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Sped-up remixes continue to resonate on TikTok: The four most popular songs on the platform in the U.S. in 2023 were all sped-up, according to TikTok’s year-end report. The leader of the pack was the “more sped-up” version of Justine Skye’s “Collide,” followed by sped-up renditions of FIFTY FIFTY’s “Cupid,” PARTYNEXTDOOR’s “Her Way,” and Toosii’s “Favorite Song.”
U.K. listeners also enjoyed using up-tempo re-works of songs in their TikTok videos. In addition to “Collide” (No. 2 on the platform) and “Cupid” (No. 3), they also favored a sped-up version of George Ezra’s “Green Green Grass” (No. 4), MEYY’s “Pretty” (No. 6), and Raye and 070 Shake’s “Escapism” (No. 10).
The sped-up remixes that zip around TikTok are usually made first by creators (sometimes funded by label marketing efforts). If they start to perform well, it’s become routine for labels to release their own official versions.
“Back in the day, we used club remixes to diversify the visibility of a record,” Nima Nasseri, who then served as global head of A&R strategy for Universal Music Group’s music strategy and tactics team, explained in 2022. “The purpose was to bring back visibility to the main version. Now people are discovering the main version from the sped-up or slowed one. Instead of spending $50,000 for a remix from a big-name DJ, you’re spending relatively minimal amounts [on a sped-up rendition] and getting much more return and reach.”
Why have these simple remixes proved consistently effective? Steven Pardo, digital marketing director at Secretly Group, told Billboard in 2022 that “in a video platform that prioritizes catching attention immediately, being able to get the impact of the lyrics across more quickly is advantageous.”
Scott Plagenhoef, global head of music programming at Apple Music, echoed this sentiment during an interview with Billboard in March: “Sped-up songs allow for more of a track to be heard within the time constraints of a TikTok video and mirror the pace at which users consume content online.”
Increasing tempo can also “make the songs better — it brings out a different emotion,” according to Josh “Bru” Brubaker, a popular TikToker and radio personality for Audacy.
In the last 15 months, sped-up remixes have spurred chart surges for Thundercat‘s “Them Changes,” Miguel’s “Sure Thing” (actually a resurge, as it first charted over a decade ago), The Weeknd’s “Die for You,” Lady Gaga’s “Bloody Mary,” Mariah Carey’s “It’s a Wrap,” and more.
Due to TikTok’s popularity and its ability to drive streaming activity, Billboard launched a TikTok Top 50 chart in September, ranking tracks on the platform according to a combination of creations, video views and user engagement in the U.S. “The chart gives a clear picture of the music that is being listened to on TikTok, and consequently starting to trend on DSPs and other services,” Ole Obermann, global head of music business development at TikTok, said in a statement.
Across the first two months of the chart, hip-hop proved to be by far the most popular genre, accounting for more than 35% of chart entries. Pop was next, hovering at 20%, largely thanks to Taylor Swift, who had nine different charting tracks in the first eight weeks. The third most popular genre was R&B (10%).
U.S. listeners did listen to some music at its original tempo, according to TikTok’s year-end report. PinkPantheress and Ice Spice‘s “Boy’s a Liar Pt. 2,” Ohboyprince’s “Bounce When She Walk,” Young Nudy and 21 Savage’s “Peaches & Eggplants,” Ice Spice’s “In Ha Mood,” Jain’s “Makeba,” and Swift’s “Cruel Summer” rounded out the rest of the top 10.
TikTok announced that it will bring its in-app ticketing feature, a collaboration with Ticketmaster, to an additional 20 countries on Monday (Dec. 4).
The feature allows artists to put Ticketmaster event links in the clips they post on TikTok, making it easy for their followers to click and buy tickets in the app. TikTok started testing the feature in the U.S. in August 2022.
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The two companies didn’t share any information about the results of the test, though they said Niall Horan, The Kooks, Burna Boy, and Shania Twain have all tried it out. TikTok opened access to the feature this week to certified artists in the U.K., Ireland, Australia, Germany, France, Canada, Mexico, Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Italy, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Switzerland, Spain and Sweden.
In a statement, Michael Chua, Ticketmaster’s vp global business development and strategic partnerships, said the partnership will allow artists to “easily connect their content to event discovery and ticket purchase in-app making it easier than ever for fans around the world to experience their favorite artists live.”
“By enabling fans to buy tickets directly through TikTok, we’re giving artists the opportunity to reach ticket buyers in a whole new way,” added Michael Kümmerle, TikTok’s global music partnership development lead. “We hope to deliver further value to all artists throughout all stages of their careers and provide more opportunities for a growing fanbase.”
