Older Music Has Been Getting a Second Life On TikTok, Data Shows

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Despite having an endless amount of music to pair with their short, scrollable videos, TikTok users have been raiding the back catalogues of artists from yesteryear including Bronski Beat and Sade to soundtrack their posts. This year set a new high for use of old tracks on British TikTok posts, with tunes more than five years old accounting for 19 out of its 50 top tracks this year. It is the highest proportion since TikTok started monitoring the trend in 2021, when just 8 out of the 50 tracks were from back catalogues. The trend is also global, with 20 out of the top 50 tracks worldwide coming from back catalogues, led by 80s hit Forever Young by German synth-pop band Alphaville. Here are the top back catalogue tracks (must be more than five years old) on TikTok this year:

1. Blood Orange - Champagne Coast [2011]: 1.1m posts
2. Alphaville - Forever Young [1984]: 458,000 posts
3. Redbone - Come and Get Your Love [1974]: 386,000 posts
4. Tom Odell - Another Love [2012]: 238,000 posts
5. Pavement - Harness Your Hopes [1999]: 219,000 posts
6. Natasha Bedingfield - Unwritten [2004]: 207,000 posts
7. Christina Aguilera - Genie in a Bottle [1999]: 207,000 posts
8. Sade - Kiss of Life [1993]: 194,000 posts
9. Sophie Ellis Bextor - Murder on the Dancefloor [2001]: 191,000 posts
10. The Fray - Look After You [2005]: 188,000 posts

I mean, cool, but what about new music?

[dmay34]

Streaming services have really destroyed opportunities for new musicians. New musicians used to fight to get their music on the radio so that people would hear it. But today, streaming services play whatever the listener wants to hear so there is limited opportunity for new musicians to get their music to new audiences.

Oh yeah, and the new musicians basically have to give their music to the streaming service for free. They won't see a dime until they hit 10,000,000 streams.

Re:

[ArchieBunker]

Why aren't streaming services created by and owned by musicians?

There was Tidal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

Re:

[caseih]

It's worse than that. Streaming services pad their playlists with all kinds of bland, anonymous music. The most-streamed artist on Spotify is a random Swedish guy created over 2700 bland tracks under hundreds of pseudonyms. These tracks end up taking away streams for new musicians who never get noticed. And with AI it gets even worse.

I've found plenty of good new music and new artists, but you won't typically find it on the streaming services, and you have to search pretty hard to find them. And they do

Re:

[Baron_Yam]

It's OK. Eventually rather than carry around your personal MP3 collection, you'll carry around your Generic Music-generator AI.

The streaming services will get nothing, then we can all be miserable together.

Re:

[caseih]

Can't wait for everyone to constantly have their own perpetual soundtrack. And now with mood and situation -recognizing AI. Now you too can have romantic music at just the right moment, or that tense musical build-up as you head into rush hour traffic. And with everyone eschewing headphones these days we can have a giant cacophony.

Music is a conveyance of feelings, and ai has none

[buck-yar]

You can usually find a live performance on youtube that beats the studio album. The band gets energy from the crowd. The studio version was just one of many performances usually, not always the best.

Re: I mean, cool, but what about new music?

[dwater]

It sounds like they're doing what the other guy is complaining about - ie streaming unheard music - but just that you don't like it.

Quobuz seem to have new unheard music. They also allow you to pay and download, so you actually own the music.

Re:

[PsychoSlashDot]

Streaming services have really destroyed opportunities for new musicians.

"New" and "music" are mutually-exclusive terms.

Yes, that's meant to be a joke.

Not a tiktok user

[stabiesoft]

But doesn't either the owner of the account or tiktok itself have to compensate these artists for using their work? I assume tiktok splashes ads with these posts and so is commercial use of the music.

Re: Not a tiktok user

[dwater]

Probably like a radio station.

5 years? Old??

[dwater]

Seriously? How is "more than 5 years" considered "old"?

Some of the tracks mentioned are, but...

hm, another favorable-of-tiktok article

[bob_jenkins]

I've been seeing a lot of articles painting tiktok in a good light recently. And actual tiktok advertisements too. This article sounds like another such infomercial. It used to be all tiktok articles were about how evil it was. I don't think I've ever looked at tiktok myself, so I've no opinion about its goodness or evilness, but it seems like media is being coordinated here.

Yup, I'm stuck on 1970-80's Classic Rock, cause

[bsdetector101]

Yup, I'm stuck on 1970-80's Classic Rock, cause there's nothing better !! I don't know of ANY good newish Rock bands from 2000 onward. The biggest $$$ making bands on tour are all 1970-80's era !

Credit goes to

[Willfon]

But how many of these "second lives" were seeded through other media? "Come and get your love" was pretty prominent in Guardians of the Galaxy and would have had its new round of glory days initiated from that, not a random discovery on Took Tick. This really doesn't have anything to do with this particular app as we did see similar trends on YouTube with songs like "Little green Bag" by George Baker and "Stuck in the middle with you" by Stealers Wheel, triggered by Reservoir Dogs and again a slew of other