If You’re A Musician In 2024, You Want To Hear This

[@robkovacsmusic]

Another reason artists may be releasing shorter songs is for streaming royalties. A 2-minute song on repeat earns twice as much money as a 4-minute song on repeat. If you can write a great, short song that makes people want to listen again and again, you're going to earn more money than you would on a longer version.

[@JaceyMitchell]

This is bad news for prog rock though 😅

[@Funkensturme]

@@JaceyMitchell You can chop something like a 24 minute song into 12 2 minutes parts. But the truth is that no sane person should expect to make a lot of money by doing Prog Rock nowadays.

[@Atmatan]

​@@FunkensturmeMaybe the problem is people expecting a lot of money and not the genres 🤔

[@IggyBing]

Sad but true.

[@DidNotReadInstructions]

AI is about to change all this very soon.

[@dennisgabriel9641]

I work in a music store, and we get lots of kids coming in learning to play an instrument. Guitar, piano and drums are the most common, but we also get students for woodwinds, brass, and strings well. It's really nice to see actual musicianship on the rise.

[@HuckFinn212]

Hopefully!!!

[@DavidKitchen-SoWhat]

Doubt it

[@Grumpyoldgeezer]

No hope of that happening. There isn't going to be any money in music very very soon. People won't pay for it and live music is dying

[@MaryLopez-em3rc]

It’s because they don’t teach it in schools they are coming in and there aren’t as many musicians anymore.

[@joeman5220]

I wonder if it has anything to do with the changes to school music programs since many schools have made them an additional cost or not available at all

[@rendyandrian7149]

Few years ago, a famous guitarist is asked what the biggest different in music listener now and then. His answer is nowadays people are always busy. Not with their job or family responsibility but with their phone and social media. People no longer has time to sit, listen, and appreciate song. They always do something while song is played in the background. Sad but true.

[@TooLittleInfo]

I definitely felt this one. For whatever reason i had kind of stopped listening to music for maybe 7-8 years, but i picked it up again last year. It really was like rediscovering a part of myself that had been missing for a while. I found myself lying in bed at night just listening yet again to the same album that i’d been listening to all week, with every listen discovering something new about it, and mused that i felt like a teenager again.

[@jencahowstudio]

It’s interesting that you bring this up. You are right to a degree, at least in my own life. When I had records or cd’s, I would “play dj “ and just spend time playing and listening to music. During the tape era, I would make mixed tapes. Nowadays, I shuffle my iTunes and do other stuff (drive, cook, paint). I only just listen right before sleep in bed but it’s KZbin songs - visual included. I think during my listening periods, I’ll not watch, just listen again. Thank you for bringing this up!

[@stephaniejmc]

I remember back in the 80s and 90s I would sit with my friends at the stereo and we would listen to the latest cassette or CD we bought, and it was still very much a shared social experience. We connected with each other by just listening to the music together, doing nothing else. I'm not sure kids these days have the attention span for this (unless they were making a reaction video on KZbin or something 😂).

[@josephkung9143]

I think Eric Johnson said this in a Beato interview. Music today is background noise. Which is why beats dominate and you need way less attention span, or none at all. Hopefully the pendulum will swing the other way!😊

[@chriscampbell9191]

Everything -- increasingly -- is on one device, the phone. Everything is competing for time on the same screen. In the 1970's, what we called 'media' came in different forms -- radio, TV, paperbacks, games were physically based (until video games began to hit) -- different media, different devices. Now it's increasingly on just one device, and that affects how people consume their music -- which increasingly is off the same device they use for the other stuff.

[@ThunderKrak]

guitar is coming back ! Hell yeah!

[@wadems]

Now let's bring back long(er), excellent guitar solos!

[@GuitarAgent007]

Yeah, bring back the 100 watt Marshall stack that goes to 11.

[@wadems]

@@GuitarAgent007 When you need that extra push over the cliff.

[@larrycanepa]

I told my wife mid last year that I felt the pendulum was swinging back towards Rock music again. It just felt that way with some really good new Rock bands and the strength of catalogs from 'Classic' artists.

[@eduardoescobar1906]

There's plenty of new young talented bands, exposure is the problem when we get all these dinosaur old af bands headlining most festivals still, and the new talent relegated to early hours where way less people get a chance to see them, and mainstream media as we all know isn't exactly Rock friendly, the heavier the less, so in that way we're screwed.

[@giantisopod]

Saying the pendulum is swinging back towards Rock music is like saying the pendulum is swinging back towards Classical or Jazz or Swing. It's never going to happen. This is wishful thinking. Rock music has been on the decline for 40 years, sure it's had its ups and downs, but it's dead for good this time. I don't think it's ever coming back. It's going to stick around the same way that Classical and Jazz do, but it's never going to be big again. The entire reason that Rock ever got big in the first place was that it had a low barrier of entry. Anybody could pick up a guitar and strum a few chords and become a rock star. But learning to play the guitar is still comparatively hard, nowadays we have way easier options. You can just mumble something into a microphone or compose something on a computer. There is no niche for Rock anymore. The music industry has always been a bit of a ponzi scheme: It seems like everbody who's really into Rap is dreaming of becoming a rapper, and everybody who used to be into Rock was dreaming of becoming a Rock star. Kids buy merchandise from their idols to become just like them. But Rap has become what Rock always wanted to be: A perfect way to sell expensive sneakers to kids. Rap is way better at this than Rock ever was because the barrier to entry is much lower, so it's much easier to suspend disbelief. Lemmy from Motörhead talked about how he started playing guitar to impress the girls at his school. I'm sure it was like that for many musicians, if not most. Nowadays, if you brought a guitar to school, girls would probably laugh at you for being a dork. Times have changed. Rock music isn't coming back unless we have a nuclear war, society disintegrates and we have to start over from scratch. It was a period in time.

[@Ixe2077]

​@@thereturnofthemac Just say you can't read a paragraph. He has a point.

[@gomerpyle7721]

I think having artists like Olivia Rodrigo going more rock is helpful in pushing rock forward to younger ears

[@hom2fu]

people said FM alternative rock radio don't work in my area. after almost 2 years, no alt rock radio.the station went back as alt rock and rating went up 4X. cannot understand the phenomenon

[@BradGOlson1]

Music, and music trends have changed sooo much. Of course, I'm a 65 year old professional musician who is stuck in the 60s-80s. Things you never hear anymore, or are pretty hard to come by on the radio (again, I'm old school in how I access music): instrumentals, guitar solos, TV theme songs that become hits, sax solos, horn sections. I miss them all.

[@elrondhubbard9127]

The theme to BJ and The Bear was the last great, American theme song.

[@JB-ti7bl]

Since the Super Bowl, I've been digging into that INXS song, Never Tear Us Apart. It's beautiful. Starts with strings (subtly messing with the number of beats per measure); drops in that electric guitar figure on beats 4,5,6 after a 9-beat rest; and there's also a huge sax solo.

[@maxhirsch7035]

You don't have to miss them, just buy cds or lps from that era of music, or download or stream music from that era. Nowadays who needs to be musically captive to contemporary music?

[@sgholt]

Strangely enough, I am also 65 love the music of the 60s-70s, blues and R&B....I play guitar as well... :p

[@bobbyricelatinjazzbigband]

Agreed! Also a pro here...

[@dbroche]

As music creators and songwriters I think it’s important to buck the trends. Be trend setters not followers. But more importantly, be 100% you. It’s the authenticity of the artist that truly connects to the audience.

[@BaldPerspective]

Based af, homie

[@richardmortimer8147]

Also, being a good song-writer. Having space in the song, harmony and melody. Not just drums and a synthesised voice - yuk!

[@thepagecollective]

Yeah, that's true to an extent. But realistically, musical genres have a 30-40 year lifespan. Rap is past its prime. Pop rises and falls with the times, filling in the gaps between waves. Country rises and falls over time, too.

[@thepagecollective]

@@richardmortimer8147 I agree, songwriting is important.

[@flyingaxeman7343]

Most of the bands I've ever liked ever made billboard charts , and most of them didn't engage in Billboard analytics while they were writing songs. If they ever come up with a category called "good music" maybe that would change.

[@jamirimaj6880]

Music is changing the same way anything changes: we are sick of the trend, and we change it by innovating new stuff or going back to the past. And that cycle repeats. Nothing is forever. It's really that simple.

[@tomoverton2138]

I don’t know if you have heard this, (I haven’t read through the comments) this video received mention on national radio in Canada today. Well done!

[@musicallinda21]

That’s awesome!!👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽😆😆😆

[@mikebrunoguitarist]

Probably at CHOM FM

[@tomoverton2138]

@@mikebrunoguitarist actually Rich Terfry on CBC.