TikTok has been busy rolling out features lately. Last week, the platform added official artist labels (available once a user has released four songs) and a “new” tag that can be used to highlight an act’s latest release (14 days before the song comes out and for another 30 days after it drops). “These features can deepen engagement whilst creating unique opportunities for fans to connect with their favorite artists in meaningful ways, driving music discovery on the platform,” said Paul Hourican, TikTok’s global head of music partnerships and programming, in a statement.
Montana’s first-in-the-nation law banning the video-sharing app TikTok in the state was blocked Thursday, one month before it was set to take effect, by a federal judge who called the measure unconstitutional.
The ruling delivered a temporary win for the social media company that has argued Montana’s Republican-controlled Legislature went “completely overboard” in trying to regulate the app. A final ruling will come at a later date after the legal challenge moves through the courts.
U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy said the ban “oversteps state power and infringes on the Constitutional right of users and businesses” while singling out the state for its fixation on purported Chinese influence.
“Despite the state’s attempt to defend (the law) as a consumer protection bill, the current record leaves little doubt that Montana’s legislature and Attorney General were more interested in targeting China’s ostensible role in TikTok than with protecting Montana consumers,” Molloy wrote Thursday in granting the preliminary injunction. “This is especially apparent in that the same legislature enacted an entirely separate law that purports to broadly protect consumers’ digital data and privacy.”
Montana lawmakers in May made the state the first in the U.S. to pass a complete ban on the app based on the argument that the Chinese government could gain access to user information from TikTok, whose parent company, ByteDance, is based in Beijing.
The ban, which was scheduled to take effect Jan. 1, was first brought before the Montana Legislature a few weeks after a Chinese spy balloon flew over the state.
It would prohibit downloads of TikTok in the state and fine any “entity” — an app store or TikTok — $10,000 per day for each time someone “is offered the ability” to access or download the app. There would not be penalties for users.
TikTok spokesperson Jamal Brown issued a statement saying the company was pleased that “the judge rejected this unconstitutional law and hundreds of thousands of Montanans can continue to express themselves, earn a living, and find community on TikTok.”
A spokeswoman for Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen, also a Republican, tried to downplay the significance of the ruling in a statement.
“The judge indicated several times that the analysis could change as the case proceeds,” said Emily Cantrell, spokeswoman for Knudsen. “We look forward to presenting the complete legal argument to defend the law that protects Montanans from the Chinese Communist Party obtaining and using their data.”
Western governments have expressed worries that the popular social media platform could put sensitive data in the hands of the Chinese government or be used as a tool to spread misinformation. Chinese law allows the government to order companies to help it gather intelligence.
More than half of U.S. states and the federal government have banned TikTok on official devices. The company has called the bans “political theatre” and says further restrictions are unnecessary due to the efforts it is taking to protect U.S. data by storing it on Oracle servers. The company has said it has not received any requests for U.S. user data from the Chinese government and would not provide any if it were asked.
“The extent to which China controls TikTok, and has access to its users’ data, forms the heart of this controversy,” the judge wrote.
Attorneys for TikTok and the content creators argued on Oct. 12 that the state had gone too far in trying to regulate TikTok and is essentially trying to implement its own foreign policy over unproven concerns that TikTok might share user data with the Chinese government.
TikTok has said in court filings that Montana could have limited the kinds of data TikTok could collect from its users rather than enacting a complete ban. Meanwhile, the content creators said the ban violates free speech rights and could cause economic harm for their businesses.
Christian Corrigan, the state’s solicitor general, argued Montana’s law was less a statement of foreign policy and instead addresses “serious, widespread concerns about data privacy.”
The state hasn’t offered any evidence of TikTok’s “allegedly harmful data practices,” Molloy wrote.
Molloy noted during the hearing that TikTok users consent to the company’s data collection policies and that Knudsen — whose office drafted the legislation — could air public service announcements warning people about the data TikTok collects.
The American Civil Liberties Union, its Montana chapter and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital privacy rights advocacy group, have submitted an amicus brief in support of the challenge. Meanwhile, 18 attorneys generals from mostly Republican-led states are backing Montana and asking the judge to let the law be implemented. Even if that happens, cybersecurity experts have said it could be challenging to enforce.
The A&R position has historically been one of music’s most glamorous executive roles. But it’s common to hear today that the job is closer to that of an anonymous Wall Street number-cruncher — many of the creative aspects have been removed.
