By skyforbes 
by Sheldon Rocha Leal
Social media has had a major impact on the way we consume and interact with music. It has probably been one of the greatest evolutions in the music business since the Napster Revolution of 1999, which ushered in the digital revolution. Nowadays, social media has made it easy for a user to embed their favourite piece of music in the pictures and videos they upload on various platforms. Most social platforms contain vast libraries of music, that users can access to share their images (both moving and static) with the world. The ingenious thing about these interactions is that the platforms have pre-cleared all the music contained on their sites for use by their users.
This has, therefore, made it exceptionally easy for a user to apply songs to their creative output, without having to worry about acquiring the relevant usage licenses. The result is that songs can now become international hits without ever charting, merely based on their usage on millions of videos. This has also given older hits a second lease at life, sometimes resulting in more success than their initial outings. Additionally, because of the shorter format on platforms like TikTok, songs have now been relegated to sound bites, with people not even knowing what the original track sounds like, because they only know the “good bits”.
This hit me personally when I was playing a song that had gone viral on TikTok to my students, who swore they had never heard the song. This was until the chorus kicked in and a lightbulb moment materialised. The way in which users currently consume music has had a major impact on the music business, altering the way composers and artists write and create music. Many music creators are now resorting to writing shorter songs and starting with the chorus as opposed to a verse. This is all to capture the attention of audiences, whose exposure to social media, has resulted in audiences with shorter attention spans.
Cilla Black: Surprise, Surprise (1985 & 2023)
Cilla Black was a British singer, actress and presenter who rose to prominence in the 1960s. She was a child star who on the urging of John Lennon’s aunt, Aunt Mimi, got her nephew to introduce her to Brian Epstein (the Beatles’ manager). The Beatles were big supporters of the singer and even accompanied her on her first audition which was a disaster because the guys played all their songs in the original key. She was eventually signed to Brian Epstein, who introduced her to Sir George Martin who helped her secure a recording deal with Parlophone Records. Her first hit “Love of the Loved” was written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney and produced by Sir George Martin. She eventually had 11 Top 10 hits.
Her viral hit was never even initially a chart hit. The song was the theme for her 1984 television show “Surprise, Surprise”, which she hosted until 2001. The premise of the show was to surprise people in different ways including reuniting, pranking and fulfilling people’s long-held wishes. The song was written by Kate Robbins and featured on Cilla’s 12th studio album, “Surprising Cilla” in 1985. The album was such a flop that when it was decided to re-release the album in 2003 they were not able to create the album as the master tapes had been lost. In 2023 “Surprise, Surprise” went viral on TikTok, eight years after her passing, at a time when people were looking for something to be optimistic about.
Connie Francis: Pretty Little Baby (1962 & 2025)
Francis was one of Rock ‘n Rolls biggest stars, having shipped over 100 million records in her career. In the 1950s and ’60s, she was arguably the female equivalent of Elvis Presley. Her first brush with fame came as a star on “Startime Kids” between 1953 and 1955, when she was 16 years old. When the show was taken off air her father and manager secured a recording deal with MGM Records. Her first few singles were a flop and when her contract terminated in 1957 she decided to pursue a career as a doctor. Just before the end of her contract she recorded a cover version of the 1927 song “Who’s Sorry Now” which went largely unnoticed until it was played on “Dick Clark’s American Bandstand” in 1958 and the rest is history.
“Pretty Little Baby” was recorded in 1962 and featured on her 18th studio album “Connie Francis Sings: Second Hand Love”. It was originally not released as a single and resided as the B-side of “I’m Gonna Be Warm This Winter”, which was poorly received. The song went viral in 2025, a few months before her passing, when it was included as a sound bite on various TikTok videos, accumulating 27 billion views. Her label finally released the track as the last song from her 18th album in 2025 (63 years after its initial release). It subsequently debuted on UK and USA charts, and accumulated 117 million streams on Spotify alone.
