Why are so many songs between 3 – 4 minutes long?
In: Other
Because the format originated with vinyl singles that were 7 inches in diameter and played at 45 rpm.
Those singles fit about one song per side.
The other common format was bigger discs that played at 33 rpm and could hold a much longer amount of music per side.
Since hardware was simple back in the day, it was easy to make record players who could play both LPs and singles with just a switch that changed speed and little coaster in the middle for the differently sized central holes of the record.
Music labels began producing records that held more than a dozen songs on an LP and then released the “best” songs separately as singles. Meaning that all songs on an album had to fit on a single.
Later Radio stations ended up influencing the length of songs as they didn’t want to play songs that were too long.
Nowadays most of these outside factors are not really present anymore, but tradition keeps the old song length concept alive.
Latest Answers