Musicians Are Suffering on TikTok. Do They Have a Choice?

In the first half of 2022, an ensemble of artists voiced complaints about a phenomenon as old as time: Their labels and marketing teams, desperate to push new music, were insisting they appear in media. The difference, this time, is that the core of these disputes rested not on an individual but a platform. TikTok, they said, was ruining them.

From Charlie XCX to FKA Twigs to Halsey - what started as a platform that aided the organic virality of videos with silly dances and witty role-plays has become the battleground for what promotion means for artists, and the labels who pay them, as we step into a new era of digital curation. 

For those who see their music as an innate release of emotion and artistry, deaf to the ears of commodification, TikTok is a conflicting platform for promotion: a tool that, more than any other social media platform, takes away the illusion that they are an independent artist. There are no social media managers, designers, or artist stagehands who can quite nail what a great video on TikTok needs to be: self-shot and self-made. So it’s easy to understand why, in the last little while, many musicians and creators have taken a stand against it.

It’s a conflicting fight between labels and artists - one that highlights a split in musical generations.

For young, grassroots artists, like Lil Nas X, who made their fortune from platforms like TikTok, it represents an organic shift in the way the industry works. For others, it’s a disingenuous tool to boost their connection with younger fans, breaking the illusion of the otherworldly, independent artist.

Singer-songwriter Halsey - who made their fame when TikTok was still known as Musicall.y -  is just the latest artist to unveil their distaste of the platform. A video on TikTok, where Halsey stares exacerbated at the camera, took aim at her label for allegedly holding back a single release until they created a “viral moment” on TikTok.

“Basically I have a song I love and want to release ASAP, but my record label won’t let me,” reads white text on-screen.

“I’ve been in this industry for 8 years and I’ve sold over 165 million records. And my record company is saying that I can’t release it unless they can fake a viral moment on TikTok.”

“Everything is marketing, And they are doing this to basically every artist these days.”

And while reaching the next generation of internet-savvy 14-year-olds includes selling yourself (not a new phenomenon), it’s not just about charts anymore. TikTok has taken centre stage - and artists like Halsey aren’t so happy about it. Sure, social media created a new avenue of connection with celebrities - but it brought with it a new set of problems. 

While in some ways TikTok has been a positive pipeline, established artists who join the app as outsiders-first see it as a new ploy in a marketing machine that continues to take control away from them.

A few weeks ago, Doja Cat created a TikTok about Taco Bell’s discontinued Mexican Pizza. It was catchy and well put-together - but scrolling into her feed, and her past uploads, reveals the truth: she’d been put up to it by her label.

“You gotta be quiet, you can’t tell anybody that I told you this,” she says in one video.

“I got to do this fucking TikTok where I gotta do – and everyone keeps calling it a jingle – it’s for Taco Bell and I got to do this fucking jingle.”

“They want me to rap about Mexican pizza so I want to give you a heads up before you see that shit. Just know it’s contractual. Shhh. I know it’s bad.” 

Other artists, like Florence Welch from Florence and the Machine, FKA Twigs, and Charlie XCX have also had their say. 

While Halsey’s Tiktok has gone viral, whatever track they were desperate to release still hasn’t seen the light of day.

“At this point I don’t know what to do because I told the truth about what’s happening and now I STILL don’t have a release date AND some of you think I’m lying about the whole fiasco. So I’m double fucked lol,” they wrote in a tweet.

Some conversations have pointed to a music industry that has become too reliant on apps like TikTok to do their own promotional work, while others question the validity and entitlement of the artists themselves.

“Labels are too lazy to promote nowadays, so they want TikTok to magically do their work,” reads one tweet. Before another verges on conspiratorial:

“No, but why are they all suddenly being so candid? These fake sob stories are the real promo lmao,” reads another.

In recent years, labels like Universal have signed deals to cross-promote artists on TikTok, too. It’s a method in line with budget – a cheaper alternative to other forms of promotion. Influencers have also been paid to dance to artists' songs. 

But in the wake of TikTok-made stars, labels are working desperately to hook themselves into a phenomenon that previously didn’t involve them. There was no label pushing Lil Nas X - that came later. But what if, instead, they were there all along? This is the world the corporate music behemoth is looking to build. 

It makes sense. But it becomes a problem when this level of control is hurled at an artist who is already established.

In the 1980s, The Buggles taught the world that video killed the radio star. It was an ode to the generation of kids who would never know the follies of the past, instead trailblazing into the technological future. As MTV came into the fold, popularising the music video – which some saw as a method of commercialization rather than art – bands like Pearl Jam were quick to show their distaste, believing video took away from the audience's ability to have their own interpretation of the music. 

While TikTok marketing and music video commercialisation sit decades apart, they share the omen of being a next – and sometimes unwanted – step in industry progression.

For now, it’s a burgeoning moment in the plight of the industry, lifting the veil but also muddying the waters. And it’s hard to decipher what is and isn’t marketing - or whether the artist is in on it or not. 

Perhaps it’s just an instance of an outsider artist mentality, not attuned to a new way of doing things, with more established artists perturbed by the possibility of having to reach younger audiences through new means. After all, it’s a new way of commodification, which some would say goes against the innate nature of what Art is supposed to be.

For a younger generation of artists making their way in the world, though, it seems to be working.

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