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“I think I like this little life.”
If this phrase doesn’t immediately play in melody form in your head, then you’ve either been living under a rock or you’re just not a TikTok user (in which case, you’re off the hook).
At the end of 2023, fairly unknown British artist Cordelia watched her music career change almost overnight after posting a song titled “Little Life” to the app. The track, written about life’s simple joys, has been used by TikTokers over 800,000 times, accompanying short scenes of idyllic everyday life, and has landed Cordelia over one million listeners on Spotify.
Just seven words is all it took for the song to take off, yet that’s all users needed to connect to its message.
This is just one of many stories that begin and end in the exact same way, and the sheer power of TikTok is becoming more and more alluring to small artists looking for a shortcut to success.
So just how does the modern artist go about creating a viral TikTok hit that could launch their career in minutes… and at what cost does it come?
Get to The Point
With the meteoric rise of TikTok came the downfall of the attention span. An endless scroll of tailored content means that young minds are saturated, emerging studies show that those who use TikTok are more easily distracted and less able to focus on tasks.
For artists looking to promote their music, this means a whole song is often too much for viewers to consume — even listening to a chorus can be too much to ask these days. Users want singers to get to the hook within a few seconds or they’ll scroll right past.
To make this work, artists will often choose to promote a specific section of a song, usually a short, catchy hook containing a lyrical tagline that others can deeply relate to. It doesn’t need to be the chorus, either; as long as it’s quick, catchy and relatable, anything goes. An example of this strategy working well is “About Damn Time” by Lizzo, which became hugely popular in 2022 thanks to a dance routine choreographed for the second verse of the song. Singer-songwriter Taylor Bickett also saw viral success with her 2023 track, Quarter Life Crisis, already racking up over 28 million streams on Spotify alone, a huge feat for an independent artist. In the first pre-chorus of the song, she sings “I swear 16 was yesterday but now I’m closer to 28.” Thousands of users used this short section of the track to share photographs from their teen years, including celebrities such as Drew Barrymore and Kevin Jonas.
The Rolling Stone Culture Council is an invitation-only community for Influencers, Innovators and Creatives. Do I qualify?
The TikTok Formula
If songwriters want to be successful in getting a viral hit, is there a specific formula that works? According to TikTok sensation Rosie Scher, there is. Reflecting on the success of her track “Never the 1,” she mentioned that songs featuring a numerical countdown or ABCs in the lyrics create what she describes as “TikTok hooks” and are more likely to go viral. “Never the 1” is proof as to how powerful this formula can be, as is the track “ABCDEFU” by Gayle, with over 2 million viewer videos on TikTok.
And there are of course other features that make a song more likely to succeed on the platform. Analytical research by SongCrunch showed that repetition, perfect rhymes, and lyrics about sex and breakups are all common themes in viral songs. This raises the questions of whether the landscape of charting music will change. For many, it’s a genuine concern that the charts are already becoming filled with formulaic songs that all follow a similar pattern, particularly since the app now has its own Top 50 chart.
Artists: Should You Take Note?
So here’s the real conundrum: As a songwriter, should you be jumping on the bandwagon and creating a perfectly curated TikTok-able track to try and boost your career?
We have mixed views, and it really all depends on your end goal.
The Good
The obvious pro of keeping the “TikTok formula” in mind when writing your next song is that you could end up with a career-changing hit. For artists like Cordelia, it only took one track to launch her into the spotlight, and for many artists, achieving success on TikTok has led to record deals, support slots on huge tours and appearances on national TV. These are the things that every bedroom artist dreams of, and they may be closer than they seem.
The Bad
One of the biggest concerns about writing with a specific formula in mind is that it may take the joy away from songwriting, something that, for many artists, is a form of self-expression and therapy. It’s also important to remember that while you can follow the rules as closely as possible, no one really has any control over social media algorithms, and pinning all your hopes on a viral video could lead to disappointment and frustration. “Leaking” tracks before their release in the hopes of going viral could also mean that they become impossible to pitch to other artists if they fail to achieve viral success the first time around. For songwriters looking to get lucrative cuts, this could be a huge waste of an otherwise perfectly good song.
Final Words of Advice
Let TikTok be an inspiration to experiment with your songwriting. A new challenge can be a great way to tap into your creativity. However, make sure that you stay true to your own identity as an artist. Going viral for a song that’s a completely different style to the music you love making could overshadow your uniqueness and pigeonhole you into a genre you don’t identify with.
Get creative, be inspired and have fun with it… but don’t let your hopes of going viral take away from the joy of the process.
