These musicians changed their sets when their songs became popular on TikTok
A1 Digital India News: DJ Paul, founder of the Oscar-winning Memphis hip-hop group Three 6 Mafia, was enjoying tequila at a pool party in the Hollywood Hills two years ago when a friend held up his cell phone to him. The rapper was surprised to see a TikTok video uploaded by a “young white girl” in which she was dancing and rhyming to the song “Half on a Sack,” a slightly odd song released by the group 17 years ago.
The song’s lyrics describe sex and drug use on a tour bus. “I was like, ‘Wow,'” he recalled with a laugh in an interview. “And when I do my shows, you see that same girl singing that line. They're crazy."
Paul said "Half on a Sack" has long been a staple of the group's live set lists, but the crowd response has been even more enthusiastic since its viral moment.
Rapper Project Pat, who is on tour with Three 6 Mafia this year, said he often plays his 23-year-old song "Life We Live," which has been used in nearly three million TikTok videos. Spotify streams also saw a 130 percent increase.
"I always looked at the rap game as a business," Pat said. "I never looked at it like I was putting my pain and all that into art." "If you're going to pay, I'll tell you what you want to hear," he said in his distinctive Memphis accent.
Paul and Pat are among the music artists who have benefited from the cynical, cathartic tastes of a generation of up-and-coming listeners who have access to nearly the entire catalog of recorded music through streaming and social media services. Young listeners Artists from Fleetwood Mac, Kate Bush, Blonde Redhead and more across genres and eras discover music through TikTok, YouTube and other digital platforms; and musicians appeal to new offline audiences through vinyl reissues and live performances. And what's more, these listeners are often drawn to songs that weren't marketed as singles when they were first released.
Pavement, an alt-rock band with a devoted but modest following, has been inactive since its 1997 release of "Harness Your Hopes," a B-side that started gaining streaming momentum a few years ago. But as the band gears up for a reunion tour in 2022, they realize the song needs to be part of the live show. First, its members have to relearn the refrain. Bob Nastanovich, a group member who cataloged their set, estimates that "they probably played it less than five times in the '90s."
"Harness Your Hopes" has since become a tour staple strategically placed in the second half of shows or as an encore, so that new fans can join in after hearing it. He added: "We want all the people who know less than five or 10 songs from Pavement to listen to the rest of the set, in the hopes that they'll enjoy our music more."
Although the music industry (not to mention the federal government) has had a stormy relationship with TikTok, the platform has become a vital part of the live music business, connecting Gen Z users with new artists and introducing catalogs to established acts who are still on tape.
Dance-pop band Grouplove's overwhelmingly youthful single "Tongue Tied" was a modest hit upon its release in 2011, but a new generation of wide-eyed kids have found the perfect soundtrack to graduation and New Year's TikTok video antics. Sensing their new enthusiasm, the band's touring agent, Julie Greenberg, began booking them on the college circuit. "We were meeting them in different rooms because we knew we had new TikTok demos," Greenberg said.
Trey Manney, senior vice president of touring agency Wasserman Music, called the resurgence of the catalog driven by social media and streaming "one of the biggest sea changes" he's seen in his decade-long career. The platforms sometimes offer fans instant access to buy tickets for a tour, though he said "there's no exact correlation between streaming numbers and concert attendance." Just because someone participates in a dance challenge or creates a meme doesn't mean he or she will spend money on a ticket.
But when passion and opportunity come together, the effect is unmistakable. Beach House, a band that many have worked with for nearly two decades, reached new levels of success with "Space Song" (2015), which is represented as a 2021 meme in which actor Pedro Pascal laughs while effortlessly doing the transition.