[@maxhirsch7035]

One factor that definitely affected album length (and possibly song length as well) in the 90s was that it was still the early cd era, and with cds capable of storing nearly twice the length of music at standard cd resolution as a standard LP could store, a lot of rock musicians, at least, started releasing substantially longer albums than they previously had done in the pre-cd era.

[@Kronaphasia]

IDK previous to the 90's & CD's there were plenty of long songs over 4 & 7 minutes for mass selling published vinyl albums even though vinyl has always had a somewhat fixed sound duration length in its commercial life.

[@michaelbell75]

Nothing to do with it. Rush, Pink Floyd, Genesis and other prog rock artists were putting out 8+ minute songs decades before the 90s and on vinyl.

[@malcolmwong5109]

Well, there was In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida, Thick As A Brick, many of the Grateful Dead songs (well, live...)

[@georgezissis9244]

Apparently, the Bat Out of Hell album by Meatloaf was slightly sped up so it could fit on the limited space of vinyl records.

[@FOKI5895]

Yeah, I dont think Kurt was thinking of how much he can put on a CD when he was writing those songs

[@VexylObby]

I'm not sure if I could ever say music could change for the "better" or "worse". What I can hope for is that the music ends up serving its generations well in improving people's lives generally.

[@mikekenney2680]

I think you just gave "better" a good definition for the context of music. And "worse" is a lost opportunity because the music fails to do that. The music at a given time may or may not be meeting a generation's needs well. It may not if music trends are being driven by forces divorced from what people are looking for. It may if trends are very responsive to what each generations needs. The reality is probably somewhere in the middle.

[@dreamannemusic]

Could be that music is subjective. Better for some, worse for some. Really depends on who is listening!

[@ejRecording]

If it doesn't have soul for our souls to feel, then...

[@Tony8418]

@@mikekenney2680 I think you’re on to something. My nephew and his friends, born 2005-ish, listen primarily to music from that time period or earlier. The Strokes, Weezer, Death Cab, The Smiths, nirvana, brand new, arcade fire, OutKast, gorillaz, mgmt, blink 182, etc… and it’s not even because we millennials and gen xers showed it to them, some of it yes, but they found a lot of it on their own. He discovered The Strokes from playing GTA 5 lol. Now it’s his favorite band. Perhaps modern music, which I know they hear heavy doses of, is not serving their needs.

[@JonathanToole]

The only way music could be "better" or "worse" is if the lyrical content is moral or not. The more moral a song is and the more it promotes what is truly good, the more music gets better. Same thing with music that is immoral. Music is a pathway to the brain. It can sub-consciously make us think certain ways. Other than that, there isn't anything objectively wrong with any music. We all start with a subjective bass-line that music has to meet for us too like it.

[@heikkiaho6605]

7:04 one thing to note is that these are/were all rock bands, with actual passionate musicians writing and playing music, not just some producers and studio execs designing some product.

[@BillypilgrimII]

Eleanor Rigby - 2:06 Paperback Writer - 2:18 Tomorrow Never Knows: 2:58 - if you're good, 3 minutes is enough time for an epic!

[@raggedoak]

I think it's fascinating to think about how the technology of the vinyl record was a large part of the reason songs were shorter in the 60s, and then as record printing strategies improved, and things like tape, CDs, and digital became prevalent it allowed artists to produce longer works within an album. Yet, now the same thing has happened in reverse. The technology of social media has created a new constraint with everything needing to fit within 15-60 seconds, and thus songs have once again become shorter.

[@principiosativos]

Well pointed.

[@alanhiebert3548]

i don't know, Yes & ELP had some very long songs on vinyl. :)

[@principiosativos]

@@alanhiebert3548 , Beatles' Please, Please Me vinyl has fourteen tracks; Yes' Close To The Edge vinyl has just three tracks.

[@pbjam2182]

Makes me wonder if 60 years from now kids will be rediscovering shorts the way ppl are with vinyl today

[@edsonrzk]

wtf what about pink floyd and all the other prog rock bands in the 70's lol yall are crazy in these commets

[@Brokenhill42]

I think one thing to note on the 90s rock songs is that they often had a "radio edit" that was a bit shorter or the DJ cut the song off early compared to the full album version.

[@jean-louispech4921]

In the 80's too ,many songs were longer than the radio format, and sometime they were cut , just like that, eliminating an instrumental part, etc...

[@glennpagemusic]

I was a radio DJ back then. Many stations did play radio edits which brought the longer songs down into a manageable 4:20-4:40 range (or so), but many stations, mine included, also played the longer versions as well.

[@stampenrangers]

....and today the radio stations make their own edits. 🤬

[@russellarcher4226]

ha, the opposite of the 80s where you had the extended remix

[@peterferraiolo4071]

@@jean-louispech4921The worse example of this is the song 🎶 “Fashion” by David Bowie. The song 🎵 was originally 4:53 on Scary 😧 Monsters 👹 and Super Creeps. However, when they shot the video for MTV, they completely butchered it to 3:26. I understand doing that to a song 🎶 that’s over 6 or minutes long. But doing that that’s just under 5 minutes is ridiculous.

[@lecturelad]

Very interesting to me. I recently retired form my day job that has paid the bills for 40 years and am putting together a mini studio in my house to record some of my own songs for posterity and probably not prosperity ( just turned 71 ! ). My songwriting leans heavily to rock, pop, and a little bit country. May not be the worst time to get this done.

[@24sevenrecords51]

Put the link to listen to them especially pop for me

[@hobojungle1]

Rock on 🤘🏻

[@hhaannnnaahh222]

this is awesome, good for you

[@travellerwalking]

Love this! Never stop! Music isn't age, music belongs to human beings. Have an awesome time making your music and let me know if you want someone to add a bit of noise to it.

[@kofiassor2164]

Nice, please rock on

[@shannonfrench6893]

Rick I watch your videos often and I agree with you on most everything. I just turned 63 and have been playing music for 53 of them. I've written over 500 songs and have a little over 250 of them in the Library of Congress. I play guitar, bass, drums and some keyboard which is my weakest instrument. I write and record them on Tascam 4-track's and I used to send demo's to record companies until 1999 when I got the attention of a producer in Nashville. He had worked with quite a few big names and promised me I was great but I needed better production. I knew better because my Dad played with Porter Wagoner and Tex Ritter and knew the music business pretty well, at least until the mid '60's. So he warned me of the traps and pitfalls. Other people paid $20,000 for me to make a 3 song demo at Studio 19 in Nashville in May, 2000. I write a lot of genres of music but I like classic rock. I grew up listening to my brother's Beatles record's. By accident I found out I was related to George Harrison but was a few years too late because he had already passed but I got to know his sister Louise. If I would have focused on getting my original music out there when I was in my early 20's instead of playing in cover bands and getting married to a woman who had kids I might have had a chance. But when I finally did it was the same year Napster changed the business entirely and boy bands and Brittney Spears were taking us to where we are now. I still write and record, it's just something I have to do and great therapy. I hate pitch perfect and auto tune. I don't like Hip-hop and all the vulgarity and violence it promotes. George's mother's maiden name was French and that's how I, well actually my brother did all the research we were distant cousins of George. I knew by an uncle who traced our family tree that we originally came from the UK but never dreamed I would have a tiny drop of Beatle blood in me. I even remember watching them on Ed Sullivan when I was 3 and a half years old and thinking that's what I want to do with my life when I grow up. I was always just a little too late. Keep up the good work, love your channel!

[@shannonfrench6893]

@@andyb7855 thank you. I've had a very interesting life and done things in music most people wouldn't believe because I'm not famous. I could have been but for one reason or another I just didn't. If Rick ever wanted to talk to me I would be honored but I don't know if I would be a good guest or not. If he reads this I'm not that hard to find.

[@blackmax222]

So I was just talking today to a producer friend who is very well respected and I said music is like fashion. You're going to see crazy colors but they don't last. Soon or a later we get back to the foundation. Nothing will ever replace blue jeans

[@sbentsen2714]

Great comment, yes. A lot of people are getting tired of the trends we've had the last 10 years or so and are going back to more classic sounds

[@totallyfrozen]

I think that’s why while we see changes and fads, the foundational root genres don’t go away. We’ll always have some iteration of Jazz, Metal, Country, Folk, etc.

[@Durkhead]

If Latin is so far down on the list how come I hear that dunca dunca beat all the time

[@ExpatZ266]

@@Durkhead Depends where ya live don't it?

[@edallen5384]

Speaking of blue, blues seems to be maintaining a certain popularity level. Blues is what I would call foundation music.

