• Rap rules pop music, and rap uses words as much as musical patterning as persuasion. Rappers are not trying to convince us. They want to overwhelm logical objections and arguments with waves of words, sound, music. Maybe some of the old jazz classics were long too because they used words in the same way.
• Musicians have much more control. They make their own recordings (often in their own studios), write their own songs and sometimes even control their own distribution. Trent Reznor of NIN and Radiohead come to mind. Can you imagine a producer or song writer trying to tell these guys to cut back on the lyrics!
• Digitalisation. If you’re not limited by the two sides of an album or tape, why stop?
• The attractions of storytelling. Poet song writers like Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan have always let songs take the time they need, but for a lot of sixties material it was a matter of saying the same thing a few times and getting off the stage. The new generations of singers and song writers are happy to stay in the spotlight and create complex characters and stories.
One rule still applies across the decades though. If a song can’t make an emotional connection, it doesn’t matter how long it is. To say “I love you” takes only three words, however you sing it.