Traditionally, A&Rs were tasked with finding the next generation of important artists, and then helping those acts make commercially successful songs. In the modern industry, in many cases, the A&R executives who play key roles in music-making decisions have been supplanted by those who are more interested in using hard analytics to find the next big hit. Taking advantage of the flood of data from digital platforms, music companies now often seek an edge over their competition by ingesting and analyzing reams of information from streaming services and social media sites.
“Over the past five years, everything has been centered around the data, the data, the data,” says Mike Weiss, head of A&R for the distribution company UnitedMasters. The industry now prioritizes “A&R guys who know that 10 is bigger than nine,” jokes Jeremy Maciak, a manager and former major-label A&R.
But label sources say that while the data can predict a hit single, it is far less effective at indicating who will become an enduringly popular artist. “We’ve all been burned to a certain degree,” says Tab Nkhereanye, a senior vp of A&R at BMG.
Arguing about the state of A&R is also arguing about the extent to which record companies can still provide artists with additional creative value. In theory, basing signing strategy on data helps labels unearth acts who are already exhibiting upward momentum and thus reduces the companies’ risk. And it’s a shortcut to nabbing market share in a hyper-competitive business where executive salaries — and shareholder confidence — are often tied to such metrics.
Relying on this type of quantitative research makes sense at a time when listeners have more choice than ever. Discovery has splintered in the era of personalization, and attention spans have evaporated. Since most of the levers the major labels once had to ensure exposure have lost their potency, signing artists who are already finding exposure on their own functions as an insurance policy.
“The world is different; the way that people connect with music is different; thus the A&R process has to be different,” says Jordan Weller, head of artist and investor relations at indify, a platform that helps independent acts find funding and support. “No executive can snap their fingers and guarantee that the world will buy into an artist anymore, because the consumers can finally decide what they want to listen to.”
Still, there is a concern — most pronounced among veteran A&Rs and managers — that the pendulum has swung too far towards analytics. “I have a saying to the A&Rs who focus all their time on data: You will be the first people replaced by a computer algorithm,” adds Mike Caren, who built up APG, his own label and publishing company, and served as a major-label A&R. He counsels younger employees, “don’t take the easy and short-term route of being 100% data reliant.”
All that data doesn’t communicate much about the artist behind the music. “It doesn’t tell the whole story,” Nkhereanye explains. “Can you perform live? Can you interview? Can you make more than two records that stream?”
In reality, managers and A&Rs say, few of the data-centric signings that landed big deals in recent years have been able to make even two tracks that stream. A number of these artists have been quietly dropped.
A former research-focused A&R acknowledges that the data-driven process surfaced a lot of duds. “I was getting frustrated because of the sheer amount of stuff coming up on research and then seeing it not really pan out a year later,” he says.
Labels are all also reviewing much of the same information — meaning everyone sees the next viral phenomenon within a day or two. “The companies get the same data, they’re all chasing the same artists,” longtime music attorney Don Passman recently told Billboard. If no one has a number-crunching advantage anymore, the labels that can provide the most creative assistance to the acts they sign might have the upper hand.
But that skill set may be in short supply precisely because the music industry has emphasized data so heavily in recent years. In Nkhereanye’s view, “companies started cutting back on paying great A&R talent. They would rather pay 10 research kids 100 grand and give them fake titles.”
“There are less A&Rs than ever that can help an artist cultivate their sound, and make better records for a broader audience,” adds J Grand, who has spent more than 15 years in A&R roles. “If all we do is rely on 0’s and 1’s, that’s a problem, especially with the rise of AI. We have to bring something else to the table.”
In this environment, “once the artist is signed, A&Rs don’t know how to help them,” explains Dave Gordon, a streaming consultant who worked at two major labels. And while not every artist needs help, some presumably would benefit from guidance.
In those cases, according to Gordon, the artist-label conversation becomes, “‘Do your thing; I don’t know how the f— you did it last time. Make another one for me, and I’ll turn it in for you.’”
Weiss distills the challenge facing contemporary A&R departments. “The people that have been able to catch things in that well of TikTok and data and research are all the ones that have been getting promoted,” he explains. Now, “the research well has essentially run dry. Everyone’s kind of looking around saying, ‘OK, how do we go back?’”
