TikTok, the app known for propelling unknown artists onto the Billboard charts, has had a rocky start to 2024.
Universal Music Group (UMG) removed catalogs from the platform, including big-name artists like Taylor Swift, Billie Eilish, and Drake, in late January after negotiations between the company and TikTok fell apart. In February, UMG removed more music from the platform, this time all songs managed by Universal Music Publishing Group (UMPG), including songs written or co-written by UMG artists. TikTok estimates that UMG owns 20 to 30 percent of the music on the platform.
Taylor Swift’s brand is stronger than her pen
In April, ahead of the release of Swift’s latest album, Struggling Poets Category, The singer’s music was returning to TikTok: By early May, TikTok and UMG had inked a deal to bring the catalog back to the app.
During a 4-month slump, Djo’s “End of Beginning” skyrocketed in popularity and was used as background music for nearly every video on FYP. But in the past two months, TikTok has reclaimed its place as a hub for music discovery.
Here are some of the most popular and most talked about songs on the platform in 2024.
Billie Eilish’s “BIRDS OF A FEATHER”
Eilish’s music returns to TikTok at a time when she’s riding the success of her latest album. Strike me hard and softly. While “LUNCH” was the album’s first single, “Birds of a Feather” was a major social media hit, with Eilish’s plea to “stay together” becoming a staple background track for friendship and love-themed TikTok videos, garnering more than 254,000 views in less than a month since its release.
“The End of the Beginning” by Djo
Though this year’s biggest hit was actually released in 2022, the song has skyrocketed in popularity on TikTok, from just 18,000 videos in February to 2.2 million in March. The cinematic, dream-pop song has become a perfect platform for posts expressing nostalgia for a city long since moved away, with fan-edited videos. bearand has the added bonus of being written by someone already beloved on the platform: Joe Keery (the actor who plays fan favorite Steve Harrington). Stranger Things.
Sabrina Carpenter’s “Espresso”
Carpenter, who rose to fame singing Olivia Rodrigo’s “Blonde Girl” and opening for Swift on the Latin American legs of her Hellas Tour, captivated the internet with four little words: “That’s me, espresso.”
Mashable Top Stories
Her sun-soaked hits are not only incredibly catchy, but also quotable: “That’s Me, Espresso” and “I’m Working Late Because I’m a Singer” have spawned countless memes. Between the original and the “Double Shot Version,” they’ve soundtracked more than 117,000 videos on the app. If TikTok and Twitter are any indication, “Espresso” is shaping up to be the song of the summer.
“Nasty” by Tinashe
“Anyone Like My Weirdo” is to Tinashe what “That’s My Espresso” is to Carpenter.
“Nasty” first aired in April and went viral thanks to some weird white-boy dance moves on TikTok. A genius X-user reposted a short video of dancer Nate, who goes by the handle @nates.vibes, doing some impressive moves: shaking his hips, biting his fingers, and sticking out his tongue. His moves were so at odds with his nerdy appearance that it quickly became the subject of memes.
In the original video, In the video, posted in February 2023, Nate dances to Hey Choppy’s “Bind,” but in the version that went viral, the audio is replaced with “Nasty.” The video has garnered over 10 million views on X and generated nearly 500,000 posts on TikTok, including Tinashe imitating Nate’s moves herself.
“Not Like Us” by Kendrick Lamar
Between March and May, Kendrick Lamar and Drake engaged in a fierce rap battle inspired by Future, Metro Boomin and Lamar’s “Like That.”
Across 10 songs, Lamar and Drake traded blow-by-blows at each other, sending the internet ablaze with analysis and speculation, but it seems Lamar emerged victorious with back-to-back hits “Meet the Grahams” and “Not Like Us.” Featuring indictive and suspenseful bars like “Certified Lover Boy, certified pedophiles” and “Tryna strike a chord, and it’s probably A-minor,” “Not Like Us” has generated 684,000 TikTok videos and counting.
Beyonce’s “TEXAS HOLD ‘EM”
Beyoncé inspired a classic TikTok dance with “TEXAS HOLD ‘EM.” The original dance video, choreographed by users Dexter Mayfield (@dexrated) and Matt McCall (@matt8mccall), garnered an astounding 43.5 million views and 4.2 million likes. The song has since been used in over 1 million videos.
Charlie XCX’s “The Von Dutch Remix with Addison Rae & AG Cook”
Go back Brat The internet went lime green and everyone went crazy for Julia. TikTok user Addison Rae joined the remix of Charli XCX’s single “Von Dutch” and all we can say is people loved it. The video of Rae screaming and ad-libbing has garnered 30.7 million views and 3.6 million likes. TikTok is on fire because AG made it!
“Too Sweet” by Hozier
In an unexpected twist, Hozier’s song “Too Sweet” sparked a naughty photo-centric TikTok trend, as his sultry vocals inspired users to post before-and-after photos of themselves and their favorite celebrities to accompany the lyrics, “I want my whiskey straight.”
