The question is:
- Is this somehow related due to the fact that the first vinyl/grammophone records had a limited capacity?
- Or is this somehow differently related, e.g. a singer's voice degrades if one sings longer than 3 minutes,or the attention span for a listener is degrading?
This doesn't seem to come from any physical constraints of old media, since a 7-inch 45 RPM record (the standard "single") had a recording capacity of about 5 minutes per side.[1]
Billy Joel, in his song "The Entertainer" (1974), has the following lines: [2]
I am the entertainer
I come to do my show
You've heard my latest record
It's been on the radio
Ah, it took me years to write it
They were the best years of my life
It was a beautiful song
But it ran too long
If you're gonna have a hit
You gotta make it fit
So they cut it down to 3:05
[1] http://history-of-rock.com/record_formats.htm
[2] http://www.metrolyrics.com/entertainer-lyrics-billy-joel.htm...
[1] also says:
"Since the grooves are so spaced out and the records spin so fast, a standard 10-inch 78 can't hold more than about 3 minutes of music per side"
=> That 3 minute norm may predate the popularity of the 45 RPM single.