Music Singles Views

Music

These factors, combined with the 10-inch (25a cm) diameter of standard discs, thereby limited the duration of recording available on each side of a disc to around three minutes. These manufacturing limits in turn exerted a direct effect on the composition of music, as songwriters and performers increasingly tailored their output to fit the new medium. The 3-minute single remained the standard into the 1960s when the availability of microgroove recording and improved mastering techniques enabled recording artists to increase the duration of their recordings—The Beatles' 1968 7-minute single Hey Jude was a deliberate challenge to this long-standing 3-minute standard for pop singles.

Although 7″ remained the standard size for vinyl singles, 12″ singles were introduced for use by DJs in discos in the 1970s. The longer playing time of these singles allowed the inclusion of extended dance mixes of tracks. In addition, the larger surface area of the 12″ discs allowed for wider grooves (larger amplitude) and greater separation between grooves, the latter of which results in less cross-talk. Consequently, they 'wore' better, and were less susceptible to scratches. The 12″ single is still considered a standard format for dance music, though its popularity has declined in recent years.

A related development has been the popularity of mobile phone ringtones based on pop singles (on some modern phones, the actual single can be used as a ringtone). In September 2007, Sony BMG announced they would introduce a new type of CD single, called ringles , for the 2007 holiday season. The format included three songs by an artist, plus a ringtone accessible from the user's computer. Sony announced plans to release 50 ringles in October and November, while Universal Music Group expected to release somewhere between 10 and 20 titles.[2]

Is it fair to say that many of us attach no actual nostalgia, in the strictest sense of the word, to the singles of the 1990s? In one putrid sense, the decade began with back-to-back number one hits from Phil Collins and Michael Bolton. And if that tidbit weren't enough to boot you off the good-time train trip alongside memory lane, you could still arguably never compete with the decade itself in terms of how much it deified the past. The first time I heard Vogue on the radio, I wondered why my local pop music station was playing a disco song from 1978. And need I mention that few songs sat at the top of the charts in the '90s longer than a 1973 ditty by Elton John?