The Mamas & The Papas – California Dreamin’ Ricky Nelson – Hello Mary Lou (Goodbye Heart) The White Stripes – Fell In Love With a Girlīuzzcocks – Ever Fallen in Love (With Someone You Shouldn’t’ve?) The Doors – Break on Through (To the Other Side) Otis Redding – (Sittin’ On) the Dock of the BayĮlvis Costello & The Attractions – I Can’t Stand Up For Falling DownĬonway Twitty & Loretta Lynn – Louisiana Woman, Mississippi ManĪrctic Monkeys – I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor Gene Vincent & His Blue Caps – Be-Bop-A-Lula Martha Reeves & The Vandellas – Dancing In The Street There’s also “Not Fade Away,” “Get Off My Cloud,” “Have You Seen Your Mother Baby,” and “Mothers Little Helper.” On our list of the 50 greatest, though, we’ve gone for “ Honky Tonk Women,” which just creeps under the wire at two minutes 59 seconds.Īnyway, time to dive into the wonderful world of the greatest pop songs under three minutes. Likewise, The Rolling Stones released a string of short ones, with their debut, “Come On” running just one minute 48 seconds. We’ve chosen “I Feel Fine” – a mere two minutes 19 seconds to represent their genius. The Beatles, naturally, have plenty to pick from: “From Me To You,” “Yesterday,” “Eleanor Rigby,” “Can’t Buy Me Love,” “Lady Madonna,” and many of their other hits all run for under three minutes. Or The Beach Boys and “God Only Knows,” which clocks in at two minutes 53 seconds. Or the under-two-minute gems Herman Hermit’s “I’m Henry VIII, I Am” and Lil Nas X’s mega-hit “Old Town Road.” But we have 50 other greats that we think you’ll enjoy.Ī few highlights: Who can resist Martha and The Vandellas‘ clarion call to have us all “ Dancing In The Street”? Running time two minutes 39 seconds. It doesn’t include Maurice Williams and the Zodiacs’ “Stay,” which hit No.1 with just one minute and 37 seconds of sweet singing. There’s a little bit of country, a little bit of rock ‘n’ roll, and a whole lot of straight pop. The list is extremely varied, moving from the beginnings of pop music into the present day. In this playlist, we’ve picked 50 of the greatest pop singles under three minutes. Our playlist of the greatest pop songs under three minutesīut enough history for the moment. And, oftentimes, louder means better in the mind of a listener.
In case someone didn’t like the song that was playing, they didn’t have to wait long before the next one started.Ģ) Shorter songs meant less grooves on the record, which meant that the record was louder when it played. This was a historical hangover, but it was also down to two quirks:ġ) AM radio liked their records to be short. Many 45 rpm singles in the 1950s and early 1960s were around three minutes in length. Their first blues 45 was Arthur Crudup’s “That’s All Right,” which ran 2:55. Popular music came on blue, while country records were green. Bizarrely, their blues and R&B records came out on orange vinyl.
A dynamic marketing executive even had the idea of color coding the RCA releases. RCA Victor had nearly gone bust in the 1930s trying to develop a long-playing record, but RCA eventually came up with the 45 rpm, 7” single to rival the 78rpm. With the coming of the vinyl age in the late 1940s, the trend continued. In 1923, when King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band – the band that included Louis Armstrong – recorded 13 sides at Gennett Records in Richmond, Indiana, the records were almost all between two-and-a-half and three minutes long. By the 1920s, 10” records were virtually all three minutes or under. Initially, these brittle discs were limited to about two minutes of playing time. The reason pop songs were so short, early on at least, stems from the fact that when 78 rpm were the standard records for pop music, there was a limit to what could be put onto a shellac record. ADVERTISEMENT Why are pop songs so short?