ABACUOS

The Revolution in the Music Market has Started

INCREASE YOUR CHANCES OF SUCCESS IN 2023

What if I told you that your song today could just be a hashtag or a meme? What do you say?

This is a total transformation in the way people consume music and how they discover music from the way it was just a short time ago.
Since Old Town Road broke on TikTok, everyone started to notice that something new was happening. This whole culture of sharing has always been very common on the internet, in fact it is the essence of the internet: sharing third party content to express yourself, to assert yourself. We have an application that has been downloaded more than a billion times, completely centered on music, where people follow the tags, the trends of what is happening there. And we’re artists, we’re in the music industry, so this is something to celebrate: people are using other people’s music for fun, expressing themselves, etc. In the case of Old Town Road, the music ended up exploding because it entered some kind of challenge, in a game where people were simply changing clothes, in that Reels scheme. Last time I looked, this song already had over 300 million views on Youtube. It was the first big explosion to come out of TikTok.

Hence the question… And your music? Is it a hashtag? Because in this case, it wasn’t the music itself that exploded. In fact, we’re talking about a tag where people decided to use that song to make their home videos on TikTok. And the numbers don’t lie: Of the top 50 most played songs on Spotify in the US, many came from TikTok.

Then you think: “But how is my three and a half minute song going to be a meme?”. This way we compose is not exactly something artistic that requires a chorus, a bridge, etc. This is something that was established and adapted over the years precisely because of the means where the music would be released and the physical supports used to sell that phonographic product.

Previous generations, for decades and decades, had to adapt like we have to adapt now. Today someone uploads a song on TikTok, without any money, and suddenly becomes super famous, his music is one of the most played in the world, the guy becomes a millionaire, and then a record company comes in putting a lot of money to amplify it even more. “Ah, Clemente, do you prefer how it was before or now?” I prefer now!!! Full stop. And I’m not saying that you have to stay on TikTok making short music, but while you enter this kind of romantic process of questioning whether this is art or not, many people are aware of this way of producing music, this way of marketing , to make your music heard and shared. It’s a different approach. You can, for example, have multiple versions of your song, from 15 to 60 seconds. And I go further: there are people who are aware of what is trending on TikTok, the tags that are booming there and already adapting their new album or single to fit there. Once again we have to turn the key. I know it’s difficult, but weren’t we suited to that format to be played on the radio? What’s the difference now from having to make songs or shorter versions to be on a platform that is exploding in the world? What’s the difference? Let’s stop problematizing what is simple.

Also Read: How to Have Artist Profile Verification on Spotify

Instead of promoting a single to later release an album, to later sell tickets to the concert, we can think about how to mirror TikTok’s viral phenomena, something that usually happens organically, and try to take control of this process. If success today consists of people transforming their music into a meme and sharing it, why not have control of this process from the time we compose the music, produce this single until the moment we put it on the internet and increase the chances of giving right in this app that’s putting you to f * der, to the point that the US, the greatest power in the world wants to cancel the app in the country? I believe that TikTok is starting a new era. We’re going to have a drastic reduction in the number of songs, at least the version that we’re going to promote and work with, maybe songs around one minute and twenty.

How I wish I had started my YouTube channel and my Instagram page earlier! Now we’re seeing TikTok pumping in front of us and we’re going to judge ourselves. Then, when everything is already happening, when it is already mainstream, we will arrive late, because we are always afraid of other people’s judgment. I’m guaranteeing you: this is going to become mainstream, for me that’s already very clear. In two or three years you will be forced to be there and you won’t even remember that one day you judged that, because it will be something normal.

Now I’m going to talk a little bit about TikTok itself. We know that Youtube and Instagram are part of the process by which people discover music. The big difference is that TikTok wants and needs you to use music to express yourself. You can go there and put your music straight, without going through a publisher, without going through anyone. It’s a different platform concept, a different algorithm. Imagine a Facebook where you go there and all of a sudden you start to receive a lot of things in your feed and usually things that you will like. That’s how TikTok is… You enter, you don’t follow anyone yet, no one is following you and you’re already being supplied with content. Facebook and Instagram are all about your personal connections, that’s what these platforms are all about. TikTok doesn’t… It shows your content to someone. He shows you those challenges and encourages you to enter, to do what everyone else is doing… And usually it’s a song! They don’t give a shit about your connections, the goal is to get you into the “game”.

The cool thing is that it also has incredible tags, talking about racial movements, about prejudice, learning. What differentiates TikTok’s algorithm from all others, which is their basic principle is: every video will get a chance! Regardless of whether you have thousands of people following you or none at all. The main objective is to discover videos that have the potential to generate engagement, whether it’s a video of you or a pumped tiktoker. If your video is detected by their artificial intelligence as likely highly engaging content, the algorithm chooses a smaller first sample, where the content will be tested. If you have a good result, you will have a larger sample and so on. It’s an app that can just turn you into a superstar overnight. See how that changes the whole fucking thing? We are talking about a new market, a new way for your music to be discovered.

Here’s some data for you: “The growth generated by social platforms can be responsible for revenues that will reach 6 billion dollars in the coming years. According to studies, of this revenue generated by these contents shared by users, around 3.2 billion could come from copyright holders.” It’s a lot of money! Still according to these data, “one of those responsible for this growth is the Chinese giant TikTok, which, despite its ban in India and a potential ban in the US, was one of the main contributors to music-related revenues in 2019. to the potential for excessive revenue to be generated from this platform for song rights holders.”

All this to say that the market is changing and you must start looking forward!