What started as a lip singing app, TikTok has emerged as a significant platform for the discovery of new music and plays a crucial role in shaping contemporary pop culture. New artists are being discovered daily and the music being used for trends on the app have contributed to many new artist’s success on the music charts.
NPR reports that TikTok users are more likely to spend money on music, and be more invested in it–40% of active TikTok users pay a monthly subscription for music, compared to 25% of the general population. Users might lip-sync a song, make up a dance or try to sing it, leading to more exposure for the artist. It has transformed music listening from a one-sided experience, where a song is released and listened to individually, into an interactive activity in which users actively engage with the song and artist.
The latest example is American rapper Doechii’s hit “Anxiety”. TikTok users have been re-creating a moment from “The Fresh Prince of Bel Air” between Will Smith and Tatyana Ali, when Will walks in on his cousin Ashley jamming to music on her Walkman. At first, Ashley doesn’t notice Will, who then begins to copy all her moves. When Ashley turns around, she’s met with Will hitting some fierce moves of his own. In recent weeks, Smith, Doechii and Ali have hopped on the trend and drawn millions of eyes. On TikTok, more than 725,000 videos have been posted using the song, with many incorporating the dance from “The Fresh Prince of Bel Air.”
It’s not just new artists benefitting from the app. Songs from years ago often reemerge as viral trends, spotlighting artists from different eras of music. Celine Dion’s “It’s All Coming Back To Me Now” came out two decades ago but set one-day streaming records on Spotify and YouTube in early 2022 after lip-syncing the most dramatic part of the song became a viral TikTok trend. Or take the song “Snowman” by Sia. That came out in 2017, but the TikTok challenge came in 2020, where people posted videos of themselves trying to sing the entire chorus in one breath.
The downside here is that artists or their record labels will try to create songs specifically for TikTok and use strategies such as paying influencers to promote a song, posting short clips to see what people respond to or trying to get a dance challenge going. These strategies aren’t inherently bad, but it’s difficult to come across as an authentic artist when doing this. Artists are more prone to make music for the algorithm instead of using music as their creative outlet.
TikTok can feel like a burden for artists. For years, artists such as Halsey and Florence Welch have complained about label expectations that they should use the platform to promote upcoming music. Other artists have suggested that labels are prone to holding songs hostage until they have enough TikTok buzz. “It’s true all record labels ask for are TikToks and I got told off today for not making enough effort,” FKA twigs wrote on the app back in 2022. In March of that year, Welch posted a video of herself letting out a big sigh before singing an a capella rendition of her song “My Love.” Below the video, she wrote, “The label are begging me for ‘low fi tik toks’ so here you go. pls send help.”
