Songwriters change their tunes to score on streaming

POP song intros are being cut short as the music industry seeks to make money from limited attention spans on streaming services.

Drawn-out openings along the lines of The Doors’ The End or the Jackson Five’s I Want You Back have been increasingly omitted from singles.

Songwriters make money from streaming services like Spotify based on how much of a track audiences listen to, incentivising those in the music industry to ditch lengthy intros and get straight to the hook in an attempt to keep the attention of listeners.

According to a study of all UK charttoppers since 1952 that was conducted by the PA new agency, the average length of hit singles has fallen from a high of around four minutes to just three minutes in recent years.

James Masterton, a charts analyst and historian, explained that “songs have lost their intros and streaming is to blame”.

He said: “You only get paid – and a play only counts for the charts – if the listen lasts longer than 30 seconds. People will still not sit through a song they don’t like, so production is now focused on getting to the meat of the song as quickly as possible, to hook a listener in.”

Dramatic key changes were once a staple of pop songs, particularly boyband ballads, but these have also fallen out of fashion, with only one hit track in the past 10 years featuring the kind of key change that was once so popular.

This is a far cry from the tastes of the 1950s, according to the research, which has revealed that 43 per cent of all chart-topping songs included a key change in 1953.

This remained fairly common even up to the 1980s, with 29 per cent of No 1 hits featuring this kind of tonal shift in 1986.