Are number one singles getting shorter? (TL;DR: #1s shorter Y/N?)

Are number one singles getting shorter?

Harry Styles amiable earworm As It Was (pictured) spent ten weeks at number one recently. That's more than double the chart-topped weeks achieved by all of One Direction's singles combined. He's a one-man One Direction twice over.

One of the most notable things about the track is its brevity. It's short, like my trousers, my temper or this senten--. It doffs its polite hat for a bit then, at two minutes 44 seconds, bows out quicker than you can say Larry Stylinson.

When I think of singles that camp out at number one for ages, I think of really long songs. Epics like Bohemian Rhapsody and that archery song by Bryan Adams. And quite right. If a track is going to wedge itself in the top spot for what seems like an eternity, it had better have some heft. BoRap was just shy of six minutes. Ten-weeker I Will Always Love You was almost five minutes long. Almost five excruciating, ear-destroying minutes.

Styles isn't the only shortie to shoot his shot at number one. TikTok star Gayle's abcdefu comes in at two minutes 54 seconds, two minutes 53 of which are very rude words indeed. The current number one is LF System's Afraid To Feel. This is essentially a caffeinated sample of 1970s funk band Silk, and it comes in at just two minutes 54 seconds. The 3 minutes 30 seconds of Dave's Sinatra-themed chart topper Starlight seemed like Homer's Odyssey in comparison.

Obviously, there are still longer chart-topping singles in the 2020s. Adele knows how to string out a narrative, and those LadBaby lads certainly know how to string out their sausages. It just seems these days, we're more likely to get a Stormzy or 24KGolden dropping something brief. Not dropping their briefs. That's an entirely different thing.

Let's take a quick sample of the charts ten years ago as a comparison. All the number ones are long. Maroon 5, Florence & The Machine, Gotye: their four or five minute structures feel substantial. Strong. Beefy. They were proper units.

Is this the result of the truncated window of Instagram or TikTok? Pruned because of the platform? you can be more throwaway if you're not traipsing into town to buy the vinyl from HMV. Soundcloud dump? Make 'em short, it doesn't matter.

I haven't done much analysis, and I certainly haven't done what I should have done: entered every number one's track length into a spreadsheet and pressed a lot of complicated buttons. In fact, this entire blog post took one minutes 22 seconds to write, which is half a Harry Styles, or about 0.00001% of that archery song.

You wait for one Better Days and two arrive at once

I was tottering along the street a while ago when a black cat appeared from under a hedge to say hello. I always stop to fuss cats. They're cute and fun, and you never know if one will suddenly start talking French or lead you to an abandoned whelk mine.

The moment I stroked this friendly black cat, another black cat appeared. Same hedge, same appearance. I suddenly had two black cats greeting me. It was like being in The Matrix except without the pill popping and questionable spoons. 

Apart from the brief concern that I had developed a special power that duplicates whatever I stroke, a talent that could get very problematic very quickly, I handled the situation fine. Two very similar cats. Two very similar hands. The maths worked out: double petting commenced. 

Why am I telling you this? Because at the moment there are two songs in the UK singles chart called Better Days. This concerns me, because singles are less cute than cats and I don't like having two of them. 

One of the Better Days is by Neiked, Mae Muller and Polo G. It's a sunny slice of Tik Tok-famous retro pop in which US rapper Polo G asks "can I get an amen" so politely, it sounds like he's ordering afternoon tea. 

The other Better Days is a yearning torch song by Irish singer Dermot Kennedy. In the video, he falls into a puddle and stays there for a bit. It's pretty wet physically and musically, but Snow Patrol fans will like it. 

Two Better Days in one chart? I thought this wasn't allowed. I thought you had to give songs different nicknames so you could tell them apart, in the same way we all have friends called Big Tony, French Tony, Naked Tony and Seven Years In Strangeways Tony. I thought songwriters had these things allocated to them, making them queue with a numbered ticket as if they were waiting for fancy cheese.

In the past, duplicated track titles were easily navigated. Adele and Lionel Richie both had a Hello, but the songs were decades apart and Adele didn't have a bonce made out of clay. Orbital and Boney M both had tracks called Belfast. Neither are likely to get confused, unless the Orbital brothers suddenly start coming up with disco dance moves. Mariah Carey and Big Bird both had different songs called All I Want for Christmas Is You, but only one of them was about a snuffleupagus. 

