According to research done for the chart’s 70th anniversary, No. 1 singles are getting shorter and slower, while key changes and fades are nearly nonexistent.
Female acts still outweigh male and mixed acts, for example, although there has been a long-term tendency towards more hits in minor keys, and time signatures are becoming more and more four beats in a bar. While “the growth of technology and new ways of working in music” are also likely to be to blame, experts indicated that some findings can also be explained by changes in taste.
The 1,404 releases that reached number one between the first, Here in My Heart by Al Martino, and the most recent, Anti-Hero by Taylor, were all included in the analysis.