Taylor Swift is now reaching the canines. A viral TikTok shared by user @maya.and.hunter this week shows Maya walking in on Hunter teaching their golden retriever puppy about Swift’s recent “Karma” lyric change. “And then she says, ‘Karma is the guy on the Chiefs,’” Hunter is seen telling the pup, who is sweetly falling asleep […]
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Source: ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS / Getty / Target
Black Friday has come and gone, but Target is being called out after a viral TikTok exposed some alleged sale price shenanigans going on.
Spotted on TMZ, Target has responded to a viral TikTok post of Gen Z’ers targeting Black Friday sale signage only to reveal that the alleged sale price is exactly the same as the product’s regular price, suggesting the retail chain is out here hoodwinking and bamboozling customers.
One video making its rounds on X, formerly known as Twitter, features a woman pulling back the Black Friday deals signage claiming a Samsung TV $649.99 is a sale price only to show it cost the same before the “shopping holiday.”
Target’s Explanation For The Sketchy Signage
A spokesperson for Target responded to the viral posts, suggesting the post is pretty much a nothingburger and the television in question was on sale as part of Target’s early Black Friday deals.
Per TMZ:
A Target rep is addressing the viral “call-out” from TikTokers, telling TMZ … “A recent TikTok video showed a guest questioning if there was a sale on three Samsung TVs that had both a Black Friday sale sign, as well as a sale sign behind it indicating the same price.”
They add, “In fact, the TVs were on sale before Black Friday as part of our early Black Friday sales. We continued to offer those items at the same discount during Black Friday, but updated the signage to reflect the extended timing. “
The rep continues, “In both instances, guests would have saved the same amount, between $20-$80 depending on which TV they purchased. Those discounted prices compared to the regular prices are clearly shown in both sale signs in the video.
And finally, “We know our guests are looking for flexibility when they shop holiday deals, which is why we began Black Friday deals in late October and will continue offering great discounts throughout the holiday season. We also offer a Price Match Guarantee, and will match the price of any item purchased by a guest that is offered at a lower price later in the season.”
Is Target Also Price Gouging With Clothes?
Televisions were not the only thing TikTokers believed they were exposing. They also took the trend to the clothing section in Target and pulled the price sticker back on a pair of pants, revealing the price had gone up from $25 to $30.If you’re a seasoned shopper, you would know this practice to take advantage of the holiday season, especially Black Friday, and other doorbuster sales is not new.
But, let TikTok tell you, it just started.
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Photo: ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS / Getty
TikTok released the findings of a new study on Tuesday (Nov. 21) touting its ability to drive music discovery and streaming activity.
The study, commissioned by TikTok and conducted by Luminate, is full of statistics demonstrating TikTok’s power. First and foremost: “Higher TikTok engagement — whether that’s likes, views, or shares — corresponds with elevated streaming volumes.” (This is why labels have been pestering their acts to post, post more, and post again, sometimes to their artists’ chagrin.) On top of that, U.S. TikTokers “are nearly twice as likely to discover music on short-form video platforms than the average user of social or social-form video platforms,” according to the study’s analysis.
All of this would have had more impact coming out in 2019. Back then, many acts were still nervous to be perceived as a “TikTok artist.”
At the end of 2023, however, TikTok’s dominance in the music industry has been repeatedly and widely established — to the point where the platform is sometimes resented. TikTok has fundamentally changed the way that labels scout for new talent and market their roster of signed acts.
Artists and labels all know that TikTok can galvanize an audience to share and stream and buy; what they don’t know is how to trigger that activity. (Spend on ads? Pay influencers? Pray?) And maddeningly, even when songs do go viral on the app, some of them don’t turn into streaming hits at all — see BMW Kenny’s “#WIPEITDOWN” in 2020, or Luclover’s “L$d” last year.
The new TikTok study doesn’t unlock any secrets on that front. But it continuously reaffirms the commercial potential of the platform’s users. 38% of U.S. TikTokers went to a show in the last 12 months, and 45% bought some merch, indicating that this group is more engaged in the music ecosystem than the average listener — 15% more likely to have picked up an LP over the last year, for example.
In addition, the study finds that TikTok functions to expand its users’ musical horizons. 46% of U.S. TikTokers “listen to music that is not in English” — that’s “27% more likely than music listeners overall” — and this population is “33% more likely to consider having access to global music extremely important.”
TikTok also noted that its users are both “more likely to be music streamers” and more likely to subscribe to a music streaming service. Survey findings indicate that “in the U.S., 62% of TikTok users are paid streamers, compared to 43% of average music listeners.”
