Waters remains an unsigned, independent artist who has a team directly working for him-and for good reason, he’s built an organic audience for his music and doesn’t really need the marketing support a record label can offer. To find viral success you need to be embraced by the cultural moment. Somehow his videos resonated with TikTok and racked up hundreds of thousands of streams, eventually capturing the attention of some heavy hitter managers and helping Waters find a path to Spotify’s major playlists. The catalyst for Stunnin’s success was simply uploading a few videos with snippets of the track that featured a loosely choreographed dance with his brother in his driveway. Here’s another track that’s had some serious momentum on TikTok before it was ever released. More than anything else, the reasons for its massive resurgence have to do with the cultural moment and the video by Doggface208 that captured America’s heart. That sunset longboard cruise really captured a vibe that people wanted to feel in the middle of a bleak pandemic.īut, explaining why this song went so viral is pretty difficult-the song, set to that sunset longboard cruise really captured a vibe that people wanted to feel in the middle of a bleak pandemic. “Dreams” is a truly excellent song, so I was glad to see it trend so heavily. The best example is the absolutely gigantic viral trend that started when that guy got on his longboard and cruised into the sunset to the tune “Dreams” by Fleetwood Mac.ĭreams was already a huge hit way back in the 1970s, but it got a second life after that viral video-it even returned to the charts for a period of time, getting play on top 40 radio stations. TikTok doesn’t just give new artists breakout success-it’s been the catalyst for the revival of classic tunes and likely a source of discovery for younger generations. The hook was easy to remember and sing along to-plus the Nine Inch Nails sample used throughout the song became instantly recognizable.Īnother contributing factor to the song’s success was that used no profanity-meaning kids and families could enjoy the whole song and grasp its meaning with ease.Īll-in-all Old Town Road was an incredibly fun cultural moment and somewhat of a coming-out party for the youthful Gen Z generation and its platform of choice, TikTok. The catchy hook crossed over genres and appealed not only to hip-hop fans but also to country fans-the track charted on country charts, topping out at number for an extended period. There were a handful of reasons why the track did so well. His 2019 breakout hit “Old Town Road” town that launched him into stardom got its start on both SoundCloud and TikTok-racking up tons of streams and generating a lot of attention. Get fast, insightful support and promotional tips, tools and tricks and distribution to 100+ music streaming platforms when you release your tracks with LANDR. Let’s take a look at these 7 viral TikTok songs and explore why they went so big. You can’t just capture lightning in a bottle, as the saying goes. There’s no specific formula for writing something that captures the cultural imagination and goes wildly popular overnight-you can’t just capture lightning in a bottle, as the saying goes.īut, that doesn’t mean that there aren’t patterns and commonalities between the songs that go viral. Today, countless artists document their lives, creative process and musical output on TikTok-and many of them dream of one day writing a viral TikTok song. Not to mention that the original premise of TikTok was for users to share duets of themselves singing or dancing to a favorite tune. It makes sense, the platform lends itself to music sharing with its game-changing library of music that anyone can set their videos to.

If there’s one path to finding success and stardom as a modern music creator it might be writing a viral TikTok song.īy now, anyone who’s used the platform can probably list a handful of tracks they discovered because of TikTok.

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