- TikTok users are increasingly discovering new music through remixes and mashups of songs.
- This has led artists and labels to adopt speeded up and slowed down versions of songs as a means of promotion.
- The deluge of user-uploaded tracks could create new opportunities for artists to interact with their fans.
In mid-August, music artist Sam Smith’s brooding 2014 ballad “I’m Not The Only One” re-entered Spotify’s Top 200 charts, nearly a decade after its release.
Like many other music trends in 2022, the song’s resurgence can be traced back to TikTok. 20-year-old college student and music producer Tristan Olson uploaded his speeded-up version of the track on August 12, which went viral and has appeared in over 289,000 of his videos on the app (Smith’s official version is , used by about 12,000). video for comparison).
Smith posted a TikTok celebrating the song’s revival with Olson’s remix, and the artist and his record label, Universal Music Group (UMG), shared Olson’s “I’m Not The Only One (Sped Up) ” version has cleared rights to appear in streaming apps such as: Spotify.
“These kids probably heard Sam Smith for the first time in their lives when they heard Tristan’s version,” said Nima Naseri, A&R lead for UMG’s Music Strategy and Tactics team. “When Tristan does a remix, we market it. Release it. It helps ignite more of his version of Maine.”
Over the last few years, TikTok has cemented its role as the kingmaker of music. Songs that go viral on the app, regardless of when they were first released, often chart on the Billboard 100 or Spotify Viral 50. Some performers say they’re exhausted by the app’s demands for content. But his TikTok’s tremendous influence on music discovery makes it almost unskippable for artists and their teams.
The app’s short video format has also changed the way songs are experienced. Today, many users first listen to a song in 15-second snippets instead of listening to the song in its entirety. Sometimes TikToker comes across songs that are sped up, slowed down, layered with clap tracks, or mashed up with another track. The phenomenon has become so common that record labels have included remix and mashup artists in their song release strategies and have rights to upload altered versions of songs to streaming apps like Spotify and Apple Music. I have permission from the person.
“I’ve been seeing mashups since the beginning of my TikTok journey,” said artist and TikTok creator William Carney, who has created several viral mashups on the TikTok platform. is becoming more saturated in the market, a lot of people are doing it.”
Marketers embrace TikTok remixes and mashups
As with other social media trends, music marketers are adjusting their strategies to keep pace with TikTok audiences.
Marketers and record labels now routinely ask music producers to create modified versions of tracks to promote their songs.
“Earlier this year, we began to see a schism in songs, meaning that many audio library sounds became popular and went viral. Clap tracks, speeded-up versions, were adjoining and popular.” Johnny Croherty, CEO of music marketing agency Songfluencer.
According to Cloherty, TikTok music talent can earn between $500 and $5,000 to produce remixed versions of tracks.
Musician and TikTok creator Jacob Sutherland, who has nearly 390,000 followers, said he charges between $500 and $1,000 for the mashup, depending on the campaign’s budget and whether the commissioner is an artist or a fan. Commissioned posts cost between $2,000 and $4,000, according to Trevor Hutchens, a music artist with 1.3 million TikTok followers.
Aside from financial rewards, it also helps TikTok talent grow their audience from the app as their tracks go viral.
“Doing mashups in general generates traffic and shows some people not everyone, but at least quite a few people, that I’m also an artist and that I’m doing this original thing. Spotify monthly listeners.
How artists are responding to the surge in remixes on TikTok
TikTok remixes can be a lucrative venture for creators, but the vast majority of remixes and mashups that appear on the app are done for free.
And while unauthorized use of songs on TikTok has become an increasingly tense topic, labels want to capitalize on the momentum of unsolicited remixes and mashups if they could boost an artist’s stream. I’m here.
For example, when a sped-up version of Sofia Reyes’ 2018 song “1, 2, 3” started gaining popularity in Asia earlier this year, Reyes’ label, Warner Music Latina, had a slam-dunk to fan the flames. took action.
“Once it started going viral in early June, we began to see a positive correlation with streaming data,” said César Towarak, associate director of marketing services for Warner Music Latina. It charted on Apple Music, and more and more people Shazamed the record.”
A new version of “1, 2, 3” containing the slowed-down track was uploaded to TikTok by another user, so Reyes jumped on the trend with a video featuring a speeded-up version of her song that was used more than six times. posted. To date she has had one million views of her videos on TikTok.
Sofia Reyes performs at Univision’s Premio Lo Nuestro a la Música Latina on February 19, 2022 in Miami, Florida.
John Parra/Getty Images for Univision.
“It’s unbelievable to see creative people getting records,” Twarak said. “It allows a new dimension of song to live in the world.”
However, not all artists immediately joined the remix of the track.
UMG’s Naceri said, “The first was to educate people, because artists are really valuable when it comes to remixes and Spotify profiles and what it looks like.”
But a few songs have experienced major revivals in the wake of TikTok remixes, including a slowed-down version of Glass Animals’ “Heat Waves” and a sped-up version of Demi Lovato’s “Cool for the Summer.” After that, both have recorded dozens of songs now. Among the millions of streams on Spotify, many artists find value in modified tracks.
“In the old days, we had a lot of club DJs remix our records to appeal to the drum and bass market, the techno market, the underground market,” says Nasseri. “We want people to find records in places they wouldn’t normally find them.”
