This essay will explore the idea that social media has impacted the music industry over the past decade. This paper will include how music was influenced before social media, and if these ways are still relevant. As teenagers, social media is important to them because it is an important way socialise and is a form of entertainment. It allows musicians to engage with followers and create a fan base by promoting their music. Musicians need to know how to utilise social media to gain a bigger audience along with being able to engage with their fans.
While artists before have grown through other ways, most musicians now have to engage in social media because of its huge amount of power over music. For example, TikTok has control over charting songs because of trends on the app. Also, artists feel forced into social media to grow fans, and someone’s following and influence lets them be in the music industry even with little musical experience.
How did Musicians Grow Before the Social Media Boom?
Live performances have always existed since humans had realised their ability to play music. They started to form makeshift instruments that replicated pitch, such as flutes made from bone and carved their musical ideas into rock faces so they can be remembered. (The History of Music Distribution, 2020). Music was a form of entertainment and an important representation of who they were, and this is still the same today. Live performances are still one of the most popular ways for musicians to promote their music and talents and have evolved since thousands of years ago. Before recordings, (and after the invention of the printing press in 1450), composers would promote themselves by giving out their sheet music to people who could learn it for themselves. Music notation dates back to the BC era and according to The History of Music Distribution, 2020, Early sheet music was inscribed onto clay tablets or papyrus, an old form of paper. The printing press also allowed musicians to create graphic posters and flyers to promote live performances. This is still a hugely important factor to promoting today. After introducing recordings and vinyl in the early/mid-1900s, thanks to the phonograph, invented in 1877 by Thomas Edison, musicians had more selling points to promote themselves with. After vinyl came the popularity of cassettes and CDs which were much higher quality and smaller in size, in which artists saw potential in and started to sell too. As CDs were so small and a cheap alternative, they allowed artists to give out their music on the street for free in the hopes they would go home and listen to it, and this is still a very popular form of promotion today as it reaches a wide audience.
The Digital Age
To help artists promote themselves even more and sell more copies, the digital era of the early 2000s influenced the music industry hugely. This included things like mailing lists, websites and very early social media sites like ‘MySpace’ which was around before the social media inflation. Artists used mailing lists to inform fans of information like tours and new music. This helped to promote themselves as anybody can join the mailing list and often, people forget to unsubscribe to these even if they aren’t interested in receiving the emails anymore. This is also a highly used and effective promotion technique today. “Without Myspace, the rise of many artists wouldn’t have happened at such a significant speed,” (Rubin, n.d). ‘MySpace’ is one of the earliest forms of social media; starting in 2003, it helped to grow groups like Arctic Monkeys, Paramore and Bring Me The Horizon to who they are today.
As well as this, musicians used websites in a similar way to mailing lists, but a website felt much more interactive and interesting as it was exciting to look at and you can fit much more information on them. The musician could style it however they wanted using pictures, colour schemes and typography, and this made the website seem more personal. The artist can write what they want, like blogs, which almost breaks the fourth wall and makes it again, more personal. They can also have all their promotions in one space like social media, mailing lists, streaming platforms, merchandise (their own or collaborations with other companies like Nike), tours, and other media like books and documentaries all in one place so it is easily accessible. However, as Stillhead, 2021, suggested, artist websites aren’t really popular anymore. Because of the rise of social media and one-page link-sharing sites like Linktree, this deemed the need for fully-fledged websites unnecessary.
“Nobody is visiting official artist websites… it’s not the behaviour that people have… I asked people what their typical behaviour was… not a single person said ‘oh I go and visit the artist website’… I find the artist on my [streaming] platform of choice… and then I explore the links to the social medias from that point.”
(Stillhead, 2021).
How Does Social Media Control the Charts?
Since social media has become popular, it has had a huge impact on music and what is popular; TikTok being a catalyst for songs climbing up the charts. It 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. As Musicians Institute Hollywod, 2021, notes, “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.” This creates an occurrence where songs that would never be expected to join the charts would actually be in the top 10. A great example of this would be the ‘Rasputin’ remix by Boney M and DJ Majestic, which climbed the charts following a resurgence of the original song on TikTok, inspiring majestic to make a remix from it. It reached 11 on the Uk singles chart and 4 on the UK dance chart (Official Dance Singles Chart Top 40, 2021). The song was released in early 2021 and is still heard on mainstream radio stations today. This would never have happened if it wasn’t for TikTok users creating videos with the sound and the algorithm pushing the song out to different audiences within the app. Another example of this would be the song ‘Castaways’ in the kid’s TV show The Backyardigans, joining the US Spotify and viral charts (it debuted at number 1 on the US Spotify viral charts when it was in its prime on TikTok).