Still, there has been concern in the music industry that TikTok users are so addicted to the app that they may not jump over to a streaming service to save a new track they find or add it to a playlist. On Nov. 14, TikTok launched a new feature that allows users to quickly save music they find on the platform to Spotify, Apple Music, or Amazon Music.
This “Add to Music App,” which is available to users in the U.S. and the U.K., creates “a direct link between discovery on TikTok and consumption on a music streaming service, making it easier than ever for music fans to enjoy the full length song on the music streaming service of their choice,” Ole Obermann, TikTok’s global head of music business development, said in a statement.
The result? TikTok is “generating even greater value for artists and rights holders,” Obermann declared.
Tate McRae was recently scrolling TikTok when an old interview she did at 16 came across the screen. “I was the most awkward person ever, and I was like, ‘There’s no chance that this is the same person,’ ” she says with a grimace. “You evolve so much, and not only am I seeing it, but I’m documenting it in my music in real time.”
Now 20 and living in Los Angeles, the native of Calgary, Alberta (which she calls “the Texas of Canada”), has spent much of her life thus far on screens — both her own, while navigating TikTok like a promotional pro, and others, whether on network TV or YouTube. As a teen, McRae placed third on the 2016 season of So You Think You Can Dance and soon after, in fall 2017, launched the weekly YouTube series Create With Tate, which she used to share new choreography and music covers. She thought she would go on to become a backup dancer, but she felt equally drawn to songwriting, covering her bedroom walls with lyrics, quotes and poems that her mother has since painted over in a shade she describes as “serial killer white.”
Tate McRae will perform at the 2023 Billboard Music Awards on Nov. 19. Watch on BBMAs.watch, @BBMAs and @billboard socials.
One of the first videos she posted was a song that proved she wasn’t destined to be anyone’s backup — and could very much hold pop’s center stage on her own. The lovelorn piano ballad “One Day” (which McRae wrote herself) gained traction online, and by early 2018, she and her parents were flying to New York for label meetings (accompanied by McRae’s dance manager at the time); just a year later, it was announced that she had signed a record deal with RCA and a management deal with Hard 8 Working Group. As her high school graduation in Calgary neared, McRae was splitting her time between midterms and awards shows.
“She was so young then, obviously, but so determined and really in some ways sort of moved like a competitive athlete, which makes a lot of sense, given her dance background,” RCA COO John Fleckenstein says. “But still, even at that age, she was so clear on where she wanted to go and what was important to her.”
And while those in McRae’s inner circle agree she has always wanted to steer her own ship — and has proved more than capable — she says that it took her until now to learn how to sail full speed ahead and in only one direction: her own. When she got her start in the industry, she was straddling two different worlds. “Now a lot of my time revolves around music in some way: thinking about music, playing music, driving and listening to music,” McRae says. “It’s all one world.” But merging the two didn’t happen without some friction.
Vintage Junya Watanabe top, MM6 Maison Margiela jeans.
By 2020, McRae was well positioned for a major year, with a proper team assembled. Then came the pandemic; still, she stuck with the plan, releasing what became her breakout hit, “You Broke Me First,” that April despite being homebound — unable to promote it or fully enjoy its success. Like “One Day,” “You Broke Me First” is a tender, midtempo pop song, and together they contributed to McRae’s early classification as a “sad pop” songwriter, drawing comparisons as Canada’s answer to Billie Eilish. But “You Broke Me First” has a bit more bite than its predecessor. It took off on TikTok within a month, ultimately peaking at No. 17 on the Billboard Hot 100, and performances at the MTV European Music Awards and on Jimmy Kimmel Live! followed — all as McRae prepared to graduate and move to Los Angeles.
McRae recalls spending a month in the city in April 2021, renting a house with her parents to “test it out,” during which they read Donald S. Passman’s industry bible, All You Need To Know About the Music Business. “We read this book together because we were like, ‘What are we walking into right now?’ ” At the end of their stay, McRae got her own apartment and has lived solo since. Though she admits she spends lots of time “inside on my couch,” she has found comfort and community in “a really awesome girl group” and fellow artist friends (like pal Olivia Rodrigo, whose “bad idea right?” video includes a McRae cameo) “because we’re private in our personal lives, but then our innermost, darkest, most intense fears are the things we’re putting on display, which is so weird.”
In the following years, McRae released music at a steady pace, including two EPs (All the Things I Never Said and Too Young To Be Sad) and a string of collaborations with artists such as Troye Sivan and Regard (“You”) and Khalid (“Working”), both of which became Hot 100 hits. Her 2022 debut album, I Used To Think I Could Fly, debuted at No. 13 on the Billboard 200 and yielded two more Hot 100 entries while also supporting her headlining tour of clubs and small theaters. All of which should have been cause for celebration — but what McRae remembers most is feeling lost.
