“With TikTok and streaming platforms, music creation has been hijacked”

Baptiste Detombe is secretary general of the think tank Souverains Demain! and founder of Gavroche Media.

this Olympic Games Opening Ceremony The topic of heated debate. Some call for the canonization of Florent Pagani, others boast about the choice of Aya Nakamura, but no one questions the future of French music. It is time to take a step back and recognize the digital transformation that is happening before our eyes: the hegemony of streaming platforms like TikTok over music production, and the risk of fatal impoverishment of the latter.

The emergence of streaming apps such as Deezer, Spotify and Apple Music has disrupted the economic model of the music industry. Today, Therefore, most of the artists’ pay comes from these platforms.. This is not just an additional source of income, it is really a question of a new form of music creation. From now on, to work, music must be short. She no longer has a choice, and its short duration maximizes the overwork of the “replay” button, which is an indicator of the artist’s remuneration. What’s more, 30 seconds is more than enough for listening to music. Therefore, it must succeed in attracting the listener, in attracting attention, even if the rest of the musical work shows a certain poverty.

In the United States, where The impact of digitalization on the music industry What’s even more impressive is that the average length of songs classified as “on the charts” is 3 minutes and 30 minutes, which is 20 seconds less than five years ago. The shorter it is, the more people will listen to it. The numbers dictate, and the music bends. If the trend of music shrinking is strong, it should not be denied with the emergence of new player TikTok.

To make himself known and reach a wide audience, today’s artist no longer has a choice. He must deal with those prestigious applications. And for good reason, in the last week of August 2022, Top three most listened music Corresponding to TikTok trends (Gazo’s “DIE,” Hamza and Damso’s “Fade up,” and Gambi’s “PETETE”). In 2021, more than 175 songs that became popular on TikTok also made it to the Billboard Hot 100, the most listened-to song chart in the United States.

Creative freedom still exists, but within the narrow framework created by digital applications.

Baptiste Detombe

The app’s 15 million users in France are therefore an important target to make a name for themselves, all the more so as the audience gets younger. In fact, they are the ones most willing to discover new artists. Not so much because they are more open-minded, but because they have the time. This way their attention is away from family and professional responsibilities. 27 years and three months and that’s it. The era of “music paralysis”the inertia of taste. In order to attract new followers (and thus new traffic), one solution is: invest in TikTok. But whoever says that he has invested in TikTok also says that he meets its viral standards: accelerated videos (the famous “speed up”), more powerful and more choruses, more repetitive and profound lyrics, etc.

Creative freedom still exists, but Within the narrow framework of digital application constructionThe words no longer matter, the storytelling. It has to be gripping, the chorus has to come multiple times so that it goes viral and becomes the basis of trending news. Then, as the music shortens and the chorus increases, the lyrics fade away. The music stagnates, repeats itself, its mission becoming less to tell, to condemn, to mock, and more to penetrate the auditory memory of an infinitely repeated acoustic pattern.

Songs with lyrics themselves do not fit these new criteria very well: they involve more lyrics, therefore more verses, and are slower to listen to convey a message. They cannot be satisfied with a musical content consisting of slogans. Then we must mourn the music with such an image: “Stairway To Heaven” by Led Zeppelin Its length is over eight minutes. The same is true of the slow-paced texts of Jacques Brel (“Quand on n’a que l’amour”, “Ne me left pas”, etc.) or the works with riddle-accented accents of Georges Moustaki (“Without a name”). Such music could be created and exist today, but they would have to give up any pretense of success.

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Horizontal commitment and Breaking the record company monopoly The push by the digital industry was soon replaced by reality: not only did these record companies invest heavily in streaming platforms and TikTok (by signing large licensing contracts to monetize their catalogs), but they also forced their artists to comply to meet their demands. The director of digital strategy at Universal Music France admitted this in the newspaper alliance : «It would be a mistake to consider an outreach strategy without TikTok today».

The “acceleration” of human society as described Philosopher Hartmut Rosa So don’t even skimp on art. All musical content must be able to be consumed quickly and efficiently. Simple vocabulary and catchy vulgarity are the keys to enter this extremely competitive music market. We are witnessing art hijacked by industry. A digital empire determines the scope of artists and limits what we listen to. Entire parts of French culture are threatened by the potential standardization of artistic content. Musical creation is likely to be confined to the margins, leaving marketing products to flood distribution platforms.