By skyforbes 
TikTok has fundamentally transformed from a dance-video app into the single most decisive force in determining global music success. With 84% of songs that hit Billboard’s Global 200 in 2024 first breaking on the platform, TikTok’s recommendation system now acts as a new kind of gatekeeper — one that can make or break careers through viral moments lasting mere seconds.
This revolution is not just about dances. TikTok fans are considerably bigger spenders on music than any other fans, and its “Add to Music” app has already saved more than a billion tracks to streaming accounts. But the object of authority begets a question: has TikTok genuinely opened discovery to anyone, or just built new gates around a dark formula driven by optimisation?
How TikTok’s Algorithm Shapes Musical Taste
Sound-centric design is a kind of gatekeeping on TikTok. TikTok runs millions of microsignals, including finish watching, rewatches, shares, duet/stitch making, and comment pace, and reinforces clips because they make humans engage with them over and over. Producers of radio shows simply make a few binary choices. Government and corporate research has concluded that these computer signs influence a great deal on what humans see and then stream.
When a sound goes viral, the platform forms viral sound communities: every new video using that audio reinforces discovery, pulling the track into further feeds. A 10–15s hook can travel around the world in days.
They call this “algo-torial power”. Bonini & Gandini show how platform gatekeepers interleave algorithmic filtering and selective human intervention, exerting more data and nuanced control than previous intermediaries. Meanwhile, the platform’s timeboxing does matter: if a track doesn’t “hook” in the first 3–5 seconds, it’ll be algorithmically muted and contribute to what Bojana Radovanović identifies as an “aural turn” — sound designed for the scrolling of the smartphone screen rather than time-honoured songcraft.
From K-pop to Latin Pop: TikTok’s Global Reach
TikTok’s Chinese ownership through ByteDance has created unprecedented tensions in Western music markets, culminating in the 2024 Universal Music Group licensing dispute with TikTok. Elie Ofek, a professor at Harvard Business School, said that “TikTok felt like they had the power” in talks because they used the value of exposure to get fair artist pay. The US TikTok ban in January 2025, which President Trump put on hold for a while, shows that there are bigger national security worries about China controlling cultural material and collecting data from 170 million American users.
Regional gatekeeping differences reveal TikTok’s complex cultural dynamics. In K-pop markets, the platform enables “platformed glocalization,” which lets artists get around traditional Korean entertainment managers while still staying true to their culture. Latin music has the most dramatic changes in cultural power. For example, FloyyMenor and Cris Mj’s “Gata Only” was a world TikTok hit in 2024, with 50 million videos uploaded. They were the first Chilean acts to make it to Billboard Hot Latin Songs since 1999.
Because TikTok’s algorithm favours engagement above language barriers, the platform’s 15-second style has totally transformed how non-English music gets popular throughout the world. The Vietnamese song “See Tình” and the Kazakh pop singer SADRADDIN’s “Jauap Bar Ma?” were both enormous hits all over the world. This is one reason why 27% of all music streamed online is not in English. This tendency is an example of what scholars call “algo-torial power.” It’s a hybrid system of curation that lets culture flows go both ways instead of the conventional Western supremacy. But other detractors believe that “TikTokification” might make all music sound the same.
Viral Wins and Misses
“Million Dollar Baby” by Tommy Richman is a brilliant example of how TikTok can make unknown artists into chart-toppers. The song launched at No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 with 4.6 million plays on its first day (April 26, 2024), after a VHS-style clip was posted and got 12.5 million views on TikTok. It achieved a record 10 consecutive weeks at No. 1 on the TikTok Billboard Top 50, transforming Richman from living on friends’ couches to Grammy consideration. As Richman observed, “The label didn’t even know it would be a hit… It’s literally the public and TikTok who decide what’s a hit.”
Sabrina Carpenter’s “Espresso” shows that TikTok songs can stay popular in the mainstream. It became Spotify’s most-streamed song of 2024 with over 1.6 billion streams. In 2024, Carpenter’s total streams went up 393% (from 1.59 billion to 7.84 billion), and her Spotify followers went up from 6.9 million to 17.3 million. “Short n’ Sweet” was the third most-streamed album in the world in 2024, making her TikTok’s top artist of the year.
The success of the legacy catalog revival shows that TikTok is more than just a place to find new music. According to TikTok’s Music Impact Report, 90s rock band Korn saw a “14% monthly increase in on-demand streams just a week later” after their music went viral on TikTok, even though they hadn’t released any new music since 2022.
According to TikTok’s 2024 Music Impact Report, 84% of songs that made it to the Billboard Global 200 went viral on TikTok first. Artists saw an average 11% increase in streams within three days of their songs going viral.
But most of the time, viral success doesn’t have a long-lasting effect. Billboard analysis showed that only 24 of the 600+ songs that made it to TikTok’s Billboard Top 50 in 2024 made it to the Hot 100. That’s only 4%. This information shows that “even getting a lot of attention on a very popular app does not always mean that people are listening to it a lot.”
How TikTok is Changing Songwriting
Gatekeeping now reaches into the studio. Writers and producers talk openly about “hook-first” architecture: cut intros, hit the chorus in 10–15 seconds, write “talky”, meme-able lines, and design a moment that invites duets or transitions. Artists also face a second job: full-time content creation — posting drafts, behind-the-scenes, and trend participation — because visibility decays without constant signals.
High-profile disputes highlight the leverage shift. Multiple outlets reported cases where artists alleged labels held back releases pending a “viral moment”, including Halsey’s “So Good” controversy.
