TikTok: An Unexpected Digital Disruption In The Music Industry

Illustration by Haley Tippmann

 Well known for its massively widespread memes and popular dance choreographies, TikTok is an app that has taken the music/entertainment industry by storm. The app centers around sharing 15 to 60 second videos, where users can choose from a huge database of songs, filters and features to lip-sync too. Over the span of a year, TikTok has truly been able to make a name for itself in the music industry. Interestingly enough, the top 10 list on TikTok has become far more important than the top 10 list on Spotify, pointing to an increased influence on the music industry. Part of its magic has to do with the fact that users are simultaneously consumers and co-creators, contributing to TikTok’s sound database as they consume and create content.

 The launch of TikTok has drastically altered the music industry. It was the second iteration of Musical.ly – an application extremely similar to TikTok that was launched in 2014 by 2 Chinese entrepreneurs. In 2017, Musical.ly was then acquired by ByteDance – a Beijing based tech company – for $1 Billion. By 2018, TikTok had absorbed Musical.ly, moving all the preexisting user accounts on there. TikTok’s rebranding and relaunch was vastly successful, especially in its impact on pop music. It set the stage for multiple viral hits, such as ‘Old Town Road’ by Lil Nas X.

Over the past two years, TikTok rapidly rose to prominence in the music industry. In 2018, TikTok was downloaded more than a billion times. This translated to huge success for its parent company, ByteDance, which surpassed Uber as the world’s most profitable start-up. 

 As a key ingredient in most TikTok videos, music underpins many memes that originate from it and spread across the internet. After all, TikTok started as a lip-syncing app. The video sharing app has been incredible for many artists, in some ways it has even been a major career changer. As a rule of thumb for musicians, the more eyes and ears are on your music, the better. Record labels have taken notice to the amount of emerging talent that is popping upon the application and have begun to sign on many musicians off of it, sometimes based on just one viral hit. Identifying the promotional value of its platform, TikTok has begun to position itself as a music discovery platform for up and coming artists. According to an industry insider at a prominent record label in the United States, labels often receive 10-15 inquires a day from various musicians who are willing to pay money to have their music promoted. This elevated level of demand points to a rapidly increasing popularity of the application, and its rising status as a staging ground for viral music hits. 

Illustration by Haley Tippmann

One of the most interesting features TikTok has to offer is the astronomical level of agency the user is provided. Through TikTok, users are always free to portray their interpretations of any given song, and in doing so, music creation becomes a living process as the sounds are remixed and repurposed multiple times. Some artists have caught onto these trends and have exploited them by incorporating TikTok-friendly music cues into their music. This has been done by various artists, the most prominent of whom was Drake with his song ‘Toosie Slide’, which was released alongside instructions for a dance. 

“Through TikTok, users are always free to portray their interpretations of any given song, and in doing so, music creation becomes a living process as the sounds are remixed and repurposed multiple times.”

 However, the secret to TikTok’s success lies within in its use of an extremely powerful algorithm, which aptly learns what content users like to view far more efficiently than any of its other competitors. Its key ingredient is the ‘For You Page’, where their users spend most of their time. This is where the algorithm comes into play, positioning content in front of users, predicting what they will enjoy based on content they have previously engaged with. The algorithm works to keep users updated on the latest trend, and in doing so, artists are able to experience great success because users are exposed to the same music repeatedly. As a result, the users will most likely look up the song name. Moreover, there are multiple hit songs that have been brought back to life on TikTok. This phenomenon can be seen in songs that were at the beginning not quite known, but nowadays are all over the chars–such as “Sofia” by Clairo, and “You Got It” by VEDO.

 Since its boom, TikTok has been able to create its own language of comedy. From popularizing songs, to creating mini comedy skits, TikTok can be utilized in a variety of ways. Based on the success of previous viral hits such as ‘Old Town Road’ and ‘The Box’ it seems to be that having songs on TikTok can be a major propeller towards popularity.