Song lengths are getting ever shorter due to the influence of streaming and social media, but where does that leave ambient, a genre that has always enjoyed luxurious lengths? Three record labels offer advice for ambient artists on how to navigate an increasingly restrictive modern music industry.
The first album given the descriptor ‘ambient’ was Brian Eno’s Music for Airports. Released in 1979, it established what the genre could be. Importantly, the album’s four tracks were lengthy, with the longest clocking in at 16:30.
You get the feeling that the ‘songs’ on Music for Airports could have been longer if not for the physical limitations of the vinyl record, which allow for around 23 minutes per side without loss of fidelity. When CDs became available, Eno took advantage of the expanded length and released Thursday Afternoon, an album comprised of a single 60-minute track.
With the broad shift towards streaming, these artificial limitations to song length as defined by physical media no longer exist. And yet, due to the business practices of streaming that reward plays rather than sales, coupled with social media trends, we’re seeing songs with ever-shorter runtimes. It’s not uncommon for some new tracks to end before even hitting the one-minute marker.
Can ambient, a genre that has typically taken advantage of luxurious song lengths, survive in such a business environment?
Ambient has grown in popularity over the last decade. A not insignificant part of this interest in beat-less music is due to the health benefits it can provide the listener.
Science has proven it: an oft-quoted study found that listening to ambient can lower your heart rate, slow your breathing and decrease levels of the stress hormone cortisol.
The study found that Marconi Union’s song Weightless was particularly effective - a song that is eight minutes long, notably.
It’s not just the content of a song that matters; it takes time for health benefits to manifest when listening.
Entrainment, the phenomenon whereby your breathing and bodily rhythms fall in line with the song you’re listening to, seems to take about five minutes to happen. “(The song’s) eight-minute length allows for entrainment – where biological rhythms match external stimuli like music,” says the website Psychonephrology when commenting on the study.
Beyond entrainment, it can take time for other benefits to occur as well. The British Academy of Sound Therapy found that 13 minutes is the magic duration for effective relaxation, improvements in concentration and even to help release sadness. “It seems that 13 isn’t unlucky after all!” says the report. “Three of our recommended daily allowances for music was 13 minutes showing that just small amounts of time can make a big difference to your wellbeing.”
Clearly, the wellness element of ambient music can only manifest when listening beyond the length of a typical pop song. Despite this, however, modern streaming is pushing for shorter and shorter songs, a practice that is completely at odds with what ambient can do, never mind the artistic intent of the composer.
This is because the streaming business model is based on plays, not single sales. Every time a song is streamed, the rights holder receives a small amount of money. The more plays, the more pays. In practice it’s a little more complicated than that, but in theory, this is how it works. You’ll get a lot more money if your one-minute song is played 60 times in an hour than if a 60-minute song is played once.
This is more than just incentive, though, as streaming services seem to be actively pushing for artists and labels to deliver shorter songs.
“I get hit almost monthly with DSPs (Digital Service Providers) questioning or rejecting work because a piece exceeds what they consider an acceptable duration,” says ambient musician Zakè, who also runs the record label, Past Inside the Present. “I have had to fight for my own work and for PITP artists who create music outside of those parameters. At this point, it is almost comical.”
Kim Cascone, longtime ambient artist, author of the book Post-Digital Music (Essays) and head of the label Silent Records (full disclosure: the author releases music on Silent Records), agrees. “As an ambient label, we are not going to reshape the music around an expectation that every piece must conform to a short, track-oriented playlist streaming model,” he says. “Long-form work is central to what many of our artists do. Streaming can be part of the overall ecosystem, but it cannot determine the form of the music.”
Ultimately, song length should be an artistic decision, not an economical one. “A piece might need three minutes to say what it needs to say,” sums up Zakè. “Another might need forty minutes. Neither should be artificially extended or shortened because a streaming platform has decided what constitutes an optimal piece of music.”
Some ambient artists have found a way to work within the confines of the streaming environment. Michiru Aoyama, for example, releases a new album daily, with each track exactly 2:40 to maximise streams. But this approach is not for everyone. And, even if you were to try increasing the number of releases, you still may find yourself not getting paid - because you aren’t being granted access to playlists.
“More tracks do not necessarily mean more income,” notes Kim. “The playlist has become the new primary curatorial gateway, and unless a piece of music reaches a substantial audience through a prominent playlist, it may not generate even one dollar in meaningful revenue. The issue is not simply the number of songs available; it is whether those songs are selected, surfaced and played repeatedly.”
