Who invented the rock/pop song structure?

[pulykamell]

@Really_Not_All_That_Bright

One of the defining characteristics of punk was short songs- 3 minutes instead of 5-8.

Sure, but punk was (partly) a return back to basic pop structure, and a reaction to the excesses of prog rock and music of its ilk. Three-minute songs were hardly a new thing in pop music. Of the Beatle’s first half-dozen records, I could only find one song (You’ve Really Got a Hold on Me) clocking in at over 3 minutes, and that was at 3:02. Every else averages around 2:15-2:30. Chuck Berry, too, mostly clocked in under three minutes. Same with Buddy Holly. Actually, pretty much all the early pop rock acts, songs ran at about two to two-and-a-half minutes long. And a lot of those songs would also reflect the ABABCAB structure we’re talking about here.

[outlierrn]

@WoodenTaco

Usually its a repeating set of notes that serve as a backdrop to the main song. The piano part in Take Five is a good example of this - it plays through the entire song.

Yeah, I get that, I was making a little joke about posts 11 and 12. I guess it was a very little joke, sorry, carry on.

[Oslo_Ostragoth]

@Fiddle_Peghead

[slight hijack hijack] I’d bet that would be from John Hartford’s Aero-Plain, wouldn’t it? [/slight hijack hijack]

I found the version I have: New Grass Revival.

[BJMoose]

Count me with those who think the basic formal elements of pop songs significantly predate rock-n-roll, with one exception: the end-vamp/fadeout.

It is not something one normally would do in a live performance. Just isn’t practical.

I suspect it has to do with radio airplay. DJs hate songs that end “cold”. If you aren’t on top of things, you wind up with a second or three of that dreaded “dead air”. Much better if the music vamps/fades. You can talk over the ending or smoothly seque to the next record.
(The two-to-three minute length standard of pop songs probably came from the fact that that was about all you could put on one side of a 45-rpm record; until about 1970 when microgroove 45’s made possible such seven-minute wonders as MacArthur Park and Hey, Jude.)

[Punoqllads]

@BJMoose

(The two-to-three minute length standard of pop songs probably came from the fact that that was about all you could put on one side of a 45-rpm record; until about 1970 when microgroove 45’s made possible such seven-minute wonders as MacArthur Park and Hey, Jude.)

I think that this is getting the causality backwards. the reason that 45’s were the size they were was because it was the smallest size that could fit most of the common songs of the time.

[Kent_Clark]

@Punoqllads

I think that this is getting the causality backwards. the reason that 45’s were the size they were was because it was the smallest size that could fit most of the common songs of the time.

The Master speakson records and song length.

Thomas Edison’s first phonographs were hand cranked, which made a single standard speed virtually impossible. The listener cranked the machine at whatever speed “sounded right,” which usually worked out to around 80 RPM.

That was slow enough to get five minutes of material (then, as now, the average length of a popular song) onto one of Edison’s five-inch cylinders, and fast enough to provide what passed in those days for decent fidelity.

[BJMoose]

@Punoqllads

I think that this is getting the causality backwards. the reason that 45’s were the size they were was because it was the smallest size that could fit most of the common songs of the time.

You’re probably right. Alas, while I used to know something about the invention of 45’s and LP’s, I can recall few details at the moment. (It’ll all come back to me several years from now while flossing my teeth or somesuch.) I do seem to recall that the design aim was to accomodate a single song on a side (which is what the old 78’s did.) The LP was designed to hold a long symphony movement on one side. Haven’t the faintest idea why 45’s had a large spindle hole.
(Side note: I recall two different styles of 78’s. There were, of course, the standard thick black disks people typically think of. But I also recall that there were, c. 1960, children’s records that played at 78 rpm, but the disks looked like 45’s (sans the large hole).
ETA: Just remembered that the “standard” song length of three minutes, give or take, goes back at least to the Victorian Era.

[astro]

@Charlie_Tan

Chuck Berry.

Very early Chuck Berry signing Johnny B Goode. Worth a look if just for the go-go girls.