“[That] album was a very big internal battle for me. I was so confused with who I was as a person,” she says. “I remember releasing it when I was still on tour, and it felt so overwhelming. I was just like, ‘Oh, wow. I just released my first album. It’s here, it’s happening. I am now an artist.’ And I think as much as it was a relief, I also was just like, ‘Is this right?’ ”
Ottolinger dress, Brandon Hurtado Sandler ring.
As she put together the album, McRae had felt like she “was working with every producer on the planet” and struggled with her “people-pleasing” tendencies while trying to make everyone involved happy. “It took a lot of time after that to be like, ‘OK, let me not look at any other person for a really long time and just figure out who the f–k I am and what I want to do with my life for real.’ ”
By the end of 2022, McRae knew something had to change. She trusted her gut. “I had to figure out who [in the industry] was actually on my side and who wasn’t … so a lot was shifting behind the scenes.” The biggest shift came when she signed a new management deal with Full Stop’s Tom Skoglund, Jeffrey Azoff and Tommy Bruce (all of whom also manage Harry Styles), along with Sali Kharazi and Ali Saunders.
“I was lost in the whirlwind of it all, and it got to a point where I was like, ‘I don’t feel like I’m being respected as a young woman, and I don’t think I’m being heard in the ways that I want to be,’ ” she says. “What I take a lot of pride in is being a genuine, good person. I’m always going to give out that energy, and if the people who are representing you and on your team aren’t reciprocating that, that’s just not the type of people you want on your side. I was just feeling like I was stuck in a spot I had been in for like, five years, and I was like, ‘I feel like I’m going crazy.’ ”
At such a time, she was thankful for her young artist and producer friends, whom she says were “so transparent with me on how things [looked] from the outside.” And now, she couldn’t be more grateful for her new management team and the relationship they’ve built — and the many successes they have already shared. “They look at me and they don’t question me making decisions,” she says. “I want to be a businesswoman. I’m 20 now and I’m still young, but I know what I want.”
Tate McRae photographed on October 31, 2023 in Los Angeles. Masha Popova top, Givenchy skirt, pants and shoes.
Simultaneously, McRae’s creative process shifted as she finally found a consistent co-writing crew in Ryan Tedder, Amy Allen and Jasper Harris. She says the way they made her forthcoming second album, Think Later (out Dec. 8 on RCA), was how she always imagined her idols made albums, with a sense of togetherness. “My last album wasn’t like that at all … I was getting songs from 10 different people and being like, ‘OK, here’s an album.’ And this time it was written by the same core group of people,” she says. “That’s what made the process so fun for me, because it actually felt like a project that I was working on.”
Already, the new process is yielding results. Sultry lead single “Greedy” has become McRae’s highest-charting hit to date, peaking at No. 11 on the Hot 100, driven by 104.2 million on-demand streams, according to Luminate, and its usage in 1.3 million TikTok videos. But arguably, its biggest accomplishment has been reintroducing McRae to the masses — as an artist who, this time, knows exactly who she is.
While McRae says fans shouldn’t expect the entire album to sound like “Greedy,” she thinks the song represents a stylistic through line of “straight pop. It’s also pretty savage.” She credits the shift to her alter ego, Tatiana, McRae’s tour persona whom she describes as “ballsy, so loud and obnoxious.”
Vassia Kostara suit, Givenchy shoes.
In the studio, “I was like, ‘I don’t really give a f–k. I just want to say what I want to say and I want to be 20 years old,’ ” she says. “Sometimes you just want to go out and have a good time and just live life and be present and follow your intuition and not think too hard about it — and I just didn’t feel like thinking too hard about a lot of these songs. I don’t think people are going to expect me to say the stuff that I’m saying.”
In other words, as Fleckenstein puts it: “Some of these records, you’re going to stop in your tracks and go, ‘I didn’t realize she could do that.’ ”
When we talk in early November, McRae tells me her last few weeks have felt like “a bit of a dream.” “Greedy” blasted off; she announced her second album along with a world tour, during which she’ll play her first hometown show and end at Madison Square Garden; and she started prepping for her Saturday Night Live musical guest debut. But, perhaps most impressively, she got her collaborator Tedder to work on a Sunday.
