News you may have missed! (7/1/19)
Why are songs becoming shorter? blink-182 forced to cancel show, Mark Hoppus’s funniest tweets… Part 3, and a new 'Punk Goes Acoustic' compilation is on the way
We’re back! It’s another edition of the All Punked Up Weekly Newsletter. We hope everyone enjoys the upcoming 4th of July holiday. Take it easy. Relax. Enjoy your time with family and friends.
Have you noticed that songs aren’t as long as they used to be? This week, for our Random Thoughts segment, I talk about how shorter songs are starting to become more of a thing and how it will soon be the norm.
But before all of that, let’s get to some of the trending news from this past week.
News you may have missed…
Bands. We all love discovering new bands. And APU writer, Natalie, has 5 bands you need to check out ASAP if you haven’t already. Have you heard these groups before? Which are your faves?
Neck Deep released a new music video for a new song called “She’s a God”. You definitely need to check this one out.
Do you pre-save albums on Spotify before they are released? A new report shows, pre-saving albums on Spotify gives record labels way too much control over and access to your data. I don’t really understand the point to pre-saving anyways. By the time you load the app and find the pre-saved album, it probably took just as long as it would have if you just typed in the artist or album name into search.
We all know Mark Hoppus rules Twitter and is always good for a funny tweet. So we’ve continued our feature of Mark Hoppus’s funniest tweets with Part 3.
blink-182 was forced to reschedule their first date of tour with Lil Wayne.
It looks like we can expect The 1975 to release new music before Reading and Leeds Festival.
A new compilation from Punk Goes is on the way as they announced Punk Goes Acoustic Vol. 3 will be released in July. They’ve also announced the tracklist and released two track that will be featured on the comp which you can check out by clicking the link above.
Spotify claimed that it overpaid songwriters and publishers in 2018. I’m sure this won’t go over well with artists. They already think Spotify doesn’t pay them enough.
Ugh… hundreds more artists whose music was destroyed in UMG fire named. Names include blink-182, Weezer and Jimmy Eat World. You can see the full list by clicking the link above.
Our Last Night covers Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road” screamo style.
All Punked Up specific news…
I’m really hoping everyone is liking these weekly newsletters. I really like putting them together. If there is anything you’d like to see featured in these mailers, please let me know. These mailers are for you so I want to give you all something you like and look forward to receiving.
One thing, specific I’d like to add is some sort of band spotlight feature. This could be a band that you may not know about but should, or it could even be a paid-for feature that bands could purchase. What do you think? You can send requests and recommendations to info@allpunkedup.com.
14 songs All Punked Up was digging this week…
If All Punked Up made an album for this past week, these are the songs that would be included on it. These songs could be old or new, maybe even unrelated, but they all traveled through APU team members’ headphones this week.
“She's a God” — Neck Deep
“Soap” — As It Is
“I’m Think I’m Okay” — Yungblood
“I Caught Fire” — The Used
“The Art of Eye Contact” — Too Close To Touch
“Never There” — Sum 41
“Crash My Car” — Coin
“Go To Bed Angry” — Set It Off
“Typical Story” — Hobo Johnson
“Feeling Sorry” — Paramore
“Distant” — Like Pacific
“Dirty Air” — Two Door Cinema Club
“See Through” — The Band Camino
“A Decade Under the Influence (Acoustic) — Taking Back Sunday
If you’re interested in listening to this “album”, we’ve got the playlist created over on Spotify here. Feel free to give it a listen. Maybe go ahead and just subscribe to the playlist while you’re at it. This same playlist will be updated weekly with new songs.
Random Thoughts…
Don’t think because you might miss it.
Long gone is the norm of the long song. I don’t know about you, but I’ve noticed a new trend in the length of newer songs. They are shorter. Way shorter than they used to be.
I can remember back in the 90’s (which was a great era for music by the way) when it wasn’t out of the ordinary to hear songs that on average were around 4 minutes and 30 seconds long. Nowadays, you’re lucky to find a track on an album that is over 3 minutes and 30 seconds. Billboard has reported that their Hot 100 Top 10s in 2019 are, on average, 30 seconds shorter than songs in 2018.
Longer songs are becoming more and more rare. But why? The answer? Streaming. Streaming music via Spotify, Apple Music or Tidal, without a doubt, has taken the music world by storm. It’s become the go-to for most music listeners out there. It’s easy to use, readily available and you can listen to nearly any song you could ever imagine whenever you want. It’s almost too good to be true—but, yet, here it is.
So why is music streaming the reason behind the shorter song trend? To answer this, we’ll have to look closer at how songs get counted as being officially “streamed.” According to Spotify, “Streams are counted in Spotify for Artists when a song is streamed for over 30 seconds.” This is important. That means that it only takes 30 seconds of streaming of a song for the artist to make money off of it.
Because of the 30-second rule, another trend you may start noticing is that newer songs begin with the catchy hook or chorus now. For the artist, this is by design. Think of it. This is what gets the listener’s attention and keeps them listening. If the hook is catchy enough, then the listener will stick around to hear the hook again. By the time that hook comes back around for a second time, the song will have most likely hit the coveted 30 second mark to count as an official stream which, again, results in the artist getting paid.
So, ok, we’ve determined that the new era of streaming music has had a hand in reshaping song structure and how artists get paid, but how has it contributed to the reason why songs are becoming much shorter? Here’s one theory, and most likely the correct answer. There’s no denying that shorter songs have a better chance at being listened to in their entirety than longer songs. Songs that have higher play-through rates increases the likelihood that that song ends up on larger and more popular playlists. When a song is on a large popular playlist, it will inevitably get more streams. And because it’s shorter, it’s play-through rate gets even bigger.
With that said, don’t be surprised to start seeing future songs that are somewhere around 2 minutes to 2.5 minutes or even shorter. We’ve already seen this with recent pop/rap songs. Just to name a few, look at songs like Lil Nas X's "Old Town Road," Post Malone's "Sunflower" and Ariana Grande's "7 Rings"—all are under 3 minutes with the former being under 2 minutes long.
I think the rock/pop punk scene could learn a lot from this trend. There’s no doubt that rock music is hurting in popularity. Doing the same thing over and over isn’t helping—obviously. Maybe, just maybe, rock music could make a comeback by following what rap and pop are doing. Get your points across sooner and trap us with a punchy, catchy chorus from the beginning. It’ll keep the listener coming back for more more often.
Thank you!
As always, thank you so much for reading and being a subscriber! If you have a friend who may be interested in this weekly newsletter, feel free to forward them this email and they can sign up here!
Cheers,
Tyler Winters, Founder
All Punked Up