This just hasn’t been as crucial on YouTube. There’s also some evidence that TikTok is influencing songwriters to start songs with choruses or other hooks so that they can grab attention within the first 15-20 seconds-that is, to change the structures of songs instead of merely shortening them, which has been the trend for decades.īut above all, there’s mounting evidence that maintaining a constant presence on TikTok is becoming a necessity for artists who want to build their fan bases. 1 hit “Bad Habit” beyond those in the brief clip that was used on half a million TikTok videos.

Sometimes these clips take on lives of their own: for example, R&B star Steve Lacy found that audiences at his live shows didn’t know the words to his No. Some artists post clips from their full-length songs on TikTok to promote them and steer fans to Spotify and other streaming services as well as to vinyl purchases. The main impetus for this is TikTok’s emphasis on short clips, whereas YouTube allowed up to the length of most songs from its earliest days. In contrast, artists are doing more to create TikTok-friendly music content. Otherwise, YouTube’s effect on creative output hasn’t been much different from that of Spotify, Apple Music, and other streaming services. Accordingly, at least a quarter of the songs in the Billboard Hot 100 nowadays tend to be collabs. Music discovery on YouTube is based more on search than on playlists or other forms of navigation, and collabs increase the odds that an artist will be listed in search results. YouTube’s most pervasive effect on creative output has been the explosion in artist collaborations, such as pop songs with drop-ins by rappers. TikTok has also had an arguably bigger effect on the creative output of musical artists than YouTube has. TikTok also has a tool for indie artists to upload their music to the platform: a year ago it launched SoundOn, a digital distributor (like Distro Kid or CD Baby) that enables direct upload to TikTok as well as to other major streaming services. In contrast, the biggest music stars on TikTok (based on earnings, at least), such as Bella Poarch, Dixie D’Amelio, and Loren Gray, are more likely to have been discovered on TikTok before being signed to record labels and Lil Nas X exploded on TikTok in 2018 before being signed to a major label the following year. Yet most of these had backing from major labels or management in the first place YouTube mainly helped them get exposure in markets beyond their native countries, including in the U.S.

YouTube produced several breakout megastars, such as Justin Bieber, Carly Rae Jepsen, PSY and Luis Fonsi. Such features help increase exposure for music clips, but they draw attention away from the artists who make them.Īnother sign of TikTok’s further autonomy is its ability to create its own music stars independently of the record label system. TikTok also treats audio clips somewhat like hashtags on other social networks: it groups together videos that use the same music clips, and it enables users to easily create new videos using the music in the clips they’re watching. TikTok has user identity verification, but there is no guaranteed way for artists to verify their own identities TikTok provides verified badges when user accounts satisfy its own criteria. Artists have fewer tools for creating their own presences than they do on YouTube. For example, while there are many official artist channels and label releases on YouTube, the emphasis on TikTok is more on the users who use music clips to create their own videos. Even so, TikTok has moved further away from music industry control than YouTube.

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