[@jonathantobin6140]

Guitar music is on the rise. Ive been playing in cover bands many years and more young people are digging us old guys.

[@AS-xj9cy]

im one of those young guys

[@a_ya5555]

I call bs

[@jacobshirley3457]

@@a_ya5555 Sounds like the least-rewarding lie to create, lol.

[@a_ya5555]

@@jacobshirley3457 Cry harder. Guitar based music isn't thriving.

[@Iron_Void]

@@a_ya5555 ?

[@nathanmarshallmusic]

Yes! I love the crunching of the numbers for music trends. More of this please.

[@evidencegrande7097]

In today's rap music, almost most beats have very similar instruments, the rhythms are very similar, most artists sound similar, no one really has a style, everyone is only interested in the money, the songs are too short, the whole thing is not professional. Sad really what social media has done to music. Everything is going down.

[@SumerianRecords]

this is just terrific.

[@dannylifted]

I love rock but haven't ever been able to gain an acquired sense for country. I don't hate it but I very rarely hear country songs that I can't easily walk away from.

[@kodykindhart5644]

Go check super secret band Lost ox Jay si proof Bodhi mojo Pdx represent 🤙

[@thepagecollective]

The average lifespan of a musical genre is 30-40 years. Rap is past its expiration date. It's not complicated.

[@wooddogg8]

@@dannylifted Same here, It's all so predictable and has no "edge" giving the genre an overall innocent vibe, which is boring. Don't hate on me, just my 2 cents.

[@Skywohka]

slowcore and indie folk era

[@___HH___]

Rick, I caught this news from you this morning and want to thank you. You asked if we want more of this kind of information and I have to say "yes". I'm a songwriter and realized many years ago the Beatles were successful with well written 'shorter' songs. So yes, I appreciated your video.

[@billmckinlay4219]

and Hey Jude is one of their longest and perhaps most boring song. The excelled under 3 minutes

[@stevebeye1585]

I do appreciate the last group chorus of Hey Jude, I skip to it, if I’m able. One day driving in the car to work, I cranked the ending/last chorus, and for the first time after many many times hearing Hey Jude, I noticed how perfect THE GROOVE/TEMPO IS !?!!?! I thought, wow what a great groove they decided upon.

[@stevebeye1585]

I totally agree about their shorter concise songs are the best

[@Jazzmentl]

What about Jazz?

[@___HH___]

@@Jazzmentl I'm curious about what you're thinking regarding Jazz. Are you a writer? Composer?

[@Pwecko]

What surprised me, after having listened to it numerous times over the years, was finding out that Tomorrow Never Knows by the Beatles was only two minutes and 58 seconds long. It always felt much longer. The Beatles really packed a lot into each of their songs.

[@bobblehead67]

Similarly, Hendrix surprised me; Manic Depression is just 3 and a half minutes; Little Wing is 2 and a half. Amazing

[@kriswright]

One chord though, lol

[@evanwalters63]

first techno beat ever played. Chemical Brothers use it in Setting Sun, which is an awesome song.

[@NewFalconerRecords]

@luke5100 There's not a single song on 'Revolver' that goes for three minutes. 'Eleanor Rigby' is only 2m 07secs.

[@SeanMatheson-n3x]

@lters63 Yup, the Beatles were the first pop musicians to use sampling. They were influenced by 20th century composers like Stockhausen, who made most of his music by chopping up magnetic tape loops. The Beatles used that technique by recording the instrumental parts, as well as found sounds, onto tape and then cutting/splicing the pieces together. Decades after that, other people started using turntables to sample pre-recorded sounds and eventually digital samplers, but the Beatles did it all first.

[@salgallegos200]

Please do include more of this in some of your videos. Fascinating topic for analizing and just having a nice conversation about music trends and how they have change, or even repeat thorigh the years... Great Rick!!!

[@georgesdelatour]

I’m no expert on country, but to me a lot of modern country is simply rock music in which the singer has a southern regional accent and there’s a certain narrative approach to lyric writing. I don’t hear a lot of prominent pedal steel guitar, country fiddle, 3/4 time country waltz tunes etc. Again, I don’t know the genre well, so I’m happy to be corrected…

[@rockingbirdey]

Nah, you're right. Actually, a lot of modern country that isn't hick hop sounds like 80s hard rock

[@ambientcafe]

*Indeed, I miss pre-2000's country, when one could still dance two-step to it .. altho that's likely the reason for modern country's growth, as it's basically crossover .. that is, essentially country-rock instrumentals, but with the twangy vocals still intact 🫤

[@ambientcafe]

*Indeed, I miss pre-2000's country, when one could still dance two-step to it .. altho that's likely the reason for modern country's growth, as it's basically crossover .. that is, essentially country-rock instrumentals, but with the twangy vocals still intact 🫤

[@louiebee6745]

A lotta influence from Fleetwood Mac and Lynyrd Skynyrd in some country music.

[@richkroberts]

Greg Allman said, it’s the singer and not the song that makes it a country or rock song.

[@jbmyerov]

When music videos were dominant in the late 80s and early 90s, it was good to have longer songs, which meant more time to see your favorite band or artist in an interesting setting or story. That was also the CD era, where in college we would hang in someone’s room while a CD was going, so longer songs work for listeners in that context.

[@NewFalconerRecords]

Yes, longer songs tended to come in at the same time that CDs became the main music format. An album wasn't restricted to being 40 minutes long so artists could stretch out a bit. And they did.

[@stoneneils]

I can't believe in the age of video that music videos haven't made a major comeback. I actually prefer the videos cuz you get to watch the band's chemistry. Go watch U Got The Look by Prince and tell me the song however great competes with the video. Same for Thriller and many songs..the video gave us the physical space/mental background that made the songs work even better..more effective..more dramatic. One by Metallica..come on..videos could be SO good. Rooster is another.

[@dannylifted]

Shorter songs are because a lot of the money comes from ad dollars. Once a song starts you already have the advertisers money. You want the consumer to press play as often as possible so the video gains more on advertising. Long songs means less plays.

[@cuebj]

Well. that was for 'serious' listening and viewing. But for dancing... early Pink Floyd before Dark Side was great, as evidenced in Nick Mason's touringband that just plays pre-DS Floyd material

[@cuebj]

@@dannylifted No. shorter songs far better for dancing with other people

[@danielleal1037]

The point about the length of songs by the Beatles and their quality was spot on.

[@MichaelRoy-hc3lz]

Something l really like about this channel is how Rick explains parts of the recording industry that's unknown to the general publc. Not long ago my friend who works at a studio in Philadelphia told me that artist now show up to record with a notebook and a producer. He said the last time he saw real musicians was before Covid. Maybe with hip hop fading and the rising popularity of rock that we'll go back to hearing talented real musicians playing real instruments on the radio instead of the terrible crap that has plagued the air waves for almost 20 years now.

[@oklahomahank2378]

Mozart’s early symphonies were usually 20 minutes or so, gradually out to 30 by his death, then Mahler started to extend it longer and longer, over an hour. Then the second Vienna school went short again. Now we seem to have settled into the 20 to 30 minute range for concert pieces again. People’s attention span is about twelve minutes, typically, so even that is stretching it.

[@MadNoisy]

yay, awesome. Was wondering about classical music now a days and where it stands 👍 @Rick Beato , what is the chart saying....

[@wolf-yw9wk]

takes 15 min for our brains to get into flow state, makes sense why no one can actually focus on anything and why most things end up mediocre.

[@davidbell3857]

How much profanity was in those Mozart symphonies?

[@SO-ym3zs]

Point taken, but symphonies were getting bigger and longer way before Mahler: LvB's Eroica and 9th, Berlioz, Bruckner, Brahms, et al. If the music is good and you've trained yourself to relax and focus, an hour-plus piece of music should not pose a challenge to your concentration. Unfortunately, as mentioned in the video, our society trains people to minimize their attention spans. If a four-minute rock song is too much for people these days, there's no way they're going to appreciate the vast bulk of classical music.

[@SO-ym3zs]

Depends whether the French horn player drops his instrument on his neighbor's foot :) (Which reminds me of the true story of Jean-Baptiste Lully dying of gangrene after accidentally stabbing himself in the foot with his conductor's baton.)@@davidbell3857

[@railrodemike]

Playing bass since 1965. Glad to hear live music slowly on the rise. Open mic night a blast at local clubs musician's carrying their guitars, drums and keyboards into to jam.

[@couchphotography8861]

I'm very happy to be carrying my sax to jams! What do I get asked for most often? Careless whisper, and Baker street solos, LOL!

