The new TikTok generation

 

This is a brand new world we’re currently living in — and that’s just the beginning. Last Friday, the world found out that Addison Rae, a TikTok influencer whose only brushes with the music industry had so far consisted in a music video cameo, had released her very own first single, the aptly named “Obsessed”. Rae, the #2 most followed user on the platform with 78 million followers and counting (right after 16-year old superstar Charli D’Amelio, who has yet to release her own material), had been spotted at the 2020 Billboard music awards, a match that looked somewhat odd then. Now, a few months and a viral track later, the young lady is already a bona fide Pop star…

Next, we have Priscilla Block. Although the singer “only” boasts 780k followers on TikTok (to be clear, we at Sondz are still looking to reach 500), she has been active as a musician for a few years now, and started posting material on the platform in 2020. That move cemented her rise to success: one of her songs, “Just about over you”, recently reached 2,4 million views on Youtube (to date) as well as the Billboard Top 40 Country Airplay charts — and we have a feeling that is merely a starting point. The other thing that is interesting about Block, as opposed to Rae, is that the singer indeed specializes in Country music, a genre that may at first glance look less naturally associated with a social media platform like TikTok, where the most viral songs tend to lean very much on the Pop (or Trap) side of things.

But that is precisely the point we are trying to make here: as it stands, TikTok as a platform has become a veritable launching pad for musicians regardless their specific genre or level of artistic ambition. Whether you work in Pop, Country or Hip Hop, whether you are looking to become a mainstream artist or building yourself a niche in a specific sub-genre, you can very much do that with TikTok. To be fair, that shouldn’t be all that surprising: the app is built upon the ability to integrate, lip-sync to and play with music tracks, and that’s what made it so popular to begin with. And what influencers like D’Amelio and Rae became known for: lip-syncing and/or dancing to viral tunes. What we are now witnessing, though, is the beginning of a new phase in TikTok’s growth, one where users do not simply play with existing music — but create their own for the world to enjoy…

Much in the way MySpace helped skyrocket careers online 15 years ago with its then groundbreaking music player, TikTok is the new and definitive digital music career accelerator, complete with tracks, videos, hashtags and the lot. And it works quicker than MySpace ever did…