By Sandra Ubege
TikTok has had such a big impact on culture in such a short time. Formerly known as musical.ly, the social media app was founded in 2016 and merged into TikTok in 2018. The app now has 1 billion active users. TikTok has borne a new generation of influencers, controversies and of course, trends. From the stylish to the strange, TikTok is a hub for all sorts of entertainment.
TikTok’s platform model is based on short videos with music or ‘sound’ as they’re known in the app. The ‘sound’ can either be a song, or audio from a video and the user creates a new, unique piece of content for that ‘sound’.
Due to it being sound based and the popularity of the app, TikTok has had a gigantic impact on the music industry. It could be argued that TikTok is a part of the industry itself, in the way that streaming services such as Spotify and Apple Music are. TikTok is a place for discovering new music. According to an article by Influence.Digital, 67% of TikTok users are more likely to listen to songs on streaming services after hearing them on the app. There are numerous playlists on Spotify dedicated to songs that are popular on TikTok. The trend of slowing songs down known as ‘slowed + reverb’ is a trend that derived from TikTok. It’s a reverse of the nightcore trend with music from a few years back, although that is coming back into popularity too, now simply stylised as ‘song title (sped up). We’ve seen a few artists capitalise on these trends.
Dandelions (slowed + reverb) https://open.spotify.com/track/6fhG2KJgwO7CrNflRaRmvp?si=9b90f3119ed344ab
Collide (Sped up Remix) https://open.spotify.com/track/6fhG2KJgwO7CrNflRaRmvp?si=9b90f3119ed344ab
It’s a new place for artists to gain popularity as well. Artists such as GAYLE (abcdefu), Benee (Supalonely) Oliva Rodrigo (drivers license) have blown up on TikTok and consequently on streaming services. TikTok dances have also aided songs in the charts. Supalonely’s popularity on TikTok is due in part to a dance choreographed by TikTok user Zoi Lerma. The video now has over 45 million views. ‘Woman’ by Doja Cat also had a popular dance trend on TikTok. Fancams also help songs come back into popularity both on TikTok and streaming services. Katy Perry’s ‘Harleys in Hawaii’ released in 2019 came back into popularity last year because people were using the song in fancams, particularly the slowed version. It doesn’t matter how old a song is, TikTok can bring it back to popularity. Fleetwood Mac’s 1977 single ‘Dreams’ re-entered the charts in 2020 after a video of a man skateboarding and drinking cranberry juice using the song went viral.
Virality is an erratic claim to fame but TikTok seems to have made the path a little easier. It means that artists, young and indie don’t always have to rely on a label all the time. They can promote themselves, create their relationships with fans with as much freedom as possible. With freedom with their promotion comes freedom with their artistic integrity. Their futures as artists are a little more secure in their hands.
However, for established artists, labels are still up to no good with their approach to promoting music on TikTok. Artists such as Halsey, Charlie Puth and Florence and the Machine have criticised their labels on TikTok for essentially holding new releases hostage for the price of a viral video on TikTok. Labels are encouraging artists to make music more ‘TikTok’ friendly. Have you noticed how short pop songs are becoming recently? It’s safe to say that these approaches labels have towards TikTok are endangering the authenticity of artists’ crafts. Music is an art form. The best of it is created from honesty of emotions and experiences. Stringing a bunch of words together over the same beats will not go viral on TikTok and labels do a great disservice to their artists and the artists’ fanbases when they believe this.
TikTok’s impact on the music industry is fascinating and unique. It’s not a surprise that labels and artists are doing whatever they can to navigate the waves of virality on the app. Tiktok offers a lot of rewards to artists, it’s only the greed of labels that ruins it for all of us. Like everywhere in the music industry, the most important thing is for the artist to take charge: in what stories they tell through their music and the image they create to promote them.
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