[@monkswhiskers3354]

I'm a drummer, I prefer when the venue has a kit there already :)

[@jencahowstudio]

Nice!

[@patriciaellinghausen4365]

still seems like same pay though. $100 / person. --- Cosmic Wagon country band.

[@JakeSkillman]

Hip-hop falling back down to earth is going to benefit hip-hop the most. It was so oversaturated. Sincerely I think this is good news for hip hop as one of the few Rick viewers who spins kendrick as much as i spin zepplin (not blizzard of oz, though, still my fav).

[@nickborrrego]

I was pretty checked out of hip hop for a while, then someone showed me Kendrick. Maybe you're right, needs to come back down to earth.

[@Zundfolge]

Hip hop hasn't had any real interesting innovations in a long time. Get a couple new breakthrough artists doing something interesting and new with it and it'll recover just fine (I kinda thought Ren might do that, but he hasn't).

[@mikem668]

I'd be interested in knowing when you got into hip hop. Did you grow up with it? What was the competition? I was interested in it early. I liked Public Enemy for example. And LL Kool J. Occasionally I'd hear something latter like Slim Shady that caught my ear. I felt that Nirvana and Eminem both had lines that caught the spirit of the age like Don't believe the hype. But the time I was catching up on other kinds of music. Blues, folk, world, jazz. I had a black friend who ran the jazz department in a CD store. He couldn't get his nephews to listen to the jazz classics let alone stuff we were exploring. Eventually I just lost interest in hip hop. Too many other genres, not enough time or money. So while I believe there's merit to your argument that thinning out the space might help the music, it's not always clear it works out that way.

[@JakeSkillman]

@@mikem668 i grew up on pac and biggie, i was in atlanta as a child around 1998-2002 and tons of atlanta rap made it my way. outkast/run the jewels/luda were have become my favorites over time. these days along with the ATLiens, i love kendrick, danny brown, still like wayne, MF doom, old kanye. i also like basically anything el-p has ever touched so basically anything with noise based production im into.

[@MISO999100999]

on the other hand i think experimental hip hop is peaking these last years

[@nine9whitepony526]

That is absolutely the reason why songs are shorter now compared to decades ago. I've been saying this for a while, internet, tic toc particularly is destroying people's focus. As a musician from way back I've had to make drastic changes because of this. This is totally fascinating. Just discovered your channel today and subbed

[@razorback9926]

Streaming is the reason artists are putting out 20 sub-3 minute songs on an album. More, shorter songs equals more streams. 6-minute songs are a thing of the past (on the Top 40 chart anyway).

[@scottnicklas9809]

This is the obvious answer. Sure, people's attention spans might be shorter, but for the artists making the tracks, it's a simple formula. If your fans are only going to listen to forty minutes of your album, you're way better off releasing twenty 2-minute tracks than eight 5-minute tracks.

[@nowhitespace]

Short and sweet songs also promote repeat listens, which the algorithms seem to like. Also, it seems to me like the new generation of producers have no patience to even put together a long drawn out section. If they come up with a solo instrumental, it's a separate song. I think it's less artists catering to trends but more of a trend of artist preferences.

[@chuckcassidymusic]

Now my future songwriting plan is complete: 6-minute songs, piano, profanity all over the place! Anything to not end up on pop charts! (I'll have to learn piano, though, I already know how to swear.)

[@schmassbinder]

Bo Burnham beat you to it.

[@cgluck]

I produce my bands music. And omg, I will swear them when they under perform. Do it again, do it again. Do no waste my time coming in unprepared

[@SarahAndreaRoycesChannel]

Hm, November Rain?

[@chuckcassidymusic]

@@SarahAndreaRoycesChannel Nah, I can be way more creative than that: December F*cking Snow. (can't forget the profanity)

[@a_ya5555]

Anyone who learns piano can master a synth. Only a fool picks up a guitar and plays boring blues at this point.

[@danlc95]

The Red Album! That's the one my Dad had on our family vacatfrom Detroit to Disney World in 1986! I was nine. When we returned I got my sisters toy drums out and started to play along to those songs. I write this from my drum seat, in the exact spot where it happened. We used to uave bunk beds, hers was the bottom. The spot where I sat is about where my snare is today... Thank you for the memory jog, Rick. Owning your childhood home is a trip, but I had planned it since I was five!

[@bluegrassreb]

My 8th grade graduation gifts were a guitar and the 'Red album' 1987. changed my life!!!

[@cecilharkins8426]

Back in the 3 network age, I sat thru commercials that ran 30 seconds, some were as long as a minute. Can you imagine? Now I'm livid when youtube forces a 15 second spot.

[@Archer335]

Yes, that’s one thing I do not miss about network television of the 1960s and ‘70s: the predictable and inescapable torture of those “commercial breaks.”

[@SilentCureOfficial]

As a producer, I have made songs for around 3 minutes to make streaming platforms happy and think of strategy but have now chosen to let it be up to each track instead of an algorithm... let the creativity and songs speak for themselves and breathe

[@holliesheet3182]

AI (video) killed the (Radio Star) Media ⭐

[@andrewcarter803]

I love it when you dig down into the weeds of the ‘why is music like this’. Particularly when you compare past songs with today’s songs and give specific differences.

[@marcalvarez4890]

This!

[@thomasd8694]

I usually agree. Still, argumentation is sometimes a bit cheap. Have seen other musicians have more elaborate answers for this, as „video games bad“.

[@tedfreeman2709]

I think you’re just scratching the surface on why and how these trends are shaping out and love to know the criteria - is it downloads, plays, sales, streams, etc we are talking here and what’s trackable/not trackable I.e SoundCloud and other off-grid music sources? I’m surprised with demographics that Latin music is not higher in there somewhere and certainly on streets of Atlanta there’s not a lot of rock I hear, mores the pity…! But this is fascinating and much to unpack.

[@JessStChristopher]

Thank you! I am a songwriter, and this truly helps, and I agree - the internet has greatly impacted songs- in spite of that, I strive to be a bit more conscious of the songs them selves, and go from there-

[@jemjoesatch]

When you used to 'buy' music 🎶 it had more worth to us we treasured the artwork on the sleeve and we kept the tape in our Walkman ready to go. It's just to easy to loose yourself searching than being content. I don't know what could remedy this but I wish we could actually love music like we used to again

[@higheroctave9421]

100%. I used to buy a CD every few months or rent a few from the library and in between those purchases, I had completely absorbed the music on those discs. I knew the musicians that were called in to play 'additional' parts. I miss those days so much I've begun that process of organising my vinyl, cassette and CD library again, not for nostalgia alone but to make it a practice of being present with music listening and enjoyment, and not aimless content surfing.

[@maxmordon7295]

Restrictions, to some extent, are necessary in regards to the most meaningful experiences (there may be an exception or two): being able to access countless "records" online is insipid in comparison with having the physical copy of an album you consider special and which you invested valuable money on... Photographic films used to be kept for peculiar events and implied a well defined number of limited pictures that could be taken; now, off course, someone with a smartphone can hold the capture "button" until getting tens or hundreds of pictures instantly, with absolute carelessness and "infinite" space in storage, etcetera.

[@StarBellySneetch]

This is true. what we pay or sacrifice for is important to us. Free things could be 10x better but won't be appreciated as much. Good point

[@AFloodofSolaceJohnWhigham]

Amen.

[@me_fault]

you can still listen to music that way

[@erict1917]

Great video. Regarding song lengths, Phil Spector printed 3:05 on label of "You Lost that Lovin' Feeling" to appease time standards of the time, but the song actually was 3:45 long. This drove unwitting DJ's bonkers trying to schedule ads and breaks on the air.

[@musicmike1960]

Music as an art form has swayed back and forth for years...I'm still singing in a local band the songs of the 60's and early seventies to a room full of people who really enjoy hearing those great songs of our generation...I want to keep this music alive as long as I can...I have been a lead singer for 55 years and have performed many genres of music, but the 60's and 70's are special to me, now and until I die.

[@thisislogout]

60's and 70's music is special to me as well; best musicians and real instruments as well as thought provoking lyrics.

[@pearsonart]

I taught for more than 20 years. The most important thing I wanted students to take away was that playing an instrument changes how you hear music and interact with everything as a human being. In other words, play and enjoy music and expect nothing from the world. Better yourself.

[@Niswander]

Yes, Rick please make more videos like this. It allows us to share it with other musicians and music fans that need to know what is actually changing. Thank you!

[@Queerpunx]

Since the release of the Bob Marley movie. I've noticed a lot of younger people starting to get into reggae. Reggae has never been "mainstream" but it has always influenced a lot of mainstream music. I think we will soon see a resurgence of that.

