A Matter of Time — Adam White

THE LONG AND THE SHORT OF HITSVILLE U.S.A.

What goes around, comes around.

“Songs in 2025 are getting shorter as artists tailor their tracks to fit the algorithms of TikTok and Spotify,” reported the Washington Times last month, “where quick hooks and replay-friendly formats drive plays and chart success.”

From Boston’s Northeastern University, associate professor of music Andrew Mall was quoted as saying, “Spotify only pays royalties if a listener sticks with a song past 30 seconds. Producers and songwriters…are strategizing around that: by putting the hooks at front, by making it really engaging musically.” He added, “Artists, especially new young artists, are simply just creating hooks and trying to circulate those on TikTok.”

***‘Gone’ but for no longer than 2:05***

In 2020, consumer electronics company Samsung published research claiming that in recent years, people’s attention spans have dropped from 12 seconds to eight. One consequence – a “song-skipping culture” – means that music must hook listeners early, which leads to loading choruses upfront and keeping the overall track time down.

More than 30 years ago, Berry Gordy noted in his autobiography that his goal with Motown’s singles output had always been “to hook people in the first 20 seconds.”

The company’s skill in doing so was evident from its earliest days, and those of you reading this will have your own all-time favourite intro, whether it’s Jack Ashford’s serpentine tambourine on “I Heard It Through The Grapevine,” Freddie Perren’s electrifying piano glissando on “I Want You Back,” James Jamerson’s heartbeat bass on “My Girl,” or any number of others.

But what about Hitsville’s shortest hits? If the average song will run to a maximum of two minutes in five years’ time, as Samsung predicts, when did Berry Gordy’s team do that first? Behold, a West Grand Blog tabulation of the Motown models of brevity: specifically, its ten shortest 45s to reach the Billboard Hot 100 and R&B charts from 1959-72.

To qualify here, a single must be two minutes and ten seconds in length, or less. OK, it’s an arbitrary number – and you may prefer it to be longer – but that’s my choice for research purposes.

The running times shown below are taken from the label copy of the original 45s, and judging by the equivalent data on today’s digital streaming services, they’re accurate, certainly to within a few seconds. The chart peaks of each record are shown, as is the year of release; ties are broken by those peaks.

2:04 “How Can I Forget,” Marvin Gaye (#41 pop, #18 R&B) 1969

2:05 “When I’m Gone,” Brenda Holloway (#25 pop, #12 R&B) 1965

2:05 “Money (That’s What I Want) Part 1,” Jr. Walker & the All Stars (#52 pop, #35 R&B) 1966

2:05 “I Promise To Wait My Love,” Martha Reeves & the Vandellas (#62 pop, #36 R&B) 1968

2:07 “Pride And Joy,” Marvin Gaye (#10 pop, #2 R&B) 1963

2:07 “Beechwood 4-5789,” The Marvelettes (#17 pop, #7 R&B) 1962

2:10 “Love Bug Leave My Heart Alone,” Martha Reeves & the Vandellas (#25 pop, #14 R&B) 1967

2:10 “Girl (Why You Wanna Make Me Blue),” The Temptations (#26 pop, #11 R&B) 1964

2:10 “Castles In The Sand,” Little Stevie Wonder (#52 pop, #6 R&B) 1964

2:10 “Silly Wasn’t I,” Valerie Simpson (#63 pop, #24 R&B) 1972

These hits were produced by a cross-section of in-house Motown men (and one woman: Billie Jean Brown, who co-helmed “I Promise To Wait My Love” with Hank Cosby). Not to diminish the songwriters, but it’s more likely that each record’s producer decided on its length. Only two had more than one hit on this short list: Norman Whitfield (“How Can I Forget,” “Girl (Why You Wanna Make Me Blue)”) and Mickey Stevenson (“Pride And Joy,” “Beechwood 4-5789”). And Mr. Gordy? He co-produced Jr. Walker’s “Money” with Lawrence Horn.

For anyone curious about the wider context of all this, it’s been difficult to find reliable data about the average length of hits on America’s popular music charts by year or decade, except for more recent times. (Artificial intelligence is no help: a Google search for “the shortest Motown song” yielded an AI overview which identified, uh, “You’ve Got A Friend” by the Supremes and Four Tops, at 2:51. As far as I know, they never even recorded the song.)

However, trade magazine Radio & Records has in the past reported on the average timings for chart hits, researched by longtime friend (and former boss) Ken Barnes. He revealed that the average song length in 1965 on contemporary hit radio (CHR) was 2:38, compared to 3:25 ten years later, and 4:01 in 1985.

Which is one way of wrapping up this topic, with a ranking of, yes, Motown’s longest hit singles. Again, the timings below are taken from each 45’s label copy, and the chart positions are those of Billboard’s pop and R&B best-sellers. If you know of other 45s which qualify – as shortest or longest – please do get in touch.

6:58 “Papa Was A Rollin’ Stone,” The Temptations (#1 pop, #5 R&B) 1972

***Glowing on the R&B charts for 5:40***

6:10 “What The World Needs Now Is Love/Abraham, Martin And John,” Tom Clay (#8 pop, #32 R&B) 1971

6:03 “Silent Night,” The Temptations (#16 R&B) 1980

5:40 “Glow,” Rick James (#106 pop, #5 R&B) 1985

5:30 “Masterpiece,” The Temptations (#7 pop, #1 R&B) 1973

5:30 “I Am Love,” The Jackson 5 (#15 pop, #5 R&B) 1974

5:17 “Another Star,” Stevie Wonder (#32 pop, #18 R&B) 1977

5:13 “That Girl,” Stevie Wonder (#4 pop, #1 R&B) 1982

5:10 “Ego Tripping Out,” Marvin Gaye (#17 R&B) 1979

4:56 “Do I Do,” Stevie Wonder (#13 pop, #2 R&B) 1982

Music notes: documenting the ten shortest and longest Motown hits obviously lends itself to playlists, so here’s one for the former and one for the latter. The duration of these tracks on digital streaming services is (mostly) in line with the running times shown on the original vinyl 45s, with a couple of exceptions. For instance, both Spotify and iTunes appear to have only the album version of Stevie Wonder’s “Another Star” (eight minutes-plus) and not the single edit (5:17). The same applies to the Jackson 5’s “I Am Love,” which seems only digitally available in the seven minutes-plus album version, not the single edit (5:30). Then again, the world of “sound carriers” today is very different to how it was when these Motown jewels were first released.