Carly Rae Jepsen featuring Rufus Wainwright: The Loneliest Time (2022)
Carly Rae Jepsen is probably one of the most underrated Pop stars of the century. The Canadian singer was discovered on the fifth season of Canadian Idol in 2007, where she finished in the Top 3. In 2008 she released her debut album, “Tug of War”, which didn’t do much on the charts, but was critically acclaimed. Her big break arrived in 2011 with the release of her 5th single, “Call Me Maybe”. The single peaked at No1 in the USA and spent 9 weeks at pole position. It went on to top the charts in 19 countries and shipped over 18million singles worldwide. Since that initial success, although she has released some amazing Pop albums, she has struggled to recapture her initial shine.
In 2022 Carly Rae collaborated with another legendary Canadian singer, Rufus Wainwright, on the title track of her 6th studio album, “The Loneliest Time”. This song was one of my favourite tracks of 2022. The single was the 4th and final release from “The Loneliest Time”, but was poorly received, achieving no commercial or chart success. It was, however, warmly received on TikTok, where an audio snippet from the song featuring the lyrics “I’m Coming Back For You, Baby” was used as a meme. The song was released at a time when the world was emerging from the Covid-19 pandemic and audiences were seeking an optimistic message, which the song delivered.
Madonna: Live To Tell (1986 & 2025)
Madonna is the biggest selling female recording artist of all time, having shipped over 300 million records in her career. Although she falls within the Pop music genre, her message has always been layered and nuanced, dealing with many of the injustices in our society. She has, therefore, been dealt with quite harshly by the patriarchy and as a consequence has sometimes been viewed as a Pop villain. That being said, her audience has generally been supportive and as a result she has mostly performed well commercially. In recent years she has committed herself to her rainbow family and charity work in Malawi.
At the height of her success, in 1986, she released her most commercially successful album, “True Blue”, which shipped more than 25 million records globally. The album generated three No1 hit singles, one of which was “Live To Tell”, also the first single release from the album. The song was featured on the soundtrack for her first husband’s, Sean Penn, movie “At Close Range”. At the beginning of 2025 we experienced a society that was being reflective and the song resonated with younger audiences. The vantage point from which the new audience experienced the song was different from its original incarnation. The result is that the song was used on many TikTok videos propelling the diva back onto the UK charts.
Glass Animals: Heat Waves (2020 & 2022)
Glass Animals are an indie rock band founded in 2010, who have released four studio albums. The four members, Dave Bayley, Drew MacFarlane, Edmund Irwin-Singer and Joe Seaward, met in high school. They were originally signed to Kaya Kaya Records, a subsidiary of XL Recordings, the same label that brought us Adele. The band eventually signed a deal with Paul Epworth’s Wolf Tone records, which was distributed through Virgin Record’s Caroline Distribution. Paul Epworth is a Grammy Award winning producer, who has worked with some of the most iconic acts of our era including Adele, U2, Rihanna and Sir Paul McCartney.
“Heat Waves” was born amidst various unfortunate incidences. The band had to delay the creation of their third studio album, “Dreamland”, after Joe Seaward (the drummer) suffered injuries after a cycling accident. When they were finally ready to go into studio they were derailed by the Covid pandemic. The song was written in 2018 in The Church, a studio in North London. The song was eventually released in 2020 and received a luke warm reception. It was only after it was used in the Minecraft YouTube community, featured on various iTune and Spotify playlists and on used on various TikTok videos that the song became a hit. In 2022 it eventually took pole position on the Billboard Hot 100.
The trajectory of a hit song has been completely altered by the new music industry dispensation. Whereas in the past a song needed to strike while the iron was hot, in today’s business there is no telling when a song will become a hit. Just because a song doesn’t burn hot when it is initially released does not mean it will never be a hit. This is clear from the songs highlighted above, especially with songs like “Pretty Little Baby” by Connie Francis or “Surprise, Surprise” by Cilla Black. Both were hits more than three decades after they were originally released, when they received lukewarm receptions.
The way in which the new music industry functions has helped democratise the dissemination and consumption of creative output. No longer is the seat of power controlled from one location, it is now in the hands of audiences and creators as to what will be released and ultimately become a hit. More and more we are seeing hits that were released decades earlier becoming sleeper hits and dominating the airwaves. What is most interesting is that today an artist can have a mega hit on their hands, which may never chart, because of the way in which it is consumed. Ultimately, these songs are given a reincarnation on these new platforms, giving them a second lease at life.