[@stevebeye1585]

Reggae as a genre, has legs! I’m a monstrous fan of what happened in Jamaica in the 70’s. It will continue to grow

[@stevebeye1585]

“When it hits, you feel no pain” - indeed…

[@216Numbskull]

You don't get into reggae music, you feel the vibe & energy of the beat in reggae music. No disrespect, but how many people could possibly be digging reggae jams right now when the Marley movie only came out a week ago? Don't get it twisted I invite all newcomers to roll a fatty & kickback & chill to listen to some cool reggae jams, no bout a doubt it my friend. But how many people are really keeping it a buck? Cuz you can't fake the funk, ya dig? 🤔 +Peace, Funk & Rock n' Roll 4 Your Soul+ 🤘😜🤘

[@stevebeye1585]

@@216Numbskull I hope that movie helps reggaes reach to a new generation! I started out watching the documentary “Word,Sound, and Power” the Soul Syndicate band. I VHS taped it off of Night Flight, probably around 1986-87 I’d guess, and I thought Bobs music sounded too polished the first times I heard it. But I quickly came to realize the importance and greatness of Bobs music. Just about ten years ago a friend and I set out to collect as many golden years dub albums as we could find. That was a super fun time, and made me super knowledgeable about the artists from Jamaica.

[@stevebeye1585]

@@216Numbskull I even learned how to play the guitar, by watching Earl Chinna Smiths finger work, in the WORD SOUND POWER film. The fact I could watch him play and kind of figure out what he was playing, propelled me to have more confidence, that I could play guitar. The guitar, “Is the instrument of 10 strings!” -Chinna

[@eamonahern7495]

Bohemian Rhapsody is a very long song and it charted more than once in different eras. I think the secret to that though is that it's like 3 songs condensed into one package. You have a ballad at the start, the operatic section in the middle and the rock section towards the end with return to the ballad at the end. Each section has something for everyone and it never dwells on one section longer than it needs to.

[@tomasviane3844]

True!

[@MicSlapsStrings]

Bohemian rhapsody is a long song for people who only listen to sub 3:00 minute songs. It’s exactly 6:00 minutes long. Anyone who listens to music from the 70’s-90’s is probably used to music of that length. Truly long songs is stuff that’s like 8 minutes and beyond.

[@WoockerSocket2]

A standard pop song verse is 8 bars, pre chorus 4, chorus 8. That doesn't dwell long at all. And all of those sections have different melodies and rhythms which can also be considered " 3 songs in 1 " Everyone writing a song like Bohemian rhapsody is not the way to go.

[@richardgillette5759]

please for the love of god no more Bohemian Rhapsody, that song needs to go back to where it was in the 80s

[@mistermac56]

Great analysis. What a fabulous song. If that song was released today, most likely, Queen would be asked to break the song into singles by the record label.

[@AFO_AnalyRics]

Yes, sir! Please, more of this topic. Thank you!

[@angusmoffat]

The cure for all that ails you is live music. Here in Victoria we have Rifflandia. World class acts. If you ever If you ever decide to visit Vancouver Island, it'll be worth the trip. Keep on rocking Rick!

[@billpatterson8997]

One of the reasons that the Beatles songs and those of that era and before were under 3 minutes was that the physical capacity of one side of a “single” record was about 3 minutes. That, and the fact that radio was geared to playing singles with that time constraint kept songs at that length. Even as LPs expanded capacity, the industry was resistant to songs of greater length. As you said, Rick, today listeners have a short attention span. So, it’s no surprise that songs are shorter again.

[@seed_drill7135]

They put Hey Jude on a 45. Short songs are what program directors wanted. Some artists put fake times on the labels of longer songs.

[@macusuweru]

The hardware grew in capability then the human shrunk in capability 😂

[@saberreiter8569]

There were video games in the 90s ;) ! But yeah, people listened to longer songs back then because listening to the music oftentimes WAS the activity instead of being a PART of the activity.

[@SO-ym3zs]

We were playing video games way before the 90's, in fact. But there was no Internet in the early 90's, no smart phones, no social media... People generally had longer attention spans and didn't have a whole technoculture built to undermine it and feed us constant advertising.

[@saberreiter8569]

@@SO-ym3zs I know, but he was talking explicitly about the 90s ;)

[@SO-ym3zs]

I know, I just meant that not only were we playing them then, but well before then, too. They were an established thing by then.@@saberreiter8569

[@alessandromyer]

Such a great video Rick! In the 90s we knew how to wait, feel the anticipation, the build up…songs had intros and solos!!! Now the average listener is not educated and has no patience

[@GavinProphet]

Solo rock musician here (been putting out music in bands for 10+ years) I JUST started releasing solo stuff and this up turn in rock trending has been so inspiring - DONT GIVE UP YALL 🎉

[@Puremocional]

Band name?

[@Skipidy720]

Zigga ​@@Puremocionalprig prig yeah 😢

[@thepagecollective]

Same here. I make music, and the videos for them on my channel. I just never bought the rap thing.

[@MikkelGrumBovin]

boring

[@GavinProphet]

@@MikkelGrumBovin u must make ENJOYABLE music 🥴

[@paulwood4142]

Wow I didn't know all those Beatles hits were under 3mins. Pioneers even now. "In my life" one of my all time faves!

[@louiebee6745]

All You Need Is Love was their first single to approach 4 minutes (3:57) then came Lady Madonna at 2:17 and Hey Jude at a whopping 7:11.

[@Kaddywompous]

Hey Jude was considered a risky bet for a single since it was sooooo long at 7min.

[@louiebee6745]

@@Kaddywompous Exactly. Even though MacArthur Park by Richard Harris (7:21) was released 4 months before Hey Jude.

[@digitaljanus]

You could only fit about 22 minutes a side on a vinyl LP back then without really messing up the audio quality, that's like 7-8 tracks a side or ~15 typical pop singles per album.

[@NewFalconerRecords]

@@louiebee6745 Radio DJs loved those songs because they could safely take a toilet break. DJs loved 'American Pie' when it came out as well.

[@jaredmann3452]

Absolutely love trend analysis. I'd love to see some more of this in regard to production/composition elements like loudness/dynamic range, arrangement, vocal range, random stuff like that. That'd be freakin cool.

[@ChartCipher]

Thank you, Jared! What you saw in the video is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of what the ChartCipher platform covers. We also look at timbre, vocal range, chord repetition, rhymes, lyrical moods, and a whole lot more to provide a comprehensive view of how the music landscape is evolving.

[@LexAladar]

Over 3 years ago I started making music. Truth be told, I’ve always noticed I enjoyed shorter songs sometimes do much better because sometimes there’s no reason to extend a message or a feeling when it’s done.

[@Homebrew58]

RE: song lengths... I was an on-air DJ for nearly 40 years and a piece of trivia I picked up long ago that stuck with me is that way back in the day when music first started being recorded to vinyl... shellac or whatever the medium was... the machines used for cutting the disc was powered by a pulley and counterweight system. The average length of time that the machine could operate on one winding of the pulley was around 3 minutes which determined how long the song could be. That standard just kind of stuck for a long time.

[@jacksonreazin6042]

Similar to the length of a given album. Capacity of a vinyl or tape or disc was a physical limitation.

[@matturner6890]

a few verses and choruses plus a bridge at a typical tempo also works out to about that much, especially if you're doing a short first verse

[@Bob-of-Zoid]

@@matturner6890 Tell that to Pink Floyd, Iron Butterfly, Tangrine dream, Yes, The WHO, King crimson and a few thousand others! You are speaking of a single "Radio Play" standard and boring, overused song structure record companies tried to make all of their artists conform to.

[@SiloSoundStudios]

​@@jeffh8803early cutters absolutely used a weight/pulley system to move the cutter. But yeah, we really became accustomed to the 3:30 thing for songs. The size of the platter at a given speed certainly was a factor too.

[@carlmally6292]

@@jeffh8803 In 78 rpm days it was a wind up device both for recording and playing.

[@edgarconradgonzalezhartman2882]

I think 80-90s songs also had significant intros and outros. Easily 1:00 -1:30 of the songs are consumed by those.

[@Onionbaron]

1780:s, 1880:s or ....

[@TLguitar]

​@@Onionbaron It's pretty obvious this dude is from the future and is speaking of the 2380s-2390s, the greatest two decades in popular music following the catastrophic collapse of human society resulting from the Great AI Redistribution event. Get your sh*t together, man, this is basic 2670s 4th grade subject. Now let me just disconnect my TimeX Timeliner Quantum Chatter Model 6, Elon doesn't like it when peoBlrghughugharmfkhdkhdkhdbekbEkBeK

[@beingsshepherd]

Billie Jean, Blue Monday.

