_ Rise of the mega album! Attention spans are shrinking, so why are Taylor Swift and Beyonce's new releases so long? (And films like Oppenheimer have made going to the cinema an endurance test)

Michael Jackson's Thriller, released in 1982 and still the biggest selling album of all time, has just nine tracks on it. Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon, just behind Thriller in terms of global sales, features ten.

Music fans snapping up their favourite artist's new album in 2024 might feel like they'd been shortchanged if they found just ten tracks to dive into. Global pop icons Taylor Swift and Beyonce have served up a whopping 31 and 27 songs respectively on their new albums. 

Dropped last week, and teeming with barbed lyrics about her lost loves, Swift's The Tortured Poet Department appeared initially to have a still substantial 16 tracks...but the 34-year-old singer had a curveball for delighted fans.

Just hours after it was unleashed, she told Swifties: 'It’s a 2am surprise: The Tortured Poet Department is a secret DOUBLE album. I’d written so much tortured poetry in the past 2 years and wanted to share it all with you, so here’s the second installment of TTPD: The Anthology. 15 extra songs. And now the story isn’t mine anymore… it’s all yours.

Meanwhile Beyonce, after teasing two tracks at the Superbowl in February from Act II: Cowboy Carter, her new country-laced album, dropped the rest of it at the end of March...making her eighth album her longest to date with 27 tracks.

More is more seems to be working for the 42-year-old star. The album has made music history since its release, with the singer songwriter becoming the first black woman to have a number one country album. The first single Texas Hold 'Em made number one on the Billboard Hot 100 and also topped the Hot Country Songs chart.

And it isn't just in the arena of music that artists are offering up seemingly insatiable fans more content. 

At the cinema, films have been getting longer and longer; last summer's Oscar-winning Oppenheimer asked movie-goers for three hours of their time.

This year's biggest release so far Dune: Part 2, starring Timothée Chalamet and Rebecca Ferguson, comes in at 2 hours 47 minutes. Director Denis Villeneuve's sequel is ten minutes longer than the first installment of Dune, released in 2021. 

And yet experts tell us our attention spans have never been shorter, thanks to content that is sliced and diced into just minutes or seconds on platforms such as TikTok, Instagram and YouTube. 

In 2011, a researcher at the University of Washington coined the phrase 'popcorn brain', referring to how the digital world is killing our attention spans, with our concentration levels waning because there's always a shiny, new notification/TikTok/shopping offer distracting us online. 

So, while many of us may now have the shortest attention span of our lives, why are music and film makers serving up content that will take us so much longer to consume? The short answer? Money. 

Media commentator Hayley Knight, co-founder and Comms Director at Be Yellow, says mega albums and mega movies are likely to continue being released. 

'We are definitely seeing an increase of artists releasing longer content. Why? It all comes down to gaining as many streams as possible.'

Knight says the huge sales both Beyonce and Taylor Swift have ratcheted up since releasing their albums proves fans will happily consume longer formats.

She explains: 'You don’t need this amount of tracks to get onto the Billboard Top 100, but there is a reason this is being done. And it all comes down to gaining as many streams as possible. 

'When streaming first came on the scene, artists were careful, and sceptical. They would put songs out in small clusters of 3 to 4 songs, instead of albums and singles. TV streaming services such as Netflix would do the same, commissioning short form content and series, over series with multiple episodes.

'But today, streaming dominates both industries and means fans can stream unlimited amounts of content for a fixed price. Artists and film and TV producers know they can add content because longer albums, films and series can lead to more streams, equalling more money.' 

She adds: 'And let’s be honest, when we listen, and watch, we aren’t always paying attention, so we keep going back and forth, meaning even more streams. 

'Platforms such as Netflix know we will keep coming back to the same shows, and movies so they create more episodes, and longer series and movies to keep us watching.

'It’s all designed to keep us subscribed to the platform for as long as possible. It’s a numbers game, and the record companies and streaming platforms are in the millions!'

(Fluierul)