“She’s the first artist to get me to [do that] in close to 10 years!” exclaims Tedder, who executive-produced Think Later. “I don’t care how much I love you, who you are, how many Grammys or how high the stakes are, I don’t work on weekends. Weekends and late-night rap sessions are two things I’ve officially graduated from. But she got me to do it because the song was that good.”
Ottolinger dress, Cult Gaia shoes.
The song came together in one weekend — and after she had technically finished her album. The two had started working at 10 a.m., going through sequences and punching vocals, with the goal of wrapping by 7 p.m. About an hour in, McRae revealed she felt that one box had yet to be checked, sonically speaking, on the album. “We had already sent the tracklist to the label, and at 6 p.m., we walked out with a song completely written, recorded, vocaled and produced,” Tedder says. “It’s the fastest, craziest Hail Mary of my entire life.” The next day, a Sunday, they listened with what he calls “tomorrow ears” and finished the track with enough time for it to make it on Think Later.
McRae and Tedder first met over a Zoom session in 2020, after being connected by mutual friend and songwriter-producer J Kash. As they both recently recalled to each other, they wrote a “trash” song that day and didn’t work together again until late last year, on Tiësto’s thumping dance-pop track “10:35” (on which McRae features). It was clear to Tedder then that McRae had “started to definitively put up guideposts.”
That became even more apparent during their first session together late last year for Think Later, when they wrote one of Tedder’s favorite songs on the album. “That session started with her walking in, opening up a playlist that she made that had 21 to 22 songs on it, and [saying], ‘These are the songs that shaped [me]. I want to figure out the through line and attempt to beat some of these,’ ” he recalls. “She had words and phrases and endless amounts of topics and real-life stories to write from, and that just doesn’t happen. I can count on one hand the artists I’ve worked with in 20 years that have pulled that on day one. And it was the most refreshing thing in the world. Otherwise, you’re playing pin the tail on the donkey in the dark.” (As further proof, he adds that McRae’s mix notes are so detailed “you’d think Quincy Jones wrote them.”)
That session led to many more with the same tight-knit team — just how McRae had always envisioned making an album — including the one for “Greedy.” Earlier this year, Tedder had posted on Instagram a few early-2000s songs he was revisiting, including some by Nelly Furtado, to which McRae replied that she had been listening to the same material. “There was a discussion like, ‘Would it work now?’ ” Tedder says. “I said, ‘One hundred percent it will.’ I’m just old enough where I know cycles, and this cycle is going to happen.”
Vassia Kostara suit, Givenchy shoes.
McRae calls “Greedy” a “wild pass” on which they tried a totally new sound and beat — and just as Tedder predicted, it worked big time. She remembers debuting the single during her Philadelphia tour stop: “No one knew it was coming, and I remember feeling it that first night, like, ‘Holy sh-t, what’s going to happen with this song?’ ”
And while fans may not have known when to expect the song, they knew something was coming thanks to McRae’s TikTok, where she boasts 5.5 million followers (the most of her social media accounts) and had been teasing the song in a series of clips. (Within days of finishing her last song created with Tedder, she had already started teasing that on the app, too.)
“She is not scared or shy about playing music for fans and talking about what she’s doing, and she is driving that conversation every step of the way,” Fleckenstein says. “It’s not a record label ta-da! that you’re seeing around her where there’s some orchestrated marketing promotional shtick. This is about her making something, delivering it to her fans and saying, ‘This is what I care about, and I hope you do, too.’ And then we, as her partners and label, are making it as big as we can possibly make it.”
Tedder says he always tells McRae that, when it comes to social media savvy, “you’re the female [Lil] Nas [X] and he’s the male Tate,” adding that, “Understanding that the world lives on the internet and understanding what people want to hear, how they want to hear it and how they want it to be presented, that is its own art form now that I didn’t have to contend with when I started. I played a gig last night and was with Kygo and The Chainsmokers, and [The Chainsmokers’] Alex [Pall] and Drew [Taggart] cornered me to talk about Tate, and Drew said, ‘Man, I’ve been watching what’s going on with that song. She gets the internet.’ ”
Which is why McRae was well aware that the “Greedy” music video — in which she heats up an ice rink with her impressive dance moves, which she worked on with choreographer-to-the-stars Sean Bankhead — would land so well. “I’m really particular with my taste, and that hasn’t always translated through what the internet has seen of me, even with what I’m wearing and how I’m performing and the choreography,” she says. “I’m so proud of [the “Greedy” video] because I got to actually be a dancer and make a video that I was like, ‘This is sick. I want to show my friends.’ I never ever used to feel that way.”
