While people go to TikTok to watch various content from entertaining ones to informative ones, one of the big draws of the social media platform is how it is the source for music that goes viral. While the audio quality in TikTok is not as good as that of Apple Music or even Spotify, there’s no question that the social media platform is becoming a good place to discover new music.
There are plenty of articles that list down most (if not all) of the songs that gained popularity through TikTok, and you’d probably be living on a rock if one of the songs you listen to became a viral TikTok hit.
With TikTok finally signing a new licensing agreement with Universal Music Group (UMG)–months after the latter pulled out its entire catalog out of TikTok–there’s a good debate on how the likes of UMG can make the most out of this deal. Aside from having one of the most popular artists in the world–Taylor Swift, Olivia Rodrigo, and Billie Eilish, to name a few–this licensing agreement with TikTok also means that UMG can introduce new artists into the social media platform in efforts of getting their name out there faster compared to other means.
TikTok’s user database consist 1.56 billion monthly active users as of 2024, and that’s bigger than the number of Apple Music and Spotify users combined. Add to how easy it is to discover new music on TikTok–all it takes is for a user to pick a song to add to their TikTok content–and it’s not surprising why some artists are pushing their songs through TikTok to gain popularity.
KPop acts are a perfect example of this: songs like NewJeans’ Super Shy, Fifty-Fifty’s Cupid, Le Sserafim’s Eve, Psyche, and Bluebeard’s Wife, and ILLIT’s Magnetic are one of the many KPop songs that gained immense popularity in TikTok–and eventually in other music platforms. The idea of using TikTok as a platform for discovering new music is not far off: they did have plans to have their own music platform back in 2022, but somehow didn’t push through.
While we doubt if we see TikTok Music become a reality anytime soon, the mention of monetization opportunities in their licensing agreement with UMG brings in a lot of possibilities for the artists themselves. Aside from possibly selling merch through TikTok shop, artists (at least those under UMG) can even be creative by holding live chats through the platform, or even sell tickets for exclusive events–and maybe sell physical copies of their albums as well.
As it stands, the idea of using TikTok to discover music is very feasible–their signing of a licensing agreement with UMG is just the start of what can be another evolution to the social media platform.
