No video, no song. On TikTok, artists are pinning their record labels to speak out against the pressure they’re under to create content that’s supposed to promote their new sounds. Labels would impose to create “viral peaks” before the official release of a new song in order to ensure its success.
This request is denounced by artists such as FKA Twigs, Charli XCX, Ed Sheeran or even Florence Welch of the group Florence and the Machine, who produce TikTok videos where they criticize this requirement of the labels. Last month, singer Gavin DeGraw even made a parody version of one of his 2003 hits, retitled I Don’t Want to Be on TikTok but My Label Told Me That I Have To” [“Je n’ai pas envie d’être sur TikTok mais mon label me dit que je suis obligé”].
Beyond self-promotion on social networks, now common and almost essential for an artist, this would be a form of blackmail on the part of labels. Singer Halsey asserts in a widely circulated video:
“I have a song that I love and that I want to release quickly, but my record company refuses… According to them, impossible, unless they manage to mount something viral on TikTok.”
While the excerpt from the song in question is broadcast in the background of the TikTok video that has actually gone viral, she points out that “It’s all marketing”, rem