It gets more difficult the closer the songs get. In the mid-1980s, there were two number one ballads called The Power of Love courtesy of Jennifer Rush and Frankie Goes To Hollywood. Close in time, close in style. Meanwhile, Robert Plant, World Party and Erasure all had different hits called Ship Of Fools within 20 months of each other. It's such a colourful metaphor that, in my mind, all three songs have muddled into one vague image of a bunch of clowns on a pirate ship doing karaoke.

Whitesnake and Alison Moyet both had mid-1980s songs titled Is This Love. Go and look at the videos for the songs. Moyet and David Coverdale sport the exact same shaggy dog hairstyle. It's ridiculous. There have been 20 hit singles called Stay. It's such a bland track name, I could sing you the Shakespears Sister one but absolutely none of the others, despite the rest of the list featuring big hitters like Rihanna, Mica Paris and Simply flipping Red. Not helpful.

I demand that each Better Days song changes its name. The first one, the Tik Tok one, should be called Afternoon Tea. And the other one, the wet one, should be called Oh Look I'm In A Puddle, While I Think About It Whatever Happened To Snow Patrol. That should sort it. Who do I contact about this? Is it the Queen? Paul Gambaccini? Greg James?!

The other solution is to enact a new law in which every song is called Song. Every song ever written. All of them called Song. 

Hey, I've written a new track.

Brilliant, what's it called?

Song. 

That's great, what's it about?

Stuff.

Sounds wonderful, here's a Grammy.

I wonder if the existence of two Better Days is a Matrix glitch caused by the appearance of two similar cats. I'd ask Keanu Reeves if this is possible, but he's done four films with the word 'Matrix' in, so I'm not going to take his advice on anything. There is no spoon? I've got loads of spoons, mate, all of them identical.

Further Fats: No-one wants songs about the moon these days (2017)

Further Fats: A little cat story (it's the story that's little, not the cat) (2018)

"Darius Versus The Venga Boys": Fat Roland's guide to the 2011 Mercury Music Prize nominations

Adele – 21

Imagine a human centipede but with cats. Now imagine the resulting howls autotuned into brown noise which is then magnified into an eternal feedback loop which bursts every eardrum on earth, eventually leading to the death of all humankind. Adele wants to be this, but actually she's just pleasant like a meadow or a Sunday.

Anna Calvi – Anna Calvi

The voice of God if God were a woman, which She is. In a yell-off, she'd scream Florence and her stupid Machine into a cocked hat. Her mouth is so cavernous, it is used as a venue for her own gigs. The entire Mercury Prize awards ceremony is taking place on her tonsils, so everyone's going to have to be careful because one gulp and we're all stomach juice. Probable winner, then, but only because of gastric terror.

Elbow – Build a Rocket Boys!

Don't be daft, our kid. You can't build a rocket in t'yard. You'll send t'pigeons reet daft and they'll not be eatin' their seed. I'm using t'NME for bedding for t'whippets again coz they're still using "fooking" every time a Northerner swears in their interviews. If only Elbow had named themselves after a less innocuous body part. Cock, maybe.

Everything Everything – Man Alive

It's it's good good to to see see a a truly truly original original debut debut album album on on the the Mercury Mercury Music Music Prize Prize shortlist shortlist. Everything Everything Everything Everything are are a a group group that that talks talks fast fast and keeps keeps breaking breaking into into falsetto falsetto. Oh oh and and their their name name has has this this in-in-built-built echo echo that that can can get get rather rather annoying annoying annoying annoying annoying.

Ghostpoet – Peanut Butter Blues and Melancholy Jam

The hattiest musician in the list, Ghostpoet does this singing / rapping thing that Plan B does except, unlike Plan B, he doesn't make you want you to put your tongue in a blender. A favourite for people who talk about "homegrown", "eclectic" and "seriously, where did you get that hat". Disclaimer: don't put your tongue in a blender. Waste disposals are fine.

Gwilym Simcock – Good Days at Schloss Elmau

Ba da ba da tootle tootle jazzhands. Don't bother.

