First punctuating hip shots in nightclubs in 1985, the tube Running up that Hillby Kate Bush, resurfaced this summer after multiple appearances in the hit sci-fi series Stranger Things. The art pop song then rose to the top of the charts of platforms such as iTunes and Spotify, in addition to reaching the top of the lists of many countries. In the United States, the song even reached number 3.e place on the Billboard Hot 100, far ahead of its 30e place dating from a little over 35 years ago.
If the rebirth of this melody is indebted to the Duffer brothers, its repopularization and its rise in the rankings come from the recovery of the song on the social network TikTok. As proof, the three titles currently ahead of Kate Bush in the Billboard Hot 100 — break my soul by Beyoncé, About Damn Time by Lizzo and As It Was of Harry Styles — accumulate nearly five million videos on the Chinese application.
Created in 2016 and having experienced a meteoric rise at the beginning of 2020 – the planetary confinements linked to the pandemic having been favorable to it – the TikTok application is becoming more and more essential in the music industry. Not only to revive old titles, but also to allow the emergence of new talents or to increase its visibility. Just think of Daniel Bélanger, who took advantage of his recent arrival on TikTok to release a new song, I hear everything playing (in your head).
“What we hear on the radio is a lot of what’s trending on TikTok right now,” observes Fredz, an artist who stands out for his good-natured style, with his bowl cut and round glasses, but also by his musical style and his 190,000 subscribers on said media.
New musical darling, Frédéric Carrier, of his real name, is one of the lucky ones who won the lottery of virality. His song As it seems created a small commotion on TikTok, delighting lovers of urban sounds and rap.
“It’s, without lying, what started the thing for me more seriously,” explains the artist. A few thousand users took up the French-speaking melody to film themselves in turn to this tune, then the algorithms allowed a much larger number of people to discover the one who now has the opportunity to participate in a few concerts and festivals. here and there, including the Festival d’été de Québec and Osheaga where, at 20, he was also the youngest rapper on the lineup.
Instant feedback
Is it only this mechanism of reusing sounds and easy access to virality that makes TikTok more attractive to artists who are new to the profession? Amina Yagoubi, from the Digital Research Network, says this is an undeniable aspect, which competes with other social networks, but that’s not all.
Its advantage over radio lies more in its business model, comparable to the Airbnb accommodation site or the Uber company: they are collaborative platforms. “We remove everything that is intermediate and we will directly target an audience. And it is this audience that finally decides whether it is a work or not. It’s the number of views, the number of shares, ”explains the sociologist.
Alicia Moffet, singer and former contestant of The voice, confirms this reality: “On TikTok, artists have more reactions to their work – and more quickly – than on the radio. This functionality, coupled with the high visibility that TikTok offers, inevitably attracts emerging artists to the platform, who see it as a winning combination. But there is still more.
The app has the advantage of allowing artists to reach a variety of audiences, both in terms of age and loyalty and in terms of regions. Unlike the radio – which is often listened to by adults while driving – TikTok knows no borders and does not require a driver’s license.
Fredz, whose videos are primarily successful in Belgium and France thanks to their huge pool of French speakers, has found that the various platforms do not attract the same people. “I use Facebook more for concerts, Instagram for the profile and TikTok as a billboard,” he describes. Afterwards, the goal is a bit to get people out of TikTok, to bring them back to the applications where they are more loyal, like Instagram. »
According to him, although radio is no longer “so necessary” to make yourself known to the public, the ideal remains to be broadcast on the air as well as on applications.
Alicia Moffet shares this view that radio and TikTok complement each other. For this artist who is also a mother, it is logical that the radio should censor her most recent success, lullabywhere the words ” fuck you are used several times — replaced here by “ screw you “. She feels that both versions suit two audiences with different needs and desires. However, she says she greatly prefers her original version, which is still accessible on TikTok, where young children are entertained.
Influence on creation
For Fredz, TikTok isn’t just a way to distribute its content; it is also a detail to consider when writing his songs. “It completely changed my way of writing, insofar as, in my writing process, I will try to find choruses that hook directly, that will appeal to the public of TikTok. short sentences catchy with which you can create a trends. »
For Alicia Moffet, who was discovered by the public before the app’s rise to popularity, it’s not the same reality. The Quebec influencer says she even forgets quite often to post on TikTok, although her agents claim to remind her and she is aware of the visibility it can bring her. At the same time, she explains that she “had viral videos on TikTok, but [que] it was nonsense”. She adds that “you kinda have to win the lottery [pour devenir viral] “.
Lucky or not, everyone can now have a go. “It’s a democratization of the music market, explains researcher Amina Yagoubi. It’s a bit like the revenge of a certain layer of the population on the elites. »
Should we then proclaim the end of the radio in favor of videos, as the group The Buggles announced 40 years ago with the song Video Killed the Radio Star ? It’s probably still a little premature. We must at the very least concede that radio has found a competitor of… planetary size.