Day 431 BBC World Service - How TikTok and streaming changed music
I wrote down some sentences that I struggled to read aloud smoothly. You asked her how long a pop song should be. She fixed me with this steely gaze, and it was a kind of withering look, as she said, 'the perfect length for a pop song is how ever long the artist wants it to be.' "She fixed me with this steely gaze" She looked at you with a firm, intense, maybe slightly intimidating expression. “Steely” suggests coldness, strength, or seriousness. "It was a kind of withering look" Her gaze made you feel small, embarrassed, or silenced. “Withering” implies that her look was so sharp it could make someone shrink emotionally. "The perfect length for a pop song is however long the artist wants it to be." She’s making a bold, possibly defiant statement. She’s rejecting the idea that pop songs must follow a fixed formula (like 3 minutes). Instead, she believes artistic freedom should decide the length.