The way we’ve listened to and discovered new music has changed considerably over time. From the records of our grandparents’ teen years, to the dawn of MTV and the video-dj and now for our generation, the rise of social media and TikTok. However, differing from the past, Gen-Z is not only listening using a different medium, but is potentially shaping the music industry in ways that it wasn’t before through influencer campaigns and the reemergence of older songs. The concept of music being passively consumed in the moment rather than listened to over and over has emerged with the rise of the “Tik Tok” song.

TikTok started as a platform for content-creators to post short-form videos, merging with the former social media app, Musical.ly, in 2018, which allowed users to lip-sync to popular songs. Over the past few years, the app has soared in popularity, surpassed only by Zoom and Peacock, NBC’s streaming platform, in 2020. As each video on the platform is paired with a user-selected sound, the songs playing during some of the most popular videos have also experienced this popularity boost and changed the way we as a society consume and listen, with 75% of TikTok users stating that they discover new music through the app (MRC).

The Late Discovery: Astronaut in the Ocean

“Astronaut in the Ocean” by Masked Wolf claimed the top spot on TikTok’s list of most popular songs from 2021, an achievement that is surprising, yet remarkable as the song was released in 2019 by a small Australian record label. At the time of its release, the song was relatively unknown, however it gained traction on the app in 2020 once users began recording action-packed videos, adding the song for dramatic effect. However, the more popular a song is, the more likely it is to be considered “tired” by the community, with it later becoming the newest “Rick-Roll”, appearing everywhere on the app whether users wanted it or not.

What goes viral on the app is a toss-up, with songs such as “Cloud 9” by Beach Bunny going viral in March 2021, later receiving a remix with music group Tegan and Sara. Beach Bunny has been a group since 2015 and released their first full-length album Honeymoon in 2020. While the song didn’t chart on the Billboard Hot 100, it reached chart positions in the United Kingdom and Canada, their first entry on the charts since their first release as a group in 2018. While the hook of the song “But when he loves me I feel like I’m floating” felt like it was everywhere on TikTok for a while, many would be unable to name the group or name of the song due to the nature of the app, something we explored in this week’s video.

The “Oldie” Returns: Dreams

The sound a single user chooses to use on the app may seem to be inconsequential, however, TikTok user 420doggface208’s viral video brought a song from 1977 to the forefront of modern music: Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams”. In 2020, 420doggface208, whose real name is Nathan Apocada, posted a video of himself riding a skateboard and drinking cranberry juice straight from the bottle, lip syncing along to the song. As a positive light in a difficult year, the video took off, receiving more than 50 million views and leading to a resurgence of Fleetwood Mac’s catalog. In the week ending Oct. 1, Dreams had its highest streaming week in history, with the decades-old song receiving 8.47 million streams. Weeks later, the song reentered the Billboard Hot 100 for the first time since its release at No. 21 and also was the oldest non-holiday song (Mariah Carey’s “All I Want For Christmas is You” takes the top spot), to reach the Top 10 on the streaming charts. 

The Artist’s Embrace: Wildest Dreams

This past September, the app’s new “slow zoom” effect grew in popularity with users acting as if they are the “main character” in a movie or tv show. The transition was often paired with Taylor Swift’s “Wildest Dreams”, released off her 2014 album 1989. As Swift is currently in the process of rerecording all of her music in order to control and own her master recordings, she decided to embrace the app’s popularity and release a cut of the newly rerecorded version, later releasing the whole track ahead of the album’s planned release, with it once again gaining popularity. As she embraced the trend on the app, she and many other artists interacting with fans on the platform, such as Lizzo, are impacting the way we listen to music, taking advantage of the marketing and promotion that the platform offers.