What TikTok’s summer songs tell us about our music habits

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BWhatever summer you’ve had in recent years – Brat, Hot Girl, or in my case Knackered Dad – it was probably because TikTok told you so. The days of a sadistic breakfast DJ forcing a “Saturday Night,” “Agadoo,” or “Gangnam Style” on Balearic holidaymakers are long gone. The days of scheming tiki bar managers making a “Shape of You” or “Despacito” ubiquitous worldwide from May to September. Or when Twitter/X-shares made Bruno Mars, Pharrell Williams, or Robin Thicke peak season stars are long gone.

Today’s big summer songs are decided by a six-second clip, a trendy lyric snippet and its suitability for showcasing one’s lunch, handbag, dance move or butt filler.

This week, TikTok released its list of the biggest hits of the summer on the platform, and it was an eye-opening read, both in terms of what wasn’t included and what was included. There’s been a lot of talk about 2024 being a brat summer, although no one is really able to define the vaguely rebellious rules: Mine, I’m told, started when I deliberately filled up the dregs of a pint with half a bottle. completely different brand of bearing, an action that also brought back sexiness by chance. But Charli XCX, whose brat The album the idea was based on wasn’t on the charts. Taylor Swift wasn’t on the charts either, even though her record-breaking Eras tour has filled every subway car I’ve been on since June with sequins and friendship bracelets.

Nu-Taylor Sabrina Carpenter has two top 10 hits but isn’t at the top of the TikTok charts, despite her “Espresso” phenomenon suggesting it is. Instead, these are songs in low-key and understated styles — R&B, rap, country-pop, electro-funk — but with a catchy tagline that conveys a particular mood, boast, emotion or challenge.

Topping the global charts is “Gata Only” by FloyyMenor and Cris MJ, two Chilean wannabe gangsters who, in the video, dance around the infinity pool of a hillside villa that looks so uninhabited you’d think they just snuck up the hill to avoid security drones while the exiled Mexican cartel boss who actually lives there serves a five-year prison sentence. Their standard reggaeton song reads like a DM thread from a pushy Hinge stalker: “Send me your location” and “Give me a chance to rub myself against you,” sings this Gen Z pair of Bryan Ferrys. But it also includes the crucial line, “Move your ass to the rhythm of TikTok.” Yes, global superstar status really is that easy these days.

On the British list, a 2011 track by Blood Orange is at number 2 – not, as you might assume, for its cool synthetic art-funk textures, but because it contains the line “come into my bedroom,” which is far easier to deploy en masse by TikTok users bombarding it across the board than any kind of seductive charm and wit. Tommy Richman’s “Million Dollar Baby,” which enters at No. 3, is a rote electro-rap show-off track whose hook, “I’m a million dollar baby,” is perfect for this casual clip with flashing bling.

Topping the list is Tinashe’s “Nasty,” a sort of Megan Thee Stallion-esque R&B song that plays into the male rap fantasy of the sexually insatiable (but shy) woman telling men that her half-hearted bedroom maneuvers are the stuff of Poldark’s OnlyFans. It’s a catchy track, but with a golden goose line: “Is someone going to match my freak?”

Tinashe’s freak involves so much hip-swinging that I’m still on the fence after my attempt to imitate it, but TikTok loves to pick up this kind of gauntlet. Last year, a prankster laid the line over an earlier video of a bespectacled man named Nate Di Winer reeling in his stuff while biting his finger; the clip garnered over 13 million views and sparked a global TikTok dance trend. Janet Jackson and Christina Aguilera were among the millions of people who tried to imitate Tinashe’s freak. The song was even laid over footage of King Charles unveiling his royal portrait.

Ker-ching, right? Not so much, actually. What’s striking about TikTok’s summer 2024 song list is the growing disconnect it reveals between online trends and actual cultural influence. Dave and Central Cee’s “Sprinter,” which topped TikTok’s list last year, spent 10 weeks at No. 1, sold 1.2 million copies, and cemented both acts’ positions at the top of the rap chart. “Nasty,” on the other hand, trudged to No. 66 on the UK charts and No. 61 in the US, and is by no means as unavoidable outside of your local Tiger Tiger as previous summer songs like “Happy” or “Despacito.”

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So has online music consumption reached its Promethean moment? The first evolutionary point at which its purpose splits into different strands of enjoyment and representation? The TikTok generation seems to have developed a sense of the perfect Sonic meme. Not a song you’d necessarily dance to, watch a concert to, or buy a T-shirt for, but ideal as a soundtrack for a three-second online laugh that you’ll then forget the second the next trendy lyric comes along to sing to your cat.

Why? Perhaps too many times Gen Z has been fooled by a trending TikTok artist, catapulting them into stadiums and festivals, only to find that for over an hour live, they’re about as entertaining as apple-diving in British river water. The industry is catching up. This year, Reading and Leeds, known for falling for the hype of streaming numbers far too easily, is sending electro-grime act LeoStayTrill to the first stage of its second stage. Although its D Block Europe-esque song “Pink Lemonade (Str8 Reload)” is number 4 on this year’s TikTok list, hardly expect it to dominate the weekend.

Or perhaps the onslaught of industry dealers trying to stifle their actions on the site, for lack of other ideas, overwhelmed users who simply wanted to shake their butts to the world without being pestered by salivating commercialism. “When marketers and publicists realized that TikTok was their best hope for attention, they swarmed,” wrote New York Times Earlier this year, critic Jon Caramanica turned the app into “a conventional advertising dust bowl.”

Whatever the reason for its waning power, it’s a welcome development. For all its influence, helping the likes of Lil Nas X, Doja Cat, or PinkPantheress break through, TikTok has never really been about discovering and promoting interesting, boundary-pushing, music-changing acts, or even giving us a genuine feel-good hit of the summer. It promotes already-familiar styles of music as disposable, in the background, regardless of the overall quality of an act’s work, driving us deeper into an inescapable rut.

Let’s pray that TikTok’s slip-up in culture leaves us with fewer flash-in-the-pans and more worthy actions a chance to breathe.