TikTok’s influence on music

SPENCER EGERHAZI

From sped-up tracks to reinvigorating oldies, TikTok is redefining how Gen Z consumes music. CREDIT: UNSPLASH

TikTok is one of the biggest apps right now, it has such a big group of people using it. It has a very influential power to it. It influences popular dance trends, fashion trends, music trends, and the list could go on for a while.

Music, in particular, has a lot of influence from TikTok right now. This obviously hasn’t always been the case since TikTok has only been around for a few years. So, here’s how TikTok took a hold on music, and it has become one of the main influences on music today.

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TikTok has many new popular dance trends that often last a little while, until a new round of dance trends start. They tend to use fifteen second clips of songs, becoming the most memorable part of the song. So, when musicians are making music now, they will make songs shorter trying to cater to the audience's short attention span left by Tik Tok.

For example, pop songs used to range from three to four minutes. Now, they tend to range from two to three minutes. Adding on, ‘sped up’ versions of songs have also become really popular on Tik Tok, another way of making songs shorter for the short videos of Tik Tok.

Recently, older songs have returned in popularity due to Tik Tok, and have sped up versions, like Summertime Sadness by Lana Del Rey and Bloody Mary by Lady Gaga. That’s another interesting thing Tik Tok does, it can make older songs re-popularized.

Different styles of music have taken very short-lived eras because of Tik Tok. Trap Pop was quite popular in 2019, take 7 Rings by Ariana Grande, for example. In 2020, the resurgence in 80’s music was popular with songs like Blinding Lights by The Weeknd, and Levitating by Dua Lipa. In 2021, Pop/R&B was popular with Peaches by Justin Bieber, and MONTERO (Call Me By Your Name) by Lil Nas X. Later on that year, Pop/Punk returned to popularity with good 4 u by Olivia Rodrigo.

This year, the trends have changed just about every month with the current state of how fast Tik Tok trends change. There was a trend of naming female musicians in the titles of songs, like Doja, Billie Eilish, and Dua Lipa. Another trend was making nursery rhymes into teen angst like abcdefu.

Sampling has also resurged a lot in the last year. Take Big Energy by Latto which samples Fantasy by Mariah Carey, or I’m Good (Blue) by David Guetta and Bebe Rehxa which samples Eiffel 65’s Blue (Da Ba Dee).

Some of the 2022 trends in music haven’t been the most entertaining. However, Taylor Swift’s new album Midnights broke all kinds of records by occupying all Top 10 spots on the Billboard Hot 100. Not only does she have many fans listening, but the darker Pop sound made an easy trend for lots of the songs to be popular on Tik Tok.

Tik Tok doesn’t look like it’s going anywhere any time soon, so it’s safe to assume that in 2023, music will still be heavily influenced by the app, and all the fast-paced trends. It’ll definitely be interesting to see what kind of music comes from 2023.