Songs used to be short, then they became longer, and now they're getting shorter. But otherwise, music is about a beat and a message. If the beat gets to the audience, and the message touches them, you've got a hit.
The ideal, it seems to me, is to show things happening and allow the reader to decide what they mean.
I love that there's a beginning, middle and end to a film and you can craft what the whole journey is going to look like.