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TikTok Treats, Week Of July 20th
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A Weekly Roundup Of Interesting Music Stories From the World of TikTok; This Week, A Look at Older Songs That Found New Life on TikTok
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Audible Treats is excited to work with TikTok, the world’s leading platform for music discovery. Each week, TikTok Treats will bring the platform’s best music stories directly to your inbox.
TikTok is a major engine of music discovery, introducing its users to their new favorite songs. Many of the songs that trend on TikTok come from current stars or emerging artists, but a ever-growing number of TikTok trends use sounds from songs that are years, or even decades old. Below, find some catalog songs that have recently found major success on TikTok.
- A staple of movie soundtracks and sitcoms, ELO's 1977 cut "Mr. Blue Sky" has become the go-to classic rock track on TikTok. With its propulsive beat and relentless optimism, "Mr. Blue Sky" brings a ray of sunshine to every video it soundtracks. The Jeff Lynne-penned classic inspired over 540k video creations, powered by a trend that pairs it with slow-mo images of chaotic processionals, from a woman and her family rushing to the hospital to give birth, to an imaginary bank robbery, to footage of skateboarders heading to a protest in San Diego.
- A mid-sized R&B radio hit from 1988 seems like an unlikely TikTok hit, but L'Trimm overcame the odds with their boisterous jam "Cars That Go Boom." Dressed in the track jackets and bootcut jeans that evoke the New Jack Swing era of the song's original popularity, TikTok user @alexawollney created a throwback-style dance to the song, spurring a trend and propelling "Cars That Go Boom" to more than 2.9 million video creations since early May. Besides dance videos, the L'Trimm hit is the perfect backing track for unexpected plant growth, sketchy pizza deals, and of course, car-spotting.
- "Dirty Harry" isn't the biggest hit from Gorillaz' popular 2005 album Demon Days (that would be "Feel Good Inc."), but it's the one that caught the ears of TikTok's creators. Taking inspiration from Gorillaz' status as the world's most famous animated band, "Dirty Harry" soundtracked the #CartoonCharacter challenge (2.5 billion video views), where users imagined how their animated avatar would dress in various situations. With over 207k video creations to date, "Dirty Harry" encourages TikTok users show off their flashy wardrobes and burgeoning video editing skills.
- M.I.A.'s outlaw anthem "Paper Planes" (2007) is gaining traction on the platform, recently surpassing 100k videos created. Taking advantage of the gunshot sound effect on the song's chorus, TikTok users have adopted "Paper Planes" as a universal anthem of frustration, soundtracking unpleasant car rides, lonely nights at home, and being fed up with people misunderstanding the lyrics to the song.
- Speaker Knockerz was a cult hero in New York before his tragic death in 2014, influencing rappers like A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie and Lil Tecca with his gauzy, melodic sound. In 2020, TikTok users have revived his fan-favorite song "Lonely" (2014), responding to its catchy repetitiveness and its multiple meme-worthy lyrics. Different users use different lyrics to create different vibes for their videos, whether emphasizing the "had to make a couple bands by my lonely" lyric for their dramatic glow-ups or mocking haters with the artist's monotonous laugh. The song has also been adopted by TikTok's community of basketball fans and professionals.
TikTok users are experts at using music to tell their stories, enhancing their daily lives with a meme-ready lyric or spritely instrumental. Through its creators, the platform provides a new context for classic songs, establishing a dialogue between the song's era and the modern world. A well-placed TikTok can revive interest in well-known classics or dig up a forgotten hit, but artists and their teams (like The Prince Estate) are only just starting to embrace the app's benefit to veteran artists and their catalogs. Look for many more old songs to find new life in the weeks and months to come.
Check TikTok's newsroom for more noteworthy stories: newsroom.tiktok.com
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For more info, please contact:
Michelle McDevitt, Andrea Higgins, Erin Treat, Audible Treats
Leah Linder, TikTok
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TikTok is the leading destination for short-form mobile video. Their mission is to inspire creativity and bring joy.
TikTok has global offices including Los Angeles, New York, London, Paris, Berlin, Dubai, Mumbai, Singapore, Jakarta, Seoul, and Tokyo.
Click here to read TikTok's progress report on supporting Black communities and promoting diversity & inclusion: https://newsroom.tiktok.com/en-us/progress-report-how-were-supporting-black-communities-and-promoting-diversity-and-inclusion
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TikTok’s Newsroom: https://newsroom.tiktok.com/en-us
Check out previous editions of TikTok Treats:
7/13
7/6
6/29
6/22
6/15
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We at Audible Treats are committed to fighting racial injustice and we stand with our Black artists, managers, executives, friends, and family. It's vitally important to keep up the fight against systemic racism and police brutality, even as the news cycle moves on.
We're currently reading Rap On Trial, an exposé about the unjust practice of using rap lyrics in a court of law. You can purchase the book at any of these black-owned bookstores.
If you're looking for another way to help, please check out this anti-racist resource guide for a long list of educational materials, organizations to support, and causes to champion.
🖤🖤🖤 The Audible Treats Team |
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