For my final essay, I have chosen to write a piece explaining, exploring, researching and debating the impact of social media on the music industry. I have chosen this because I think knowing how to use social media to its full potential as an independent artist (even non-musicians) is extremely important in modern society. If you want to grow your professionalism and business name, you have to have social media so people can find out about you. Overall, I am very interested as to how trends appear, whether they have power over the music industry, and if this is something that we as musicians should be worried or pleased about.
The concept of this essay is to gather a wide understanding of social media as a musician and how trends on these platforms can impact and control what music is popular and disliked, and why. I also want to look at what ways the music industry was influenced before the rise of social media and if social media has changed this for the better or worse. For example, I will take a glimpse at websites and how they influenced the music industry, and whether musicians still need websites today. I will also explore older forms of social media and how this made the music industry how it is today.
I plan to explore social trends like the idea of moving away from modern music and enjoying more of the classics, and how this has and might influence famous artists now and in the future. (For example, 2020 seeing a rise in 80s synth pop, and 2021 seeing artists turn to rock and punk). I want to primarily study the popular social media and video sharing site TikTok; with it being mostly used by young people, its trends can influence music consumers, which can then influence musicians, producers, songwriters, and even control the music charts.
Finally, I want to touch on influencers on this social media and more and how they are getting into the music industry and creating chart-topping music without having any musical experience prior. I want to debate whether this is a problem for smaller, hard-working musicians and whether it is tougher to get their music heard amongst huge celebrities that possess almost no musical background and have a lot of their songs written for them. However, I want to look at the TikTok algorithm and how this is promoting and bringing fame to young, independent musicians, and investigate some examples of these. I will be also challenging the question; is paying for followers, streams and likes the best way to grow as an artist, and is it possible that they could become a huge star by doing this?
To help me with writing this essay, I will use sources to back up claims and to research my topic. As well as this, I will make a Google form that asks questions on this area. I will send it to both non-musicians and people from the social media/musical/marketing communities to see people’s opinions on this subject. I will also have responses from varied age groups; this will help me understand how different generations can understand and differ from these responses. Having answers from all of these different audiences will help me understand how non-musicians still feel about it compared to people who work in the music industry, and how younger people feel about the matter compared to older generations. I hope to have more of an understanding of the general opinion from these communities and I can use this evidence and statistics to back up claims in my work.
Here are some references and sources I might use to help me research my topic and back up my work with evidence, and I have made some notes on what I might use from the websites and any quotes I will embed.
Alfo Media.,2020. Is TikTok Hurting the Music Industry?. Available at: https://youtu.be/w0DRb1g92qE [Accessed 10 June 2021].
- BENEE’s Supalonely wasn’t a popular song until a dance was made for it and it blew up on TikTok. It got platinum in the US and earned her worldwide fame and success. “Pretty soon, because of TikTok, her road to stardom hit the fast forward button…” She was already on the rise so she had good backing.
- Famous artists like The Weeknd got his own TikTok dance, even though he is already famous and everyone already knows the song. “an example of the rich getting richer.”
- Super small artists can blow up on the platform because of one song. which sounds great. However, it can break legitimate connections with your fans as people will only listen to it because it’s blown up, they can become one-hit-wonders, and the song will always be associated with the TikTok trend, people only hear a 15-second snippet and are not listening to the full song on streaming platforms.
Britton, L., 2020. KSI: “People despise a YouTuber wanting to make music”. [online] NME. Available at: <https://www.nme.com/features/ksi-dissimulation-interview-jake-paul-boxing-match-the-1975-2679344> [Accessed 10 June 2021].
- Some influencers who move the music industry struggle to be taken seriously because of their past. “KSI understands, though, that the bar would have been set quite low for some: “When the general public sees a YouTuber wanting to do music, it just leaves a weird, sour taste in their mouths. People just despise it.””
- There is an ongoing debate that influencers can only get involved in the music industry because they are famous already, and they don’t even have any musical talent, and that this is wrong. “it could be argued… that KSI’s stature in music is a direct consequence of his online fame, that his chart success is simply a scaled-up popularity contest… As he recently told daytime TV favourite Lorraine Kelly: “…There’s so many other people who do way better or are way more talented than me… I just work so hard, constantly, to get to the point where I’m seen as talented.”
