How Streaming Has Changed Pop Music
The transition from purchasing music on CDs, vinyl or via downloads, to on-demand streaming has fundamentally altered the music industry. Furthermore, the current dominance of on-demand streaming as a medium for providing music has actually reshaped how pop music is written, produced and released. Because streaming platforms like Spotify, Apple Music, and TikTok operate on specific payment algorithms and cater to the rapid-scrolling habits of contemporary listeners, producers and songwriters have decided to completely rewrite the rulebook of how pop music is made. These new rules are not one hundred percent ubiquitous and you’ll still find song writers and artists who do things the old way or in a manner that suits them. However, sufficient numbers of song writers have adopted the new methodology, that you can hear the change if you spend a day or so listening to a mainstream pop playlist or radio station that showcases such material.
The following list highlights five aspects associated with pop songs that have changed since approximately 1990 to the present. Some are specific to the song writing process itself where others are to do with the culture and the environment that pop music exists within. For the sake of clarity regarding the points that I’m making, I shall reference two distinct eras. Radio and streaming. Radio effectively means the period from 1920 to the early 2000s. Streaming I broadly set as the industry norm from 2010. These are broad brush strokes but the point still stand.
The 30 Second Rule and the Death of the Long Intro
On most streaming services, a track is only counted and thus qualifies for revenue, if the listener continues to play the song for at least 30 seconds. If they skip the track prior to this, the artist earns nothing. During the radio era songs could afford to have a 20 to 30-second instrumental build-up to set a mood before the vocal began. Today in the streaming era, long intros are effectively a financial liability because listeners are incredibly quick to skip. To address this dilemma, songs often feature no intro at all. If there is one, it is now much shorter. No more than 3 to 5-second in length. As an additional technique to ensure the listeners attention doesn’t wander, producers now provide “The Immediate Hook”. The catchy chorus or heavily modified vocal hook is placed right at the beginning of the song to grab the listener immediately.
The Shrinking Pop Song
Pop songs are getting significantly shorter in duration. In the late nineties, the average duration of a UK or US number-one single was well over 4 minutes. Today, the average pop song is closer to 2 minutes and 30 seconds, with some massive hits clocking in at under 2 minutes. As to why this is so, it is sadly pure economics. Streaming platforms pay the exact same royalties per song, regardless of its duration. From a business perspective, a fan is less likely to abandon a 2 minute song when listening and its shorter length makes it more suitable for repeat listening. Hence an artist can potentially earn twice the revenue in the same amount of time that an older song ran for.
The Death of the Middle-Eight (Bridge) and Fade-Out
To keep songs short and suitably high-energy, many producers are trimming the "fat" from the traditional song structure. The most noticeable victim of this cull is the so-called bridge. The traditional pop structure of Verse → Chorus → Verse → Chorus → Bridge → Chorus has broadly been abandoned. The bridge was meant to offer an emotional or musical departure within the song. A moment of reflection and pause before renewed musical intensity. Producers now view the bridge as a possible moment where the listener's attention might wander and potentially skip to another track. The same has happened to instrumental solos, which have almost entirely disappeared from mainstream pop music, because they slow down the perceived momentum. The fade out has similarly faced the axe. These were convenient for radio DJs who could talk over the track without ruining the song. Today, songs end abruptly. A hard, unresolved ending often triggers a psychological desire for closure, encouraging the listener to hit "repeat."
The Rise of "Spotify-Core" and Mood Playlists
Instead of browsing by genre or spending time listening to an entire album in chronological order, many modern listeners choose curated playlists based on their personal mood or the activity they are undertaking. Hence many people have playlists labelled as “Chill Pop”, “Lo-Fi Beats to Study To” or “Workout Power Tracks”. It is highly desirable to be placed on these highly lucrative, algorithmic playlists, hence producers have adapted their production styles accordingly. We now see a lot of sanitised, mid-tempo productions. Songs with compressed dynamics and a mellow, inoffensive mid-tempo beat. This “wallpaper music” is designed to blend perfectly in the background of the task at hand, without causing the listener to skip any track as none are jarring. There has also been an increase in vocal-forward mixing, in which dry vocals are mixed in a tight and loud style. It creates an immediate, intimate connection especially if a listener is wearing AirPods or headphones.
The Influence of Short-Form Video (TikTok etc.)
You cannot talk about streaming music without acknowledging the interrelationship with TikTok and YouTube Shorts. Because these video platforms use 15 to 30 second audio clips, pop music is often produced specifically to create a “TikTok moment”. A so-called “Memeable Hook”. Producers build distinct, highly energetic 15-second segments into the track specifically tailored for dance trends, lip-syncs, or transitions. Producers are now officially releasing “Sped Up” and “Slowed + Reverb” versions of their own tracks alongside the original release. Since content creators were doing this on social media anyway, labels realised they could capture those additional streaming royalties, if they provided the augmented tracks themselves.
As I stated at the beginning of this post, this is a substantive trend but not an absolute rule. Many artists do not follow this formula. Some simply tinker with aspects of their music but not in its entirety. However, because music as a whole is so compartmentalised these days, many people listening to genres other than pop music will not have necessarily encountered this phenomenon. All the above will more than likely seem meaningless to someone listening to Phantom of the Opera by Iron Maiden. Conversely, those familiar with Old Town Road by Lil Nas X will be acquainted with its brevity. However, conformity and standardisation under the guise of optimisation can negatively affect a product. Perhaps the very changes that have occurred will eventually start to bore target audiences. One thing is certain, pop music adapts and aims to give people what they want. Modern audiences eventually discover old tunes. So watch this space.
The transition from purchasing music on CDs, vinyl or via downloads, to on-demand streaming has fundamentally altered the music industry. Furthermore, the current dominance of on-demand streaming as a medium for providing music has actually reshaped how pop music is written, produced and released. Because streaming platforms like Spotify, Apple Music, and TikTok operate on specific payment algorithms and cater to the rapid-scrolling habits of contemporary listeners, producers and songwriters have decided to completely rewrite the rulebook of how pop music is made. These new rules are not one hundred percent ubiquitous and you’ll still find song writers and artists who do things the old way or in a manner that suits them. However, sufficient numbers of song writers have adopted the new methodology, that you can hear the change if you spend a day or so listening to a mainstream pop playlist or radio station that showcases such material.