As well as pre-existing songs, TikTok is also a breeding ground for creativity, with musicians, actors, artists, photographers and many more creating videos every single day and gaining them millions of views and a fanbase. Maddy Raven, on The Music Industry Podcast, 2021, suggested that people see artists blow up from TikTok and see this app as a shortcut into the industry, similar to YouTube when it was prevalent. An ideal example of creators blowing up over viral videos and sounds would be Nathan Evans, who covered the ‘Wellerman’ song, a sea shanty from the mid-late 1800s. By summer 2021, his version, an acapella, racked up over 500,000 videos, which spurred him and other musicians to make a remixed version of the cover which helped to create just under 750,000 videos on TikTok at the same time. This created a surge in interest in sea shanties, creating a TikTok subcategory and hashtag called ‘ShantyTok’. The remix reached number 1 on the UK dance and singles charts, spent 2 weeks there and 26 on the charts in total (The Official Dance Singles Chart Top 40, 2021). Since then, Evans is verified on many social media pages, proving that TikTok’s algorithm means that you don’t necessarily need to use any other social media to reach and grow an audience.
Because record labels and managers are realising the fame potential that comes from TikTok, musicians are making songs in the hopes people will use the audio there. This means making songs with satisfying count-ins and lyrics that people can interpret and use how they want, or alternatively, use as a trend originally started by the artist. A huge trend on TikTok is transition videos, where the creator starts the video looking normal, and transitions themself into a ‘glow-up’. Celebrity Bella Poarch used this trend to help make her own song which users can create these glow-up videos with (etc the count-in before the chorus in ‘Build A B*tch’). Poarch instigated the trend by making the first glow-up video with this song, inspiring other famous creators to do the same, and the sound eventually being used over 4 million times by people all around the world. Because of its huge popularity on TikTok, it charted in the US and UK charts, and many different countries too. Alfo Media, 2020, stated that BENEE’s ‘Supalonely’ wasn’t a popular song until a dance was made for it and it blew up on TikTok, and that “Pretty soon, because of TikTok, her road to stardom hit the fast forward button…”. The song got platinum in the US and earned her worldwide fame and success.
Are Young People Turning Away From the Mainstream due to Trends?
Trends on social media are an easier way to grow and get more followers through a mix of popularity, algorithms and creativity. They are popular movements within social media that appeal to many different demographics, in which these demographics take part in the trend too, as well as celebrities. Because of trends, people are influenced by what they see on social media, even like how you consume, enjoy and even create music. A great example of this would be the fact that vinyl sales are increasing which is creating a massive trend among young people. Mark Savage, 2021, found that 23% of albums bought in 2021 were on vinyl, and 2021 shows another year of growth, with vinyl sales up by 8% compared to 2020. The vinyl trend started on social media as people posted videos on TikTok about record players, collections, and as the ‘vintage’ era of the 80s and 90s was coming back into fashion at full force. “All of my students,… regard the whole decade with the highest esteem and, oddly, many like the bands, clothes and television series’ that I thought were complete rubbish.” (Chris Sullivan, 2019). When people see these videos and the vintage trend in general, it will eventually influence them to do the same; start collecting vinyl as it is the new ‘cool’ thing to be doing. This is why there has been a huge increase in vinyl sales in the past few years and why the word ‘vinyl’ has over 5 billion views on TikTok.
The past few years have seen a huge increase in 80s culture in general, with musicians creating nostalgic sounds for both young and old to enjoy. Sullivan, 2021, also suggested that the 80s Gen X were empowered by new music, such as synth pop and punk. Artists like Dua Lipa and The Weeknd are trendsetters for this idea and have essentially made 80s music mainstream since its decline 30 years ago. Bryan Jeffs, n,d, implied that many artists and producers are at the age now where they are making music based on what they used to listen to as a child, hence the rise in 80s/90s music in recent times. If you listen to the top 40 today, a lot of the music is clearly inspired by 80s musical tropes like synths, gated drums, vocal reverbs and delay and drum machines but with a much-modernized twist. A part of this is down to the fact most musicians, famous or upcoming, have tonnes of technology at their fingertips compared to the 80s, where DAWs didn’t exist and digital recording was the most popular form of recording music. Hardware was a huge part of the music industry as they didn’t have thousands of virtual sounds available on one single piece of equipment; the laptop. People argue that virtual sounds don’t sound as good as the original hardware, but recent musicians also have access to the analogue synthesizers and drum machines they used back then too.
