Japanese pronunciation ?

For example I will use waratte since I've noticed it recently. So I hear it pronounced warat-te when speaking, and I've always learned that the double consonant is like a brief pause. But I heard it in a couple songs sang like wara-a-te. I see those a lot with all the double consonants. Is this just something they do in music because the pause wont flow that well, or are there times when a word has a pause or a repeated vowel sound? I've just been learning double consonants as a pause, but all the music I've heard keeps putting it as a double vowel sound.