[@McSlobo]

Nowadays songs have 30 second intro which is the only interesting part. After that the song really starts and it's horrible. This is only to get the listener to listen until it counts as play in Spotify, which generates money.

[@bassadelica]

Yep. AND solos. AND bridges. There’s zero both of those in pop. A little in country

[@minnesotasteve]

I think the main thing holding back song lengths 60s-80s was vinyl. The vinyl albums of the day were like 23-25 per side, so 50 minutes total, and the 45 singles were around 3-5 minutes per side. Trying to cram more in there started hitting the laws of physics. CDs come out in late 80s and really take off in 90s and now you have a 74 minutes for an album giving the artists more room to play with. There's probably some impact through all of this from radio as they're going to want short songs so they can play commercials more often. So it's long been the technology dictating the average and now we've gone from being limited by length for the tech to being limited by the audience attention span.

[@Nick_CF]

Yeah I was thinking the same thing. Art reflects the society it was made in.

[@bartvaes4126]

You're absolutely correct on the vinyl limitation there. With CD you had more headroom, more space for lower frequencies and thus more detailed / better quality and longer audio. And then the loudness wars began...

[@jimmyv3170]

Also don't forget about the radio. They wanted 2-3 minute songs so they could play those songs on loop over and over. That's why they were pissed when The Doors were wanting to put a 7 minute song like "Light My Fire" on the radio so they started doing the radio edit singles.

[@minnesotasteve]

@@bartvaes4126 I think you also had a lot more flexibility with song lengths as it was 74 total... you didn't have to worry as much about which songs went on the A side and the B side. There's a lot of really good albums that came out in the 90s that just flowed so well because you didn't have the flip.

[@jasonlamar6347]

Yep. Medium and radio. Once those changed the industry immediately took advantage. What's better than your star artist being on the radio for 2:30 every hour? Being on for 4:00 every hour. heh

[@1234drums]

The point is JUST having fun doing something beautiful ❤❤❤❤

[@bigbadbillb]

Amen!

[@craigmatthews4965]

great channel, rb ... informative takes on virtually everything popular music ... we're very fortunate to have you ...

[@MrPlayerPerson]

I agree with this survey and the reality of the 3-minute song is apparent in Country, Pop & Rock. The song structure for songs is mostly ABABCB (A=Verse, B=Chrous & C=Bridge) or ABCABCDBC (A=Verse, B=Pre Chorus, C=Chorus & D=Bridge). The trend of Country Music and Rock Music having a comeback is right on. Recording and songwriting have become quite efficient and tight, songs get straight to the point. I also noticed that the intros are quite short and there are no extras, the songs are trimmed with no extra bars. The recording process is also lean as far as tracks numbers are concerned, I think that 24 track mentality is being used, and the sound of recordings is quite transparent and not overly crowded. Great video, I recommend it to everyone. Great job Rick!

[@jimbeam2501]

At first I thought you were going to talk about Genesis’ song ABACAB. lol

[@jatodd3746]

The Warning is a rock band that fits your song form analysis

[@louiebee6745]

​​​​@@jatodd3746I was thinking the exact same thing. Not only do they write their own songs but they're well written with good structure and dynamics. One good example of that is the song Choke which follows that ABCABCDC pattern.

[@stoneneils]

For rock I prefer the formula strong lyrics + balls...i miss Boys Are Back in Town, Hair of the Dog, Whole Lotta Love, Black Dog...really masculine songs that made me feel like doing hard drugs with the boys or f***ing the women. Rock is dead because boys aren't being encouraged to go NUTS in the music anymore. I can list older rock 50 songs that basically the theme is "Go out and party like a rocking sonofabitch." That doesn't happen anymore. Kids don't even know what it means to 'rock'!!

[@everythingisawesome76]

It's funny I remember writing songs in my band back in the 90s and it was a tried and true structure. Apparently it still works.

[@Dylangino]

As a guitarist who loves rock music, this is refreshing. I was also surprised how seemingly unpopular dance music is because EDM festivals are loaded with rabid fans. I guess raves are still somewhat underground

[@Kronaphasia]

They are mostly now for psychonauts on a 3 day synthetic vacation.

[@farhadchaudhry]

Dance tracks are for raves. Not for radio. Some exceptions though. The song Strangers by Kenya Grace is Drum n Bass.

[@cheshrkat]

Could be impacted by dance tracks still tending to be longer, so equal minutes of play for dance and pop would result in quite different stream counts. Or perhaps they're listening to long mixes elsewhere, which probably aren't counted in the charts at all.

[@farhadchaudhry]

@@cheshrkat there's always a longer club mix that doesn't chart.

[@timchromecast]

In the late 80s and 90s the charts were dominated by elelectronic music (from commercial eurodance to crossover clubtracks). From 2001 many underground dance labels went bankrupt because of filesharing and bad management. Most of those labels were run by naive music enthousiasts, not by bussinesmen. From 2000's US format radio was more and more introduced in Europe and music went generic, less diversity, and more US focussed on US music (rap, r&b,...)

[@keithjohnson2340]

Always excellent. When explaining to my son how great the Beatles were I used for an example Hello Goodbye. Just over 3 minutes. Try to write a song talking about greeting someone with Hello and Goodbye. You will stuggle after the first verse. But the Beatles did and made it a classic. Next time really listen to it, it is a work of art.

[@conze3029]

I’ve never been the biggest country fan, but I’m really stoked that rock seems to be coming back. I’ve missed it.

[@rockingbirdey]

I feel like Tik Tok is actually helping expose rock songs from the 60s-2010s to Gen Z and even Gen Alpha.

[@kkrsnn5632]

What rock comeback? What bands? Exclude the songs dug up by some current series online.

[@mystic1160]

@@rockingbirdey I've been hearing older music on short form videos lately so this is kind of true

[@corybarnes2341]

Other than the cowboy hats they're all wearing, that stuff is not country. Country died when the word "new" got put in front of it and it's long gone. Bad 80's rock music with cowboy hats is what we have now.

[@KOOL_AID_KID]

I mean it never really left for me. There’s so many great bands at the moment

[@getexis8685]

Rock 'n Roll is on the rise! I predict it will go up a lot from now on. Go Rock people!

[@raheemabdoul8480]

Hell no

[@getexis8685]

@@raheemabdoul8480 Hahaha ... yes!

[@raphaellall6270]

But Rock Music needs YOUNG PEOPLE. Let Metallica and Rolling Stones retire in peace

[@abelgonzales3695]

@@raheemabdoul8480hip hop is like 90’s hair metal now. Cheesy and cringe.

[@getexis8685]

@@abelgonzales3695 Not all heavy metal is good but there is a lot of excellent metal. The Rolling Stones and Metallica have a great importance in denouncing things that are wrong in this society we live in, just listen to them and their lyrics in addition to good music.

[@Luchingador]

as someone from outside the US, i have never in my entire 36 years in this world, heard a country song on the radio or streaming playlists.

[@sahamal_savu]

Lucky 😄I have never been able to appreciate mainstream country music. The videos Grady Smith has done about why it's awful and how they all have the same lyrics explains it for me. Also, I'm not from the US either. I do hear it blaring from a pickup truck or while I'm grocery shopping now and then, which is why I always have a pair of headphones 😄 That said, I friggin' love Johnny Cash.

[@GeraldSmallbear]

Same but I notice my millennial friends all have a penchant for Country. I'm a 45 yo Gen X and we used to laugh at it. I still mostly do, especially the basslines. It's just not actual music. There's a great video of Steve Bailey telling young bassists how to make a fortune with only 2 notes: "play Country". He's serious.

[@travisadams4470]

I'm born in the USA and grew up listening to Country/Western. Back in the day there was Western music which was more cowboy, outlaw music. I'm not a fan of "Brocountry" but there are some really good bands from Texas and even Canada.

[@corinaharris9095]

It's amazing how narrow minded people are when it comes to music. @@GeraldSmallbear

[@chriscarol4965]

Most likely you don’t know how wide and diverse the country genre really is and how many artists on the radio are country artists. Doesn’t matter if oldies or contemporary music.

[@RiisPark99]

Keep it up! I'm surprised rap/hip hop lasted this long

[@paulvaultguy]

I'm no hip hop expert, but I used to ride around with younger kids who listened. What I observed is that they listened to a catchy beat or lyric in a song for no more than 30 seconds then they would change to another song because they got bored. There was no change in presentation, the songs were essentially a flat line.

