Was there any reason for hit singles becoming longer over time?

It's an interesting point that you make about Roy Orbison's songwriting, and people often seem to forget about that as they focus mostly on his vocal abilities. Many of his biggest hits from the sixtees were indeed quite unusual in the way they were written and moved along, and yet he still managed to keep all those creative ideas contained in a 2 to 3 minute pop song (or aria if you will). The only really long (and highly unusual) song he ever recorded was Southbound Jericho Parkway, have you ever heard it?

 

Yeah, it's bizarre. Like a Harry Chapin record but even more melodramatic.

 

Longer songs were a form of rebellion against the regimented restrictions of the 2-3 minute single.

It was barrier-breaking.

 

Same with "Angel Baby" by Rosie and

Songs with cold endings have been a trend for the last 20 years.

 

I made this post so that you can correct your mistake

 

My favorite move was Columbia marking the time of the Fakin' It 45 as 2:72 instead of 3:12 to fool DJs with less than a 3rd grade education into playing it.

 

I reckon that's the one.
When songs like Rolling Stone etc started getting some real grip, the mentality changed. Radio programmers figured if they played anything longer than 2:30 before that, that folks would change channels. Whereas if the songs are all two minutes, most folks could hold out through a song they didn't like.

 

Angel Baby was 3:43, positively epic for 1960.

I think a lot of stations played the short version of El Paso, the one that puts him right back in the cantina after he rides away.

 

Plus the Righteous Brothers' You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin' at 3:45, deliberately misprinted as 3:05, in 1964.

 

Actually, more played the longer version.

 

Streaming as entirely changed song structures. The prevailing wisdom is that if a song hasn't grabbed the listener within the first few seconds they will bail out of it and move on to the next one so instrumental intros are almost completely a thing of the past. Most songs start with the chorus and very few last longer than 3-4 minutes for fear of attention wandering. It is all based on formuli and algorithms which analyse the structure of the most popular streamed songs.

 

It was also technology. The format of the pop song was created in the era of the 78rpm record which had a phsically limited duration and nobody saw any reason to break with it once the 45 was invented as long as the records continued to be popular. It was only once artists started predominantly creating their own material and realised that 45s actually gave them more freedom than they had previously enjoyed that song lengths on singles expanded. The logical conclusion of this was the invention of the 12 inch single in the 70s to accommodate even longer songs and mixes without compromising the sound quality. CD singles allowed this too and radio supported it but it all changed once streaming data rather than actual sales (even of downloads) became the arbiter of success in the record industry.

 

No doubt technology was part of it, but I believe there was some serious resistance within the music business to the idea of 5 and 6 minute songs. It was seen as unnecessary and commercially risky to have songs that long on the radio.

 

Undoubtedly so, at least until the 70s though it probably varied from territory to territory.

 

Yep! It was pretty common to fudge the time and hope for the best. There was sometimes a LOT of differences between the "public" version and the "DJ" version - and not jut changing the run time. There are cases not only where verses were left out, but more "politically correct" verses went on the air. It was different world back then.

Reeves

 

I just pulled it up on YouTube. Never heard it before - very different. The voice is unmistakable but the song is not something you'd usually associate with him.

Thanks for bringing it to my attention.

Reeves

 

7:00, late '60s... almost Prog-Orbison!

 

Pot.

 

I think the main reason for 3 minute songs is that historically 10” records became the standard size for a record and could only fit short three minute songs, so radio plays were designed accordingly. By the sixties microgroove recording and better mastering allowed longer songs in a 7” record.
I am not sure but I think that I once read that publishing rights for albums were higher if there were more songs. If this is true then it may be another reason why record companies preferred short songs in an album. I could be completely wrong on this.
Interesting to note that famously Led Zeppelin refused to release Stairway To Heaven as a single to force people to buy the album, but they did have promo copies on 7” given to radio stations to increase the number of plays.
Another thought is that by the 60’s everything started to become bigger. Food packaged in supermarkets, food served in restaurants, furniture, cars, people’s waistline and so on. So songs became longer too.

 

I thought I wiped that.

Again, I thought I deleted that.

Ya see, I have a version on two CDs that run three and a half minutes. I know that's still not near five minutes, but that's what I was thinking when I posted it. When I realized it, I meant to delete the comment, but I guess I didn't.

What happened is that when I quoted someone else, that comment about "Angel Baby" was still there and I missed it. You will notice, @BradOlson , when my reply trailed off and I didn't finish it. That's because right when I was typing it, I stopped and realized that I should check the actual record label first.