Why is the standard length for any song 3 minutes long?

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Why is the standard length for any song 3 minutes long?

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2 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

These days, mostly because of radio stations.

Originally a technical limitation, where a shellac record (LP / Vinyl) could hold roughly 3 minutes. If you wanted to be played on a radio station, your song had to fit on a single that the radio station could play in one continous playback.

These days it’s mostly for commercial reasons, smaller songs leaves more gaps to fit in commercials / advertisements. It’s also the reason why you often see a song in different version, one being a regular long track, and one being a short “radio version” or “radio edit” as they’re often called.

Anonymous 0 Comments

This mostly dates back to vinyl records. A 78 record (plays at 78 rpm) would be either 10 or 12 inch sizes. Those sizes can contain either 3 or 4 minutes of music. This created a trend for how long a song should be, since it had to fit on the records.