[@joycerichardson1810]

It's the hypnotic effect...like a great hook in a song.

[@thepagecollective]

Every new genre gets 30-40 years of dominance, then it fades into the background with the other genres that had their 30-40 years already. Rock will never dominate again but it won't go away. Pop and country will rise and fall as they always do.

[@mikeillgaming4224]

Tic Tok repetitive beats that sound exactly same ... That's why you'll start to see rappers like playboy carti and yeet go the rock route.

[@PetritAugustini]

​@@thepagecollectiveNever say never

[@thepagecollective]

@@PetritAugustini Unlikely anyway. I mean, if you look at that chart, ain't no jazz there.

[@mxvega1097]

90s song length - it crept up in part because we weren't writing to get 4 tracks per side on vinyl - there was the glorious liberation of CD!! There was more scope to do intros and outros, and in a sense reflect more of yr live performance style rather than crush down to a radio edit.

[@transistorradiorecords3661]

Bring back the horns! Tower of Power, Chicago...🎺🎺🎺🎺🎺🎺🎷🎷🎷🎷🎷

[@Guitarzan8]

I’m in a horn rock band that plays Chicago and blood, sweat and tears. So refreshing to read this. Thank you.

[@polskaman20001]

I play trumpet in a horn band too. A lot original stuff and Stevie wonder and funk. It’s fun because I went years without playing in a band. I feel people love the raw sound of the horns. You can’t really fake them.

[@transistorradiorecords3661]

@@Guitarzan8 Right on. Horns add that different dimension of sound. Much fuller.

[@transistorradiorecords3661]

@@polskaman20001 I am getting back into recording after a few years. While I have a couple of Korg keys its not the same as real horns. I may have to go to Fiver and hire. I hired a drummer from Italy for one of my songs a few years back and she did a great job.

[@BigGizmo80]

Soul Vaccination!!

[@russellseilhamer4552]

Love longer tracks like Roundabout by Yes, Green Eyed Lady by Sugarloaf and Light My Fire by the Doors. I loved when guitar, organ, drums, and bass have time to stretch out into very interesting solos where each member gets a little time for themselves and then it wraps back together again into the chorus and hook. Two of my favorite jazz tracks are Letha by Charles Earland and Out of this world by John Coltrane. The former clocks in at 7 minutes, the latter clocks in at 14 minutes

[@jasonkraley]

i love songs that engage me regardless of their length, because if they engaged me, i lost track of time.. that was the beauty of the 90s in my opinion.. but hey, if a really brilliant song draws me in under 3 mins, i’d be shocked but hey, if liked it., i liked it.. of course, lately, i listen to songs that usually are never on the radio & rather songs whose CDs that i sought out to purchase on my own..

[@tylerhackner9731]

Plenty of great new music outside the billboard charts

[@UroboricNate]

Tons! some of the best music ever has been released in the last 20 yrs imo, you’re not gna hear any of it via radio, Grammy/tv performances or what’s popular in the Nashville music scene though.

[@devernepersonal3636]

I agree with that for sure. I don’t think he listens to us when we say that though.

[@JK-g62]

Absolutely...some of the coolest music cannot be heard by trendy radio

[@hombreenojado]

Most of the best music is likely outside of Billboard. Lol.

[@crpope10]

@@JK-g62 trendy radio never hears good music, :)

[@nickborrrego]

Yes Rick, definitely go further into this kind of analysis.

[@guitarguytom2503]

So glad you brought up the Beatles. If you look at Revolver, this avant-garde prequel to Sgt. Pepper, the song length trend is the same as Rubber Soul. All the songs are under 3 minutes long. Look it up. And you're right: they packed those 2 1/2 minutes with so much stuff that you want to listen to it over and over. To me that explains how to create great popular music very very well. I tell my kids: "God Only Knows" by the Beach Boys is like 2:40. It includes very sophisticated music, lyrics, a soaring outro and an instrumental break. Brian Wilson probably started out with 5 minutes and just compressed his ideas into a much more palatable length of time. You're so stunned by the end that you want to hear it over and over. I think the other factor here that may explain the '60s song lengths is the length of a vinyl LP. I know because I've just completed writing an album for vinyl. You have about 15-17 minutes a side to work with. It forces you to make creative choices, simply because of the available time. You want 5 songs a side? The songs need to be short enough to fit on a side. You have to cut out long instrumental jams and save it for live shows. '90s songs were longer because CDs were 70 minutes long. LPs had 38 minutes. You tell me which worked out better. I think the LP is vastly superior in sound quality but also in its length. You are forced as an artist to cut out all the fluff. Plus if you have 15-20 songs, you cut out all the mediocre stuff and are left with 10 songs.

[@BrenoBertassoni]

Good news for country and rock! Great content, Rick! I'd love to see more about it!

[@warehawk]

Super happy about this. Ive been saying to myself for years now that it feels like hip hop has had its dominance for WAY too long. Every decade has had its "genre" but the 2010s-now has all just blended together. Everyone wants to be the same

[@altratronic]

The sagging pants trend proliferated in 1989. In 2024, people are still doing it. When Hip Hop descends to its deserved level of popularity, maybe that ridiculous fashion trend will follow.

[@jstew512]

@@altratronic That's inaccurate for the most part, the 90s were the peak of that fashion era. For more than 10 years pants have been more fitted and shorts have gone up to lengths that you would have gotten hate-crimed for wearing then.

[@urphakeandgey6308]

I've felt this way too. I'm actually more surprised people didn't get bored of hip hop and rap faster. Especially the very basic 808 type stuff.

[@Primordius444]

As a rock fan, i do enjoy the hiphop songs of the 80s and 90s, and I also feel the spirit of hiphop died when the MCs died off. Back when rappers wrote songs to uplift their community, it meant something to them, but nowadays, nobody cares. What we have is rappers, not MCs

[@JerehmiaBoaz]

Rap metal crossover was fun while it lasted (Body Count, Anthrax & Public Enemy, Judgement Night soundtrack, culminating in Rage Against The Machine). The problem with contemporary music isn't that there is not much new, that's just a symptom, the problem is that it has grown conservative. No real new stuff for years, tempo going down, less profanity, and last but not least even less political protest with the decline of hip hop. It's basically everything a parent wants a well adjusted kid to listen to and be cool with.

[@awol354]

Your channel always remind me of a master class in music generally. Covering ALL bases (no pun intended) and being really informative, with excellent interviews, in-depth as well as no so in-depth, perfect blend! Keep up the great work!

[@PJGRAND]

To me it's wonderful seeing a fellow musician doing doing musical analysis far better than these Jokers who can't even hit middle c trying to tell us why an artist is so great well only musical producers and composers really understand what music is for a musician that's great to hear another great musical producer who knows about music Where non-musicians trying to analyze other musicians are just wasting our time and furthering the confusion thank you so much for your qualified videos

[@michaelcattonofficial]

As a rock singer recently gone solo, these stats are some much-needed inspiration in a pretty harsh environment for rock musicians. Keep the faith and rock on!

[@daveshearer1961]

As a mobile DJ, this is a trend that I have been talking about for quite a few years. So many of the new hits that come out are slow songs. The "bangers" are fewer and farther between. So, when I get into a BPM range that is faster and more danceable, I usually find that I have to play older songs.

[@markahles5967]

Your content is always so relevant Rick, thank you. As an older and currently working original rock musician, this is encouraging news!

[@carlosvl8296]

👍🤝

[@j4vice]

I work at Alliance Entertainment. We are the largest One-Stop oof physical media, CDs, Vinyl, DVD, Blu-Raym, and even Cassettes. I have worked at AEC for 30+ years, 5 dats a week. Every business day we get an e-mail with the genres and how much of each genre we sold the day before. On average we do One Million dollars business a Day. The number one genre every business for the last 30 years has been "ROCK". Again this is physical media.

[@chrisnissen8413]

Rick, I think what you are seeing is a reflection of the mood of the nation. I believe this is closely tied to something called “socioeconomic theory” - Robert Prechtar put forth that idea some time ago but he makes a compelling argument that things like consumer preferences for colors in cars, clothes, furniture, etc., and even the hem lengths of dresses are directly correlated to the economic mood of the nation. So, in this light, and the state of the nation today and even the world that songs would slow down (get more introspective), would go back to roots (country), etc. To me, this all makes a lot of sense. At any rate, great content as usual, please keep it up. I’m still quoting your post from a while ago about how the number of key changes in top ten songs has dropped to nearly zero in recent history…..I bet that reverses course too….

[@jeffkilgore6320]

Back in the early 70s, a radio station in Dodge City, Kansas, played all popular songs, with no regard to genre. Willie Nelson, Stevie Wonder, and Neil Sedaka might have been played in the same hour.