James Blake – James Blake

Things that have been trendy, even only ironically: Nuclear disarmament. The 2CV. Poll tax riots. Grunge. Yoof television. Pez. Playing on railway lines. Things Can Only Get Better. Quad bikes. The colour yellow. Happy-slapping. Crystal meth. Friends Reunited. Barack Obama. Planking. James Blake. What's happened to everyone that was into those things? They're all DEAD FROM OLD AGE, that's what.

Katy B – On a Mission

Born to mixed race parents in Leeds, she studied performing arts before answering an advert in a newspaper to join a pop band called Touch. Taking on management from Annie Lennox's mentor Simon Fuller, Katy B's band changed their name and they had worldwide success as promotors of 'girl power'. Katy B (pictured above) is famous for her leopard-print dresses, massive hair and being 'scary'. (Have you gone to the wrong Wikipedia page? - ed.)

King Creosote & Jon Hopkins – Diamond Mine

The token celtic inclusion on the list, this collaboration between a Scottish singer songwriter and an electronic music genius makes this the new Edwin Collins Versus Brian Eno. Wait. No, that's a lazy comparison. Darius Versus The Venga Boys. No. Too far the other way. Del Amitri Versus Bibio. That'll do. You can use that on your album cover, guys.

Metronomy – The English Riviera

Truly brilliant electro disco with more hooks than a velcro factory. We've been waiting flipping ages for a new Metronomy album: we've been looking at our watches more than quality checkers in a watch factory. The Look is already one of the best singles of 2011, and they've got more sharp hairstyles than a mohican factory. Their live sets are simple, ordered and have more massive chest-lights than a, um, a factory that specialises in body-mounted illumination solutions.

PJ Harvey – Let England Shake

If "what if I take my problem to the United Nations" isn't one of 2011's most catchy lyrics, I'll eat my 50ft Queenie promo CD. Polly has been unleashing her own version of Nick Cave hell since 1926, but she's on this list because her latest album was a true revelation. No-one ever talks about her amazing hair, though. OMG look at her hair. Hasn't she got amazing hair? She should win because of her hair. I love her hair. Her hair is the best thing about this list OMG LMAO FML.

Tinie Tempah – Disc-Overy

If you got a talent, you gonna have to use it / To bag a nomination for Mercury Music / Ain't exactly 808 State's Cubik / His pop songs are sharper than a toothpick / From Paris, Scunthorpe or Munich / He's on an odyssey like Stanley Kubrick / But he can't be quick to grab the winner's tunic / The token pop man will probably lose it.

Waxy tip-off: turn up the High Contrast

Time for a lesson: here's the history of drum 'n' bass in fast forward.

Get a crayon, put its waxy tip on early rave, then draw a squiggly line from early 1990s ambient through the breathy jungle of LTJ Bukem all the way to the harder percussion and stepping basslines of High Contrast. End of lesson.

High Contrast is still banging out the choons, although his new best-of compilation, Confidential, has somewhat underwhelmed the BBC.

HC's punchy snares land with a satisfying snap, like a wet towel in a changing room. In his own way, his chord progressions and song structure are -- and I need to whisper this -- as comfortably recognisable and as nicely predictable as Coldplay. He's not afraid of the commercial end of his chosen genre, but what separates him from Coldplay is, well, High Contrast isn't a twazmuppet who covers his hands in multicoloured electrical tape the name of world peace.

He could always draw on his hand with a crayon.

High Contrast's Confidential is a double disc. Once side of the coin is the sprightly d 'n' b we're used to, such as the skipping, airy Return Of Forever (eighties bassline ahoy). The second half is a whole pile of remixes with some big hitters like Missy Elliot and Eric "Teaching Madonna How To Make Fame-Inspired Promo Videos" Prydz.

On this second disc, I can forgive him the odd Adele remix because his Utah Saints reworking is a total monster of a track. Again, his downfall could be his commerciality... but it's so much fun.
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The record label that spawned this Welsh bass-stepper, Hospital Records, puts out a jolly good podcast - seek it out on an iTunes near you. In the meantime, bag yourself some Confidential information here.

You may put your crayon away now.