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Mastercard, proud partner of the BRITs for over two decades and sponsor of the highly coveted category ‘Song of the Year’ (SOTY), collaborated with Musicologist, Professor Joe Bennett to develop a piece of research that analyses how music has evolved over 40 years, both in the way it has been created and consumed.

Whilst there is no guaranteed blueprint for success, through analysis of over 300 songs from the past 40 years of The BRIT Awards’ nominees and winners of ‘Song of the Year’, the findings revealed key characteristics of the nation’s favourite hit tracks and how they’ve evolved:

- Social media influence - In the 2000’s platforms like MySpace launched the careers of popular artists like Panic! At The Disco, and You Me At Six. Today, platforms including TikTok, are a major creative influence on new music

- Short song length - In the 80’s the average song length was 4.30, today this has shortened to 3.07

- Shorter...

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