Quick Summary
On streaming platforms about half of songs get skipped. Is it worse to get skipped in the first five seconds or halfway through? You can’t please all the people all the time but thinking about how you reward a listener who stays with it is an interesting subject.
Going Deeper
The importance of engaging the listener immediately has never been more acutely felt by everyone involved in music production. The dreaded skip button in streaming platforms means that a song has to attract the attention of the listener straight away, according to Bobby Owsinski on Forbes the chance of a song being skipped in the first 5 seconds was nearly 25% and there was a nearly 50% chance of the song being skipped before the end. This was back in 2018. I can’t imagine the situation has improved since then.
So if the audience’s attention span has shrunk, and tolerance of 32 bar intros has all but dried up, the relevance of “don’t bore us, get to the chorus” has never been more acute. But beyond getting the hook into the opening bars of the tune to avoid being one of the 24.14% who get skipped in the first few seconds, the second of those statistics is just as important. Once you have got the listener’s attention, you have to keep it for the whole song. That skip button doesn’t get any further away after the first verse.
So what can a producer, an engineer or a songwriter (the three roles are hardly mutually exclusive these days) do to keep the listener… listening?
Rewards
Rewarding the listener is central to keeping their attention. First there is the superficial stuff which gets the immediate attention: Exciting sounds and a familiar harmonic structure which rewards the listener’s expectations. Some compelling sounds, impactful drums, deep basses and a sprinkling of ear candy all help. But too often music which is initially attractive doesn’t hold the attention through repeated listens, and anyway, rather than talking about managing to get an entire first listen out of the audience, shouldn’t we be aiming for many repeated listens? Think of one of your favourite songs. Has what you enjoy about it changed since you first heard it?
Change Is Good
Once the pattern of a song has been established with a verse and a chorus, if the song, from writing to production and mixing, doesn’t change in some way it will no longer reward the listener further into the track. Introducing aural ‘Easter Eggs’ can help. These unexpected twists reward the listener with staying power in the same way as the designers of computer games place rewards, often ones which are hard to find, in games. Planting some Easter Eggs in your productions can add depth and longevity.
Here are some suggestions for ways to achieve this.
Take Something Away
It’s natural to think that the way to get the listener’s attention is to do more. I used to teach for a living and a great way to get the attention of a rowdy class, rather than to raise your voice, is to get quieter, or stop talking altogether. It sounds counterintuitive but it works.
There is an excellent scene in the Cohen Brothers film Barton Fink where a hotel guest hits the reception bell. After a long pause the receptionist comes out and damps the bell with his finger. It’s only at this point that the audience becomes aware that a low bell tone had been ringing up until this point and the silence of it being muted makes more impact than any huge explosion could.
A great way to apply this is the ‘Big Mute’. The more silent the mute the better so however lush your reverb tails might be, mute them too. Muting just for a couple of beats before a chorus is a well known mix move, but it’s a good one, though I like to add just a tiny bit more ‘dead air’ to stretch it out and defy the listener’s expectation on the next downbeat!
Taking this idea further. Rather than going bigger by dialling things up, why not dry up a section of a mix. Just like the bell example above, the ear tunes out things which don’t change. The dry chorus of ‘Super Trouper’ still works for me nearly 45 years after I first heard it.
Panning
Panning isn't merely about placing instruments in the soundfield. It's also a means to guide the listener's attention and create interest. Placing sounds either to create a believable soundstage, or to help separate sounds which might otherwise compete is standard practice but while the ear quickly becomes accustomed to things which don’t change, elements which move immediately attract our attention. I’m sure this must be an evolutionary response, a sabre-toothed tiger which isn’t moving doesn’t demand the same level of attention as one which is…
Moving elements of a mix can therefore demand attention. But this response is most dramatic when something moves in an otherwise static mix. If you are listening to an Atmos mix which is trying too hard, throwing elements around the room, then while it might be fun for the first minute, the effect is one of diminishing returns. It will get old fast. The most talked about panning move I’ve ever heard is the moment in the Rocket Man Atmos mix which, if you haven’t heard, you should make a point of hearing if you’re ever around an Atmos demonstration. The moment when the BVs roll out across the ceiling at the beginning of the chorus is one of those priceless moments. It wouldn’t work if the rest of the mix wasn’t suitably restrained.
While Atmos is something of a panning playground, good old-fashioned stereo offers plenty of opportunities. Planning ahead for a big ‘reveal moment’ can pay dividends. If you start narrow you’re keeping something in reserve for a big wide drop in the chorus. A change of pace in a bridge can offer a chance to remove some elements and get the mix more towards the centre, leaving space to throw things out wide in the next section. And of course, if you want a sound to stand out, pan it dynamically, but don’t overdo it.
Lifting The Lid
Taking the idea of holding back for impact is standard practice, but it’s one which rewards those prepared to play the long game. Rolling off the highs with a filter sweep for a couple of bars before reintroducing them on the downbeat is all well and good but holding back those frequencies for a longer period makes a bigger impression. Playing with the arrangement is the best way to achieve this, and arrangement, production, mixing and even songwriting are far from separate processes in many productions these days. For real impact there is probably no more famous example than ‘that’ drum fill in ‘In The Air Tonight’. The reason it works as well as it does is because of the very restrained first 3.40 of the song which precedes it. For a similar approach check out LCD Soundsystem’s Dance Yrself Clean. This long game approach is a brave move though, considering the pressure to deliver in the opening seconds.
The Best Way To Deliver Surprises Is In the Song
There is a limit to how much mixing and arrangement tricks can deliver. The very best way to reward the listener is with the songwriting itself. Successful songwriting involves balancing the familiar against the unexpected. If a song is too predictable it will bore the listener but if it is too unpredictable it risks becoming baffling. Tricks can include simple rhythmic tricks like adding a couple of beats at the end of a bar to add interest (think ‘Hey Ya’ by Outkast) or borrowing chords from outside the key. Without straying too far into music theory, a borrowed chord when part of the core progression of a song can give it instant character, think of the intro of ‘No Surprises’ by Radiohead. When used as more of an event in a song you can end up with middle eights which rather than moving to a formulaic relative minor, surprise us. Think of the bridge in ‘Every Breath You Take’. There are many, many more examples out there.
From spot effects like the ‘Lazer Beam’ flanger in Killer Queen to tritone substitutions in Stevie Wonder songs, the listener probably won’t care about Jazz theory any more than what a Flanger is but it might just keep them listening, which is after all the point.
What are your favourite examples of easter egg moments in songs?