As well as the 80s, bands like Nirvana, Oasis, Pearl Jam, Weezer, Green Day, Blur and many more, are still hugely popular to this day due to their prevalence of fans still on social media. Young people are supporters of these bands and the heavier sounds of the 90s, probably because they missed out on these genres by a few years as with the turn of the century came more computerized pop songs and less heavy music in general. The social trends meant that younger audiences feel like they have missed out on the 90s and what it had to offer musically, and the nostalgia they could have grown up with. Musicians have seen the trends of heavier music becoming more popular and adapted to this change, making music that would easily fit into genres like rock, grunge and punk which is tied so closely with the 90s. Some proof of this would be WILLOW’s song ‘Transparentsoul’, which features Travis Barker on drums and massive guitar riffs, and Olivia Rodrigo’s ‘Brutal’, using angsty lyrics and distorted vocals, reminiscent of the grunge era.
“…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…”
(Grant, 2020).
Are Social Media Influencers Ruining the Music Industry?
Social media influencers are a vital part of the creative industries in general as they can help certain industries become more recognised by society and can help businesses within these grow their brand and name. Social media influencers are getting into the music industry a lot more often and easier because of their labels/managers/agents telling them they should start making music as it would help them grow as a celebrity in general and it increases the number of industries they can encroach in. It is also a case of music production equipment being so easily accessible to anyone so that anyone, even non-musician celebrities can make music from their home. Soyan Osman, 2021, said that instead of them renting out a studio for the weekend to create music, they only need some production software and internet access to produce a pretty high-quality track.
Depending on the influencer and their audience, it can really alter how successfully they can break into the music industry. Osman, 2021 also mentioned that for fans, an influencer suddenly starting to put out songs can feel like a cash grab, which some fans dislike. One example of an influencer who struggled to make that transition is entertainer, gamer, YouTuber and more recently, boxer and rapper, KSI. After being a comedian for years on his solo and group youtube channel, he began to make the shift into the music industry as well as still doing YouTube videos, which proved a major issue for him and his fans. This was originally because he was associated with his previous careers as a comedian, which people found embarrassing and therefore struggled to see him as a musician, especially with very little musical background or knowledge. It can be argued that some people saw it as an economically driven career change and an opportunity to maintain relevance. Even though he is now seen as a successful musician generally, some believe that his struggle into the music industry proves that some influencers just aren’t made for the enterprise as their fans will realise this transition and the influencer themself often doesn’t have enough musical knowledge to gain the backing and confidence of fans quick enough.
“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… 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… I just work so hard, constantly, to get to the point where I’m seen as talented.””
(Britton, 2020).
Because influencers are breaking into the music industry so easily and with such a pace, it leaves no room for smaller artists to develop and gain their own fans. Influencers are diluting the music industry so that small artists don’t get a chance to get on the top 40 whereas these celebrities who have hardly any knowledge in music are entering the top 10 and staying there for weeks; a perfect example of the rich getting richer. Britton, 2020 mentioned that KSI himself stated in an interview with Lorraine: “I’m not talented. There’s so many other people who do way better or are way more talented than me…” so he is aware of his lack of musical ability compared to others.
People with already extremely stable platforms are expanding and amazing musicians with no platforms aren’t getting any chances to do the same. As well as this, a lot of the time, many celebrities have their songs essentially written for them so they can sing lyrics over it and claim it to be theirs. Almost no credit goes to the writers, producers and other people working on the song unless you specifically look at the song’s credits, and instead, it all goes to the influencer, concluding in them getting even more famous. For example, hundreds of influencers-turned-musicians have had their songs blow up on TikTok even though everyone already knew the song, yet millions of humble musicians are struggling to even get to their first 1000 streams. Very rarely, a small artist can blow up out of nowhere through social media and one of their songs could enter the charts, which sounds great, but having just one song blow up can break legitimate connections with your fans as non-fans will only listen to that because it’s popular and the true fans will start to see them as one-hit-wonders and too ‘mainstream’ now.
Conclusion
In summary, social media most definitely impacts the music industry, in more severe ways than good. It can bring fame and an audience to young, small and deserving musicians who are dedicated to their craft, and it is a lot easier to engage with your fans to stay connected and let them know of any announcements like new releases or concerts easily. You can also collaborate with other musicians and people in the creative industries with a lot more ease, working with them through social media and not even necessarily in person. However, because it is so impactful, it is essentially impossible to create fans without engaging in social media, which can make musicians feel forced into joining such platforms. Already famous influencers can use social media as an advantage over lesser artists which makes it harder for them to become famous, and this can hugely damage the mental health, creativity and motivation of small musicians. Overall, artists should use social media as much as they can as it is clearly inspiring and taking over the music industry, even if you like it or not.
References
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