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Now she’s thinking of how to translate this previously untapped swagger to the stage. On her most recent tour, which wrapped in October, McRae wanted to push herself as a vocalist rather than relying on her dance background to carry the show. And yet, those roots are what so many in McRae’s inner circle call her “magic.” As Tedder says, “She can outdance any pop star and it’s something she rarely flexes — and she flexed in [the “Greedy”] video.”
“The truth is, she is winning because she is singular,” Fleckenstein adds. “And particularly in a pop landscape — which is often a fickle and very difficult place to be successful — you need to be that good.”
And no one understands that better than McRae herself. When she names the artists she most admires, they’re a reflection of her own ambition — and many are former dancers who translated that foundation into global pop superstardom. “When I look at my favorite icons or videos or performances, it’s always the biggest pop stars, so I think that’s always a goal,” she says. “I think what defines a pop star is how iconic [they are]: Madonna, Britney [Spears], Christina [Aguilera]; they would put on these shows and blow everybody away and make timeless art. And that’s what I want to do: make timeless art and timeless performances — and strive to keep on doing that.”
This story will appear in the Nov. 18, 2023, issue of Billboard.
TikTok launched a new feature on Tuesday (Nov. 14) that allows users to easily save music they find on the platform to Spotify, Amazon Music or Apple Music for future listening. This will presumably reduce friction between the apps, helping translate interest on TikTok into streaming activity at a time when the music industry has been concerned that the relationship is weakening.
“TikTok is already the world’s most powerful platform for music discovery and promotion, which helps artists connect with our global community to drive engagement with their music,” Ole Obermann, TikTok’s global head of music business development, said in a statement. The new feature “takes this process a step further, creating a direct link between discovery on TikTok and consumption on a music streaming service, making it easier than ever for music fans to enjoy the full length song on the music streaming service of their choice, thereby generating even greater value for artists and rights holders.”
This “Add to Music App” will be available to users in the United States and the United Kingdom. TikTok started testing the integration earlier this year with Apple Music.
When TikTok initially came to prominence more than four years ago, virality on the app often appeared directly correlated with a jump in streams. But that link appeared to weaken as the app ballooned in popularity. The top 10 TikTok tracks in the United States were streamed far less in 2022 than they were in 2021, according to data from Luminate. And the top 10 songs on the app in 2021 were streamed far less than they were in 2020.
“For a while it was like, ‘All you gotta do is get a song going on TikTok, and it’s outta here!’” a major label executive told Billboard last year. But “it’s not a guarantee anymore” that a song will become a hit, the executive said.
Some sounds appear to thrive on TikTok but never catch fire on streaming services, where they actually generate money for the music industry. Labels will surely be excited if the “Add to Music App” helps strengthen the connection between TikTok activity and clicks on Spotify.
In the past, Spotify and TikTok have sometimes seemed at odds, competing for user attention and influence over the music industry. During the former’s Stream On event in March, for example, Gustav Soderstrom, Spotify’s co-president, took a subtle jab that seemed aimed at TikTok: “Discoveries on Spotify, unlike many other platforms, give creators so much more than just a fleeting moment of viral fame,” he said.
This sentiment was echoed at the same event by Sulinna Ong, Spotify’s global head of editorial, who noted that “there’s a disconnect between where music is being teased and where music is actually being streamed. The most powerful time to reach fans is when they’ve chosen to engage with music, like when they open up Spotify.”
But despite past poking and prodding, the two platforms now appear happy to work together. “We want to create less work to get to the audio you love,” Sten Garmark, Spotify’s global head of consumer experience, said in a statement. “That means being everywhere our users are and creating seamless ways to save songs to Spotify to enjoy when and how they choose to listen.”
Karolina Joynathsing, the director of business development for Amazon Music, used similar language in her own statement. “Some of the best parts of being a music lover are those serendipitous moments when you discover a new song or artist that you connect with instantly,” Joynathsing said. “At Amazon Music, we’re looking to make it easier to convert those moments into enduring fandom,” leading to the adoption of the Add to Music app.
TikTok plans to roll out the new feature in additional markets in the coming months.
Nepal’s government in the capital of Kathmandu decided to ban the popular social media app TikTok on Monday, saying it was disrupting “social harmony” in the country, home of Mount Everest. The announcement was made following a Cabinet meeting. Foreign Minister Narayan Prakash Saud said the app would be banned immediately. “The government has decided […]