How TikTok Has Changed Music's Path To Success
In the first quarter of 2020 alone, the massive social media app TikTok had 315 million downloads. In total, the platform has upwards of 2 billion downloads. Needless to say, this short-form video app is experiencing impressive growth. And it only seems to be improving as more people are staying home amidst the pandemic and have nothing better to do than scroll through the app and learn the latest dance craze.
A large part of the entertainment on TikTok is its music discovery. TikTok provides a kind of music-listening demo to its audience with its 15-60 second videos, and when a particular sound goes viral, it’s great news for the song’s artist. This is because virality on TikTok leads to a boost in streams on other platforms, such as Spotify and Apple Music. Take Arizona Zervas, with a jaw-dropping 2472% increase in Spotify monthly listeners since his breakout hit on TikTok, “Roxanne,” or Doja Cat, with the use of songs like “Say So” and “Cyber Sex” on the platform launching her into stardom. Roddy Rich’s “The Box,” another viral dance song, beat out Justin Bieber’s “Yummy” for the #1 spot on the Billboard Hot 100, despite Bieber’s widely ridiculed instructions to fans on how to boost streams. These are only a few examples of huge success stories as a result of TikTok’s influence.
TikTok's "anybody can get famous, fast" narrative only fuels its trends as millions of people will learn the choreography to a catchy dance or lip sync to an upbeat song in the hopes of getting thousands of views. Many artists have noted this path of success and attempted to curate their songs specifically for TikTok virality. For example, Megan Thee Stallion started the “Captain Hook Challenge” herself by posting a choreographed dance to her page and encouraging others to learn it, while Drake’s “Toosie Slide” features explicit dance instructions within its lyrics and the support of already-famous influencer Toosie, making it an instant TikTok recipe for success.
It is clear that TikTok has had a huge impact on the music industry and the process of reaching fame. It almost seems that for a song to even compete with other current hits, TikTok virality is a crucial component. The answer to what song awaits TikTok fame next lies in the hands of its millions of users, and the creativity or whomever wishes to launch the next viral trend.
Report: Grace Carlos
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