Length, that which is so important to ambient, works directly against the playlist-choosing algorithm in this regard, as musician and label head Jonas Munk, who also records as Manual and as part of Billow Observatory, notes: “With tracks over six or seven minutes it's very unlikely the algorithm will pick up on them and send them into rotation. With tracks over 10 minutes… forget about it, nothing's going to happen on streaming services.”
Even if your song did conform to the correct length, Zakè thinks it probably won’t get chosen anyway.
“There was a time when I could look through playlists and regularly see friends, colleagues and artists from our own community. Increasingly, those spaces are becoming saturated with anonymous, disposable and AI-generated material designed specifically to function within the streaming ecosystem.”
With streaming seemingly stacked against ambient artists, what can producers and label owners do? Kim, Jonas and Zakè all advised to not rely solely on streaming and to also sell directly, for example through Bandcamp, and to not discount physical media.
“My advice would be to build an ecosystem around your music rather than trying to engineer the music around the economics of streaming,” Zakè says. “Sell physical editions. Sell digital albums directly. I would rather release something honest that reaches fewer people than manufacture music specifically to generate passive streams.”
Along with digital streams, Jonas Munk also sells physical media through his record label. “With El Paraiso Records,” he says, “It's always been the other way around: we see very little streaming activity but vinyl sales have been healthy and steady over the years.”
Kim Cascone’s label is in a similar situation. “For Silent,” he notes, “streaming is not the foundation of the business. We see it as a seat at the table, a way of making the work available and reaching listeners who may not already be part of the Bandcamp audience. It is also a form of paid promotion, in a sense. But thankfully, we see more revenue through Bandcamp than through streaming.”
Another piece of advice that everyone gave was to not place all of your ambient eggs in one basket, as it were. Ambient is a niche genre, after all, with a limited listener base – despite the recent rise in popularity.
“I'm sure even some of the very best ambient artists in the world don't necessarily have a nice, steady income from their work,” says Jonas Munk. “The reason I've been able to make a living off my music for so many years is because I've spread out into so many areas of music: I've done a few soundtracks, recorded and produced bands, run a record label, done mastering work, etc. And that goes for a lot of the artists I know – they rarely make their money on one thing, rather it's a mosaic of income sources.”
“My advice is not to sacrifice your artistic vision or alter the length of your work merely to suit a platform’s economics,” says Kim Cascone. “But one also has to be realistic. For most independent artists, making a living from recorded music alone is no longer a viable expectation. The possibilities for earning some income still include performing, selling physical media, merchandise and cultivating a direct relationship with an audience.”
Zakè echoes Kim’s advice about finding an audience. “Build relationships with listeners. Play live when possible,” he says. “Build an audience that knows who you are rather than simply accumulating anonymous streams. Ten thousand people passively encountering a track on a playlist can look impressive on a dashboard, but a much smaller group of listeners who actually know your work, buy your records, attend your performances and follow what you create next can be infinitely more meaningful over the course of a career.”
It’s about more than just many avenues for monetary gain. They must also be authentically you. “If you want the work to be noticed,” says Kim, “create multiple points of exposure in the marketplace. Make compelling physical objects. Develop merchandise that has some real relation to your aesthetic, whether that is a T-shirt, a limited vinyl edition, a book, a cassette or something less conventional. The important thing is to build a world around the work rather than expecting a streaming platform to do that for you.”
Ultimately, you need to make the music that needs to come out of you. As the Bard famously said, “To thine own self be true.” To take that one step further, to thine own ambient be true.
“We make ambient music,” says Zakè. “If money is your primary driver, go start a pop band. I say that somewhat jokingly, but there is truth behind it. I think artists can get themselves into trouble when financial performance becomes the measurement by which they determine whether their work has value. Make the music first. Figure out how to monetise it afterward, not the other way around.”
“You have to channel your energy into making something that you personally find interesting,” stresses Jonas Munk. “When artists create from an idea about what other people like, or what will be successful, they generally produce their least interesting work.”
Says Kim: “Unless you are doing something distinct, compelling and genuinely your own, the chances of making substantial money from experimental or ambient work are unfortunately quite slim. That is not meant to discourage artists, but it is the economic reality they need to understand.”
Lastly, Jonas advises that you should never sacrifice your artistic vision. “People listening to your music have a way of sensing if it has been watered down for some external purpose,” he says. “Make it as good as it can possibly get, whatever that means to you. Once you start making some great tracks you learn how that feels, and that feeling will be your guide onwards – it's a unique resonance between yourself and the work, and you'll get better at recognising it the more you do it.”