[@Mattened]

Now it's time for keychanges to come back.

[@renatopodesta]

And non-diatonic chords...

[@theblindsniper]

PLEASE 🙏🏽

[@RAEckart22]

Nailed it

[@ScottsGuitar]

Best comment here

[@HORNGEN4]

Let's be more specific: non-chromatic modulations

[@desertfoxleo]

Incredibly fascinating subject! As a guitar player and songwriter who dabbles mostly in punk, garage, and grunge, I'm heartened by these trends!

[@stonail665]

It's called Beato effect.

[@jasonkennedy1670]

😂

[@ColorNerdChris]

How much of the country/pop/guitar ascendance is attributed to the "Fast Car Effect"?

[@Tetrad10]

I would not at all be surprised if this is somewhat true. Rick has achieved an amazing reach in the music world.

[@jonahswager4892]

lol

[@AMPProf]

lets make it a maths thing

[@markdsherry]

This was SO interesting! I'd love to hear more. You mentioned the number of words in song titles... please discuss that sometime.

[@louiebee6745]

Beatles, Motown, even CCR had the best sub-3 minute singles. But as a kid listening to 77WABC in the early 70s I'd hear Stairway To Heaven, Layla, Won't Get Fooled Again, American Pie, Nights In White Satin, Roundabout and Smoke On The Water all in their full-length glory!✌

[@brucetowell3432]

Jimmy Webb's "MacArthur Park" was I believe 7:11 only eclipse by "Hey Jude" I think 7:22....but good points, over in my neck of the woods, they always cut back "Won't get Fooled Again"..which made me vomit cause that song is MADE for the full length effect.

[@Paul-yw8bx]

Songs are like movies. If they're really good, you don't notice the length of it. I would never have guessed "Plush" was 5:18! 😮

[@jpmnewyork]

As a kid listening to 77WABC in the late 60s-early 70s I don't EVER recall hearing those songs in their full-length glory. That's why I switched over to WNEW-FM and WPLJ. I'm not sure what WABC you were listening to.

[@louiebee6745]

@@Paul-yw8bx Excellent point! As an example I'd compare Stairway To Heaven to The Godfather in that regard. Both I've listened to or seen too many times to mention (and came out 4 months apart from each other) but each gives you that exact WOW feeling.

[@rcameron4091]

Yes . I think tunes like this were epic visions of the artists . Don't think that's going to happen in this spotify internet world of today . But everything comes full circle eventually

[@DRMegaone]

I grew up during the two decades of long songs. I have a lot of trouble shorting the length of my songs. But what you mentioned about the several transitions the Beatles had in one 2-3min song sounds like something fun and encouraging to try.

[@TheTickingClocks]

There is hope for the future. Keep rocking, everyone! Keep rocking EVERYONE!!

[@SDsailor7]

The Warning is leading the way! Actually they have been doing it for 10 years. Their fan base is worldwide. Go and check the out!

[@MarkHaydon-oc4np]

Wonderful topic! Too many people assume there are really no objective criteria with which to assess the quality of music. You are doing an excellent job of laying it out and hopefully persuading both listeners and musicians. I liked your example using The Beatles as reference for the factors that make songs of high quality. Keep up the excellent work!

[@stagecoachrobbery]

The guitar increase is cool. I have noticed a lot of pop songs are really utilizing he guitar recently.

[@michael7054]

Yeah especially Olivia Rodrigo. She comes to mind. You also have Country Pop and Country Rock too.

[@Subtlety67]

I always play an acoustic piano in my songs and are still having piano lessons after 3 years. I like to keep the human element with natural voice and real instrument surely such a connection will stand the test of time😊

[@johnslater8998]

In the 60s - 80s, songs had to be around 3 minutes to get airplay. Billy Joel’s The Entertainer has a joke about it. Stations eased up on that in the 90s for a number of reasons. I was on the air at a classic rock station in upstate NY in ‘91-‘92. By then, stations like that were willing to feature longer tracks, so artists were less constrained. Then, as Rick says, the internet happened, and it drove the trend back in the other direction.

[@johnslater8998]

@meyeraliyeh5724 - Really? Great story.

[@metamon2704]

Often they played shortened radio-edits of songs.

[@johnslater8998]

@@metamon2704 - Very true. After cart machines replaced turntables around 1980, the stations often edited their own short versions of songs.

[@williestyle35]

Exactly. It was radio and other popular broadcasting that kept singles at around 3 minutes, mostly for advertising and listener attention reasons. The record labels and producers made sure that most potential "hit" songs had a "radio edit" available to be sent out for promotion and radio play. While Mtv and CD length had influence in popular song length growing, Rick's point is also valid - there was less competition for attention when some of the AOR and alt rock stations tried playing the longer songs artists wanted to make in the 1990's. In some ways "Teen Spirit" and Soundgarden (among others) did help boost this trend with their widespread success. The record labels will usually just keep feeding us whatever sells. (;

[@pj9654]

I was a radio broadcaster in the late 80's early 90's. Songs were long due to the segmentation of FM radio stations' programming formats. Many were changing music to Adult Contemporary to keep reaching adults at work, hence more listenership for advertisers, which is why longer songs prevailed. You will note the long song format was mostly ballads which could be played in the background while working. This is why George Michael, Kenny G, Michael Boulton, and Richard Marx were very popular. Even the Beachboys did "kokomo." On the AM side, there was also the trend to change from music formats to talk radio, which nearly killed AM radio music stations. This a hoot because AM radio in the '60s and early '70s was all anyone listened to for music and the era of "Boss DJs." I mark the beginning of the move to FM radio by Boomers when the Beatles' White Album came out.

[@pandasarevicious]

As a rock fan, this is great to hear! One theory I’ve had is that pop has always been the most popular genre. What changed was that rock used to be right up there, but then hip hop took its place. Would love to see an analysis of whether that’s actually true. Maybe a video on it?

[@abelgonzales3695]

It’s true alright. All you have to do is look at sales and plays on all platforms. When rich kids in the burbs are throwing gang signs and spitting bars at their pool parties you know a genre has come to an end. Long live rock and roll 🤘!

[@datdaokid]

@@abelgonzales3695 now those rich kids will start imitating rock n rollers haha

[@a_ya5555]

Nothing will happen unless it's dance rock, new wave, the single reason the 80s are worshipped.

[@alexterwilleger5580]

Popular music has always been the most popular genre? Who would’ve thought

[@ChartCipher]

You are 100% correct that pop has been the most popular genre in the Hot 100, and that hip hop ate away at its share, as well as rock’s. While rock’s share of the Hot 100 has consistently been below one-fifth of songs since 2000, hopefully that is all about to change!

[@bradleyard4195]

I'm encouraged by some of these metrics, particularly that live instrumentation is falling back into favor over synths and MIDI. That said, it's still discouraging to see that, not only are songs getting shorter, but content is continuing to get more and more homogenous. So many songs sound the same or similar, it's difficult to tell them apart. What the music world needs is another Nirvana moment, someone to come along, shake everyone's foundations, and make people sit up and listen. Unfortunately, I doubt people have the attention span.

[@shawnmuench]

I was gonna say- the internet converges to sameness

[@bradleyard4195]

@shawnmuench It encourages homogenization. Granted, there's been a few new trends over the years, such as the "neo-folk" or "hey-ho!" trend several years ago (Lumineers, Mumford and Sons, Of Monsters and Men), and the recent rise of prog-metal and bands like Polyphia, Periphery, Animals as Leaders, and renewed interest in bands like Dream Theater, but it isn't anything that has shaken the music world the way Nirvana, The Beatles, The Ramones, or other groundbreaking bands or artists did. Unfortunately, I'm not sure we'll have another moment like that, what with the recording industry in tatters and people's attention spans getting shorter and shorter.

[@flower5185]

I doubt a Nirvana-style shift is possible nowadays but not necessarily due to attention spans but rather that music fandom has splintered so much. The mainstream monoculture isn't nearly as dominant as it was pre-internet

[@rkomada88]

The length of a popular song was established in the 1860s during the Civil War era when Americans were obsessed with concert bands and especially the marches they played. John Phillip Sousa was our first musical superstar. That length of time is around 3 minutes, anything more than that, then people want the selection to change. Early playback equipment such as Victrolas and Phonographs were built to reflect that, hence the duration of a 78rpm record (10”) would hold no more than 4 minutes total at an extreme maximum. Rarely, there would be a part 1/part 2 that would comprise both the A and B sides (Benny Goodman’s “Sing, Sing, Sing of 1938 for example).