New Radio format: Your Favorite Songs, Abridged
Just heard this on NPR this afternoon, a radio station in Canada has decided to edit songs down to a two minute format because kids get bored with a three and a half minute song. I am officially too old to go on much longer.
When they say "twice the music," though, they actually mean half the song. That is, this station plays songs that have been heavily edited: long opening riffs, instrumental breaks, even a chorus or two might disappear. The goal, the station's representatives say, is to keep listeners from getting bored.
Station if you want to listen: http://streema.com/radios/Amp_Radio_Calgary_CFUL (I don't know enough top forty to know the difference)
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And I can't explain the reasoning for this either. 
Only 5 minutes or so for those with short attention spans and available at the NPR link I originally posted. 
I really think the interview is worth a listen.
The interviewer did cover all the bases about artists being upset that something might be lost in editing etc. but the guy from the radio station just seemed to have no clue about music in general. All he could say is that 3½ minutes was arbitrary, not that musicians actually worked within those parameters to make a song work and include everything they could to make us feel good. I know that even these days, where I can count the number of actual books I read in a year on one hand, I still love hearing a particular song on the radio and 3½ minutes of it is just too short.
His bit about kids starting a song on an Ipod and then moving to the next one 90 seconds later just sounds dumb. I've done that forever even on LPs when I thought a particular song was what I wanted to hear and then decided, "No that is not it", I want something else. I never wanted an abbreviated version of a song that made me feel good!
