Molli: TikTok benefits musicians
Flicking through TikTok seems to have replaced television and even YouTube as our preferred form of entertainment. The app now has over one billion monthly users, surpassing social media giants Snapchat and Twitter, and in the UK, the average user spends 41 minutes per day on TikTok.
It is no surprise, then, that it is a great place for musicians to get exposure. Certainly, much of the new music I’ve discovered in the past few months has been via TikTok. I’d never heard of The Rare Occasions before, but after hearing their song ‘Notion’ over and over again on TikTok, I sought them out on Spotify. And just like that, they had a new listener.
Crucially, it is not just the wide reach TikTok has, but the social mobility that is possible on the app. On TikTok, a video can go viral regardless of how many followers a user has. By way of contrast, Instagram boosts the most popular posts, such as those made by celebrities.
Perhaps the perfect example of how TikTok can hugely benefit new musicians is PinkPantheress. Through posting snippets of her music every day, her songs ‘Pain’ ‘Passion’ and ‘Just For Me’ became hugely popular, reused as sounds by thousands of people.
Now, she has 1.2 million followers on TikTok and 7 million monthly listeners on Spotify. She has even been crowned BBC Radio 1’s Sound of 2022, with the likes of Elton John and Ed Sheeran voting for her.
TikTok’s algorithm can boost unknowns, making their discovery much more likely. However, the app also helps to build a base of listeners. Before she even released her music, PinkPantheress already had a captive audience, commenting “get this on Spotify!” under her videos. And of course, that was exactly what she did.
I’m not saying record deals and big labels are a thing of the past. But TikTok is here to stay, and currently it is not only helping musicians to get discovered by the industry, it is also allowing them to build a fan base.
Abi: TikTok is harmful for musicians
TikTok is not without it’s faults however. There is no doubt that it has changed the music we listen to and the way we consume it. Gone are the days of diverse Top 40 charts, and songs that were genuinely good in terms of lyricism, musicality and timbre.
Now, it seems most of the songs that are popular are just artists trying to find the next viral sound, or 15 seconds worth of quality. It is becoming more and more common for artists to write an impressive bridge, but when you listen to the rest of the track it’s mediocre at best and usually provides boring listening – ‘Lottery (Renegade)’ by K CAMP springs to mind.
In fact, the constantly shifting nature of TikTok means that it isn’t new songs by fresh young artists we are necessarily exposed to. Recent trending sounds have been ‘Midnight Memories’ by One Direction, Céline Dion’s ‘It’s All Coming Back To Me Now’ and ‘Love Grows (Where my Rosemary Goes)’ by Edison Lighthouse, which was first released in 1971 – none of which really need the fame TikTok is giving them.
The specificity of the TikTok ‘For You’ Page also means that some of the trending TikTok songs are likely to bypass large groups of people. My TikTok page hasn’t been filled by the viral ‘Down Under’ (Luude), but rather pirated videos from the West End 2018 production of Heathers, specifically Jamie Muscato’s rendition of ‘Meant to be Yours’.
It has proved to me that I need to go and watch Heathers, but what larger good has that been doing for Muscato himself? The sound is from an illegal video, meaning the Original West End Cast of Heathers gets none of the profits from streaming. And, even if they did, it’s from 2018 – not exactly a ‘new’ song or providing a platform to upcoming artists.
Can we definitively say whether TikTok is good or bad for musicians as a collective? Arguably not, but it has certainly helped some new artists, whilst hindering others. One thing is certain: considering the sheer number of monthly users worldwide, the impression TikTok has on our generation cannot be overstated.
