How Hit Songs have changed [Bobby Owsinski]

Bobby Owsinski explores how hit songs have changed in the past five years, with surprising changes in songwriting, production, and track longevity.

How Hit Songs Have Changed

by Bobby Owsinski via Music 3.0

Hit records continue to evolve, and that’s a good thing, right? Perhaps, but at least we can be glad they’re not staying the same like they more or less did for a couple of decades before the 2000s. Music research company MIDiA did a study on hit song DNA over the last 5 years and came up with some interesting data. My things have changed.

Songwriters

For instance:

• The average number of songwriters on a hit has gone from 4.0 to 5.3.
• The average age of the songwriters have gone from 31.1 to 36.3.

This tells me that we’re still in the mode were more ears are needed on a song to “guarantee” a hit. I don’t believe this to be true, but record labels and publishers sure do.

It also means that it’s more difficult for younger songwriters to break in as more and more superstars want to work with established writers rather than give a fresh new face a look. Is this based on quality or insecurity? Maybe both, but that’s not a good sign for the industry.

Producers

• The average number of producers has gone from 1.8 to 3.0.

The definition of producer has changed. Today there’s a separate producer for the vocals, while the person writing the tracks gets a credit, as does the artist. This sort of defeats the purpose of a true producer, but it seems to be working, at least for now. It still seems more efficient to me to have just one, but perhaps that’s old-fashioned thinking.

Song Form

• Hits with featured artist have gone from 60% to 50%
• Average track length went from 221 seconds to 219.
• Intro length went from 7.4 to 9.5

This is all good news. Featured artists are a gimmick in order to assume additional audience exposure. It’s still too high but at least it’s heading in the right direction.

The track length is about the same at around 3:40 or so, which is probably true going back about 50 years, and the intro length is a bit longer indicating that fans no longer need that instant hook that they did about 10 years ago when songs were starting right on the chorus.

Longevity

• Songs new spend an average of 33.3 weeks on the Top 100 chart compared to 18.6 five years ago.

This figure is most disturbing of all. What it means is that despite the thousands of songs that are released every day, fewer than ever are breaking through. It could also mean that the algorithms of the streaming services are now serving up the hits over and over instead of discovering new songs, which is exactly the opposite of what they’re supposed to do.

The music business is never going to be perfect, but right now the way it does business is all about short term profits rather than long term development. Major labels would rather make money off of catalog rather than new artists, would rather have AI-generated artists and songs (because who needs the headache of real artists), and would rather keep hits around for as long as possible to decrease risk. The streaming services are playing along for the exact same reasons.

This is working today but it work work for much longer. The next big trend in the industry is going to change music consumption, and that will change the business forever.

Bobby Owsinski is a producer/engineer, author, blogger, podcaster, and coach. He has authored 24 books on music production, music, the music business, music AI, and social media.