This video distils the core shift I argue throughout—gatekeeping has moved into code. It shows how labels calibrate sign/spend decisions to TikTok metrics and why “creator seeding” now substitutes for parts of radio promo.
How the Music Industry is Restructuring Around TikTok
Major labels have fundamentally reorganised around TikTok’s gatekeeper powers, creating specialised roles that didn’t exist five years ago. Warner Records appointed Will Morrow as the “senior VP/head of viral marketing”, pioneering “burner pages” strategies to flood TikTok with content. TikTok itself directly competes with traditional labels by hiring A&R managers in Los Angeles, London, São Paulo, and Jakarta for its SoundOn distribution service, requiring candidates to “identify, sign, and develop new artists across genres, with a data-driven mind.”
In 2024, Warner Music Group went through a lot of changes. CEO Robert Kyncl made the company “flatter” and laid off 600 people while putting a lot of money into TikTok-focused strategies.
There has been a lot of pushback from the industry. The fight between Universal Music Group and TikTok in 2024 brought to light issues with fair pay and AI. Halsey, Charlie XCX, and Charlie Puth are just a few artists who have spoken out against labels that make them promote TikTok before their releases. They say this hurts their artistic integrity. But it seems like resistance is useless. Amy Hart from the indie label prairy says it plainly: “All roads lead back to TikTok at this point, in some way.” Because of this, traditional gatekeepers have had to accept that they have less power in an ecosystem driven by algorithms.
Has TikTok Really Democratised Music?
There is a strong case for making things more democratic. TikTok’s For You feed doesn’t limit followers; relevancy is more important than audience size, so creators with no followers have a real chance. SoundOn and other direct distribution solutions help emerging artists keep more of their money and get to big DSPs without a label. Global and translingual flows tear down traditional radio boundaries. Independent, regional, and non-English songs can traverse borders through community challenges and creator meshes.
But democratisation is not the end of gatekeeping.
- Conversion friction: High finding doesn’t always lead to deep attention. A lot of users, especially younger ones, save the hit clip but don’t go through albums or full catalogues.
- Aesthetic constraints: The platform encourages music that gets people’s attention quickly, such rapid hooks, loopability, and memeability. It also sets algorithmic taste ceilings that might make long-form compositions or slow-burn structures less popular.
- Volatility & resources: Staying visible feels like an algorithmic lottery — bigger teams can buy advantages, while smaller artists struggle to keep up.
The new architecture of musical power
TikTok didn’t kill gatekeeping—it just reprogrammed it in algorithms and short-attention formats. Songwriting is different too: introductions are short, hooks are in seconds, and lyrics are “talky” and meme-friendly. Those choices go directly to A&R and deal-making, where platform metrics — sound usage, finish rates, and percentage saves — now make “sign or pay” decisions.
Even marketing runs on a TikTok-first operating system: creators seed content, initiate challenges, and time drops to trending cycles. Artists have become always-on creators, constantly feeding the algorithm with drafts and behind-the-scenes clips.
Discovery spikes are abundant but rarely convert into lasting fandom. Teams now build bridges—add-to-music prompts, smart links, playlists, live shows—to turn volatile feed heat into durable audiences. The complex reality of modern gatekeeping remains: visibility is still filtered, just through code.
When TikTok Meets Lawmakers
The Supreme Court’s January 17, 2025, decision in TikTok Inc. v. Garland upheld the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, citing national security concerns over data collection from 170 million US users. The Court applied intermediate scrutiny, finding that TikTok’s “scale and susceptibility to foreign adversary control, together with the vast swaths of sensitive data the platform collects, justify differential treatment.”
Data privacy enforcement has intensified significantly. FTC Chair Lina Khan filed major COPPA violation lawsuits in August 2024, stating, “TikTok knowingly and repeatedly violated kids’ privacy, threatening the safety of millions of children.” The FTC’s investigation specifically examines TikTok’s algorithmic music curation and behavioural targeting practices, raising questions about how music discovery algorithms collect and use personal data.
Congress has been looking into worries about algorithmic manipulation. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, called TikTok “a weapon used by the Chinese Communist Party to spy on you and change what you see.” Hearings looked into how the recommendation algorithm affects music promotion and cultural consumption patterns.
The European Commission charged TikTok with breaking the Digital Services Act by not being clear about its music and content ads. If the company doesn’t fix the problem, it could face fines of up to 6% of its global revenue. Legal experts say that TikTok’s algorithmic music gatekeeping creates “visibility moderation” systems that give the platform more power. Policy institutes are worried about the possibility of music discovery becoming a monopoly and content being manipulated to serve foreign interests.
Conclusion: From Public Value to Private Code
TikTok came along and vowed to transform the music industry. It did so two ways — overnight, anyone with a memorable 15-second tune could become viral. But there’s a new gatekeeper, and it’s not a label executive or a DJ. It’s a computer programme.
It’s a significant shift. Now algorithms control what we hear and for how long, but discovery doesn’t typically translate to rich, long-term fanhood.
If the industry’s going to do “TikTok-first”, then we’d also be asking for “public-first”. In return, it’d be more transparency, more diversity, and better ways to capture viral moments and turn them into longer careers for music. It’s not about eliminating platforms, it’s about ensuring the rules of the platforms serve culture and not mere clicks.
So what sort of qualities do we desire for TikTok and the subsequent world of music? Must algorithms just try and get people to interact with them, or should they be tweaked to foster long-term creativity and also diversify culture? How far as listeners must we look beyond the feed and engage with the music we’re interested in?
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