Competition will be fierce on Sunday for the breakout title of the year at the Grammy Awards. But whoever wins, their rise will likely be tied to TikTok: the app has become essential for finding new music talent.
The platform, very popular among teenagers and where users can accompany their short videos with the music of their choice, now allows many artists to break through. The Grammy Awards, equivalent to the music Oscars, have taken note of this. Its category, which rewards the best new artists, reflects the musical eclecticism appreciated by Internet users.
“Social networks have made the music industry much more receptive to the tastes of the public, instead of wanting to authoritatively define who is the star of the moment,” Tatiana Cirisano, an analyst at MIDIA Research, told AFP.
“An integral part of the strategy”
The phenomenon is not new: Justin Bieber was discovered on YouTube and Shawn Mendes made a name for himself thanks to Vine, a now-defunct application. But according to Tatiana Cirisano, “TikTok has really exploded” in recent years, to the point of becoming “an integral part of almost every artist’s strategy.”
In a sure sign, the last two winners of the Grammy Award for Breakthrough of the Year, singer Olivia Rodrigo and rapper Megan Thee Stallion, have enjoyed smashing success on the app.
Among the nominees for this year’s category we find Latto, Muni Long and Omar Apollo, three American performers whom the Chinese application itself has listed among the best emerging artists on its platform.
The Brazilian Anitta, who rose to fame on TikTok thanks to a dance challenge on her pole Wrapand the Italians Maneskin, Eurovision rockers whose cover of start at’ made a splash on the app, they’re in the running too.
Many other nominees, including rock band Wet Leg, jazz duo JD Beck, rapper Tobe Nwigwe, bluegrass singer Molly Tuttle, and jazz performer Samara Joy, also have a strong following on TikTok.
“The New MTV”
“That’s where my generation is,” Samara Joy recently explained to NPR radio, recounting gaining more than 100,000 subscribers in a month after joining the app. “People come up to me and say, ‘I found you on TikTok and I had to come see a show.'”
Most Grammy Awards have little or no connection to an artist’s commercial success or the size of their fan base. But for the revelation of the year category, the main criterion is the ability to conquer the general public.
Therefore, it is the price “at which people have the most impact”, continues Tatiana Cirisano. And now, “90% of the artists who manage to make themselves known to the public do so on Tik Tok,” adds the analyst.
“TikTok is the new MTV,” sums up Cassie Petrey, founder of digital marketing company Crowd Surf. In the 2000s, the clips of the contenders for the title of revelation of the year were repeated on this American music channel, she remembers her. Now, “TikTok is one of the leading media platforms of our time.”
An industry never so accessible
The app is even changing the way record labels discover talent, according to Tatiana Cirisano. Instead of sending recruiters to small venues, the labels hope that artists “already have an audience and have already worked their way up a bit on their own.”
What democratizes the industry, which has never been so accessible. But some artists complain about the impact of social media on their mental health, or fear spending more time on it than creating.
Others fear drifts, before certain composers and performers who now adapt their music to make it compatible with the laws of a universe based on algorithms and videos of a few seconds.
Exaggerated concerns for Tatiana Cirisano, who recalls that other technological innovations such as the use of auto-tune (an effect that modifies the voice) or mobile phone ringtones have aroused similar criticism. “In the end, I think that good music will always make its way,” concludes the analyst.
Source: BFM TV
