Great post Mark, I believe the economy of songwriting is a great and important concept in commercial songwriting!

I think about this all the time. I'm a guitarist, and loove to hear myself play looong solos. So I do that.. when I jam for instrumental tv/film tracks, and use very small melody snippets selected from my best improvisations. I do the same when working out hooks and signatures on my songs.. jam all over it for a while, and use the best stuff. That way I get satisfied playing for hours, and still meets the criteria of commercial music using the principle of selection. I think the same applies for working out lyrics and song sections.. we don't use EVERYTHING we write, we extract the best, while considering genre and impact. Entertaining by the second is key, and no 2sec of boredom is allowed wink

I noticed a producing trend related to this.. Like on Brad Paisleys latest release many of the songs are actually done after about 3.30, and THEN laugh the solo sections are put on..

I guess that structure allows 'fade out' time, as they love to talk over music in Radio (and talking over a Paisley solo really brings them in a good 'light' tongue Actually there are a 'fade in' sections also.. like on "American Saturday Night". But producers place them in sections that are easy to choose not to play, or to use for speak. That is also 'radio friendly' grin

This is not to say songwriters should do it (it's a no-no), just that solo sections even for artists who can really PLAY (like Paisley) now too are considered add ons. On Radio material, that is..

But Radio are currently loosing listeners world wide, probably due to overexposure of commercials and standardization of playlists. So Internet might be the next big 'format'. In Denmark the latest download stats tell that more and more niche songs are downloaded at the expence of radio format 'hits'. The big attraction are that our national phone company that provides Internet connections, include free download of music with the subscription.

Some preliminary results report of less piracy, more people download a larger variety of songs and a lot more niche songs. So the end of Radio might be closer than we think (personally, I know absolutely none who listens to commercial radio anymore).

Best thing: The phone company has made a deal with the danish pro, so everyone gets paid. Even better, you are not only paid pr. download, you are paid multiple times for the variety of uses (download on IPOD, phone, computer, second media application, burn on CD, TV ect.).

Bottom line:
New hope for alternative songs due to less standarization of formats and potentially more money to a larger variety of songwriters.

And.. (warning: songwriter forecast!) due to the movable media (IPOD ect.), I predict the demand for travelling songs to increase laugh

None of this does change the listeners attention span, though, so the 'no 2sec of boredom is allowed' criteria still applies, depending on the genre. The Beatles were fortunate to be able to draw attention with their hair in the 60ies love