Burstimo, 2020. The Impact TikTok Has on The Music Industry. [podcast] The Music Industry Podcast. Available at: <https://open.spotify.com/episode/2BVoX6dikOkp6swFwtLASN?si=ee30a7d2a3354322> [Accessed 10 June 2021].
- TikTok isn’t for everyone; people struggle to understand new social media sites so the platform is extremely young.
- Being on TikTok isn’t about the music as you can’t put your whole song into a TikTok, it’s about your personality, story, life, other things like tips, production ideas, vlogs, all so you can engage with the platform and audience.
- Having 15 seconds of your music on a TikTok is only good if it has a catchy hook that people can make trends out of, so artists are tailoring their music to have hooks and moments that would do well on TikTok e.g Bella Poarch, but that doesn’t mean it’s a whole song that everyone will love.
Cosound.com. n.d. Here’s why buying music streams is a bad idea. [online] Available at: <https://cosound.com/music/promotion/why-buying-music-streams-bad-idea/> [Accessed 11 June 2021].
- You can be banned by streaming platforms or have your release removed if they find out you are buying streams or followers.
- It does help artists grow and have better-looking numbers which looks impressive for marketers, record labels, competitors, and your actual listeners if they don’t catch on.
- Having artificial streams breaks the bond between your fans and you as listeners love to find new, small artists.
- “…you will only be fooling yourself. You will never be able to share the stage with them [famous artists] if there aren’t any legitimate fans who are buying your tickets.”
Grant, C., 2020. Pop Music Continues to Move Forward, But Are the 80s Coming Back?. [online] The Siskiyou. Available at: <https://siskiyou.sou.edu/2020/10/07/pop-music-continues-to-move-forward-but-are-the-80s-coming-back/> [Accessed 10 June 2021].
- Social trends mean that younger audiences feel like they have missed out on the 80s and what it had to offer musically, and its nostalgia for what they grew up with. “…this trend has us looking to the past to influence the future… Music has always reflected the struggle of its time period, and the reasons for this particular return to the dawn of the digital age is a powerful youth culture statement on the uncertainty of the future, a longing for the past…”
- Musicians are at the age where they are the ones making music, and they are making music based on what they used to listen to and what they grew up with as a child.
- Musicians can also have access to the sounds of the 80s much easier than the 80s itself because of DAWs, plugins, and the accessibility to analog synthesizers and drum machines.
Musicians Institute Hollywood. 2021. How the TikTok Boom Has Impacted the Music Industry. [online] Available at: <https://www.mi.edu/in-the-know/tiktok-boom-impacted-music-industry/> [Accessed 10 June 2021].
- “In 2016, when the app launched, you could only come across viral videos or billboard hits. Today, popular TikTok songs influence the billboard charts, rather than the other way around.”
- TikTok allows users to find new music that they’ve never heard of instead of just listening to the same songs on the radio or algorithmic playlists.
- TikTok’s algorithm and reach means that you don’t necessarily need to use any other social media to reach and grow an audience.
Stillhead.,2021. Do You Need an Artist Website?. Available at: https://youtu.be/C8pgRmLY0AQ [Accessed 11 June 2021].
- Linktree websites are popular now so people can promote and easily edit things on there. However, they lack in design and personality.
- Websites were very important before the rise of social media, but nobody is really visiting artists’ websites anymore, people tend to just find out about them through their social media.
- “Consider your artist website to be a convenient and more customizable replacement for a Linktree type website and to allow your presence to permeate whatever social networks you’re happy keeping up to date.”
Sullivan, C., 2019. Why are Young People So Bothered about the ’80s?. [online] Byline Times. Available at: <https://bylinetimes.com/2019/04/01/why-are-young-people-so-bothered-about-the-80s/> [Accessed 15 June 2021].
- “…I see this first-hand as, all of my students to the last, regard the whole decade with the highest esteem and, oddly, many like the bands, clothes and television series’ that I thought were complete rubbish.”
- “Tolerance and acceptance were something that made the ’80s special and, in these troubled times of division and xenophobia, that should never ever be forgotten.”