Trend Roundup
Honestly the perfect intro to today’s topic: u can listen to whatever u want whenever u want!!!
Answer the questions on the screen and pray your video doesn’t go viral so your crush doesn’t see it. Or that it does and he asks you out. Heh.
A new dance to accompany whatever song is stuck in your head. (‘Stranger Things’ soundtrack optional but highly encouraged.)
Trendsetter Spotlight
(Even) Stranger Things.
Confession: I still haven’t seen the new ‘Stranger Things’ season, and I probably won’t get around to it long until its disappeared into the annals of Internet freakouts. That being said, I, along with even my most social media-averse friends, am still familiar with the pièce de résistance of its soundtrack – which as it turns out (gasp!) is no accident.
See Exhibit A below:
Last month, Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill” as a pivotal part of the ‘Stranger Things’ soundtrack propelled the song to the #1 spot of the UK charts in 44 years, also landing it amongst the US Top 10 list 37 years after its release.
The Guardian explains that the deliberate revival of yesterday’s artists is curated through a music industry process called creative synchronization, aka ‘syncs’, in which songs (commonly classics or oldies ripe for rediscovery) are featured in TV shows, films, advertisements, et cetera.
But the power of any song – whether it was released last night or ninety years ago – going viral lies in the hands of today’s creators.
“Tracks will be constantly pitched to music streaming services’ own era- and genre-focused playlists while trends on TikTok are closely monitored so that when an old track suddenly takes off it can be capitalized on.”
UGC becomes a massive accelerator as creators (organic and otherwise – good luck telling sponsored content apart nowadays) will take audio clips of the show or movie featuring the music in question and repurpose them into various memes, mashups, and melodies.
Cue: the meme-ification of sound!
Stir the Pot
Read between the lines.
…which, apparently, The New Yorker is all but happy about.
Why this commentary is delivered with the conviction of a geriatric family member proclaiming his European travels were more authentic than mine because back then they had to use MAPS is beyond me.
The critic writes:
“…there’s something a little disconcerting about a once-in-a-generation artist like Bush being removed from the larger backdrop of her strange and singular vision, and accidentally refashioned as a viral event.
There is magic in discovering and exploring her work, magic that is difficult to access when all you’ve done is simply turn on the most popular television show in the world.”
Denouncing the legitimacy and devaluing the “magic” of hearing a song for the first time via TikTok isn’t just obtuse – it makes no sense, especially considering ‘Stranger Things’ in and of itself is an homage to the 80’s.
“Each year, the stats of what people listen to on music-streaming services skew more and more heavily toward “catalogue,” or music that is classified as five years or older.
Meanwhile, TikTok trends and TV shows resurface old music—whether it’s rarities or bygone classics—exposing dated songs to young audiences who didn’t hear the songs in their prime.”
Perhaps I should write a letter to the editor apologizing for not first hearing Kate Bush in her prime, as I, unfortunately, had not been born yet.
Meanwhile, Hollywood has explicitly been serving us nostalgia this summer far beyond just musically – take recent revivals like ‘Top Gun Maverick,’ ‘Spiderman,’ and ‘Elvis’ – and it’s paying off. According to Hollywood Reporter, movie theater attendee comfort levels are at 87%, and massive marketing spends for feature films are averaging $150 million as box office revenues hit billions.
Another example of TikTok + nostalgia = viral musical success comes in the form of a prequel to ‘Despicable Me,’ which earned $109 million – setting a box office record for the 4th of July weekend with thousands of Gen Z-ers literally dressing up for the occasion.
The Washington Post reported, quoting an e-commerce analyst, that 'Minions: The Rise of Gru’ is “the perfect storm”:
“Minions are weird and funny characters that tap into nostalgia, while the marketing team provided the raw materials for a viral trend.”
The #Minions hashtag clocks in at 9 billion TikTok hits and a related #Gentleminions hashtag has 45 million – made all the more memorable with the help of a single song used across the campaign. And while ‘Minions’ didn’t ‘sync’ an oldie,
“The song is manufactured to go viral on TikTok…it’s repetitive and also gets you to stop scrolling because when you hear the Minion sound over Yeat, you think ‘what the f**k is going on?”
So, ~strange and singular vision~ or not, the formula of TikTok + music + nostalgia is successfully helping 1) increase viewership and awareness of highly-produced (and dare I say artistic) work and 2) bring back revenue and employment into an industry whose workers were battered when all production came to a halt.
My grandpa reminiscing on his maps is annoying but relatively harmless. A publication of the New Yorker’s caliber so flippantly conflating cultural commentary with misinformed fears of the future is a sneaky and manipulative act.
Especially when we can all say with confidence that Kate Bush isn’t complaining.