before the time of those with whom I worked/learned from, so I could be wrong but from what I understand:
Pop music essentially started in the mid 1950’s and really took off in the latter part of the 1950’s. But even by the start of pop 78’s were on the decline, in favour of 7” 45s (with ~5:20 duration) and 12” 33.3s (with ~22min duration). The mass production of 78’s ended in 1958 in the US, just as pop music was taking off. So I’m not sure that 78’s had any influence at all on the duration of pop songs, maybe in some/a few cases.

G

 

[71 dB]

I’m not sure that’s entirely correct? It’s well before my time and even before the time of those with whom I worked/learned from, so I could be wrong but from what I understand:
Pop music essentially started in the mid 1950’s and really took off in the latter part of the 1950’s. But even by the start of pop 78’s were on the decline, in favour of 7” 45s (with ~5:20 duration) and 12” 33.3s (with ~22min duration). The mass production of 78’s ended in 1958 in the US, just as pop music was taking off. So I’m not sure that 78’s had any influence at all on the duration of pop songs, maybe in some/a few cases.

G

Perhaps pop music in the 50's took the music on 78's as a model? People had been used to a certain length for decades...

 

[gregorio]

Perhaps pop music in the 50's took the music on 78's as a model?

Possibly, I don’t know for certain. I would think it much more likely that they would take 45’s as the model, seeing as they were newer and more popular than 78’s and perhaps more importantly, 7” 45s are what jukeboxes used in the mid/late 1950’s, which along with radio were the major drivers of record sales.

G

 

[71 dB]

EDM, IDK, it could never get around what it is. In he beginning I thought it was simply the newer stuff after dance, techno, electro... but people end up calling almost anything and everything EDM. I’m just left mostly confused.

These terms can be confusing and what they mean depends on who you ask. To me EDM is an "umbrella" term meaning all electronic music made for dancing. Some 30 years ago I used its Finnish translation ("elektroninen tanssimusiikki") a lot when talking about music with my friends, but EDM wasn't a popular term at all. One definition for EDM is danceable pop music (e.g. Cash Cash ft. Bebe Rexha - Take Me Home). As a term EDM is excellent (short and to the point), but sadly it is poorly defined.