The rise of streaming music services has resulted in some interesting consumer behaviours. According to people who track such things, Spotify users will skip a song within the first five seconds. Almost 30% of streamers will skip a song by 10 seconds, and 35% are gone by the 30-second mark. Why?
This is the subject of much study. Is it because of ultra-short attention spans? Is it because people aren’t willing to give a challenging song a chance? Whatever the case, this is having a massive effect on how songs are being written and produced. For a stream to count as a sale and for royalties to be paid out, it has to play for at least 30 seconds. Labels, songwriters and producers are therefore incentivized to create songs that grab a listener right out of the gate.
This effect is being seen most prominently with pop music, which goes a long way to explaining why so many songs on the Top 40 sound so much the same.
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