TikTok, as one of the fastest growing social media platforms, has been increasingly used by less notable musicians to promote their music. Undoubtedly, the app has blown up some very talented artists, but the general attitude towards TikTok music is that it’s always bad.I do somewhat agree. I mean, TikTok did blow up Leah Kate, whose music I tried to sit through for longer than five minutes to give her a fair chance, but that was impossible. Her songs are just bad. One song, titled “10 things I Hate About You”, a play-off of the hit 1999 movie title, Kate lists out all 10 reasons she hates her ex-boyfriend, (“Ten, you’re selfish/Nine, you’re jaded/Eight, the dumbest guy I’ve dated”) and so on until she reaches the last reason, in which she declares she hates him because he made her love him despite all of the terrible things he did (“One, I hate the fact that you made me love you”). The song is basically a rip-off of Miley Cyrus’s “7 Things”, where she lists out the seven reasons she hates her ex-boyfriend, also ending with how she still loves him. The generic lyrics and generic singing results in a horrifically overplayed song that still has me cringing on the rare occasions it manages to pop up on my “for you” page. The other songs of Kate’s I’ve heard sound practically the same, almost as if they’re AI-generated.

However, I’d argue TikTok mostly blows up good songs, even if the internet overplays them. Practically everyone has heard GAYLE’s hit song “abcdefu”, which isn’t a bad song, but hearing it on the radio every five minutes is more irritating than hearing nails on a chalkboard. However, GAYLE’s other songs are actually pretty good. Songs like “leave me for dead”, “z”, and “kiddie pool” are all great songs that really show GAYLE’s true potential as an artist, despite her overplayed hit single.

TikTok also blew up rapper Ice Spice. Ice Spice’s EP “Like..?”, which was released in January of this year, went viral on TikTok. The song “In Ha Mood” has over 700,000 videos posted on TikTok using it. More recently, Ice Spice’s collaboration with PinkPantheress in February, “Boy’s a liar Pt. 2”, which has around 4 million videos posted under it. While the song became a quick success, it became overplayed within just a few weeks. TikTok trends good songs, but the trends last forever to the point where the song starts to make you feel sick.

Ice Spice’s viral songs eventually landed her a feature on Taylor Swift’s “Midnights: The Til Dawn Edition”, which included three new tracks: “Hits Different”, “Snow on the Beach (featuring More Lana Del Rey)”, and, of course, “Karma (featuring Ice Spice)”. Ice Spice’s version of Karma also quickly blew up on TikTok, although many felt the feature was lackluster and didn’t work as well as it could’ve in the song. I’d have to agree. Ice Spice’s vocals are good, and so are her lyrics, but the slower instrumentals in her part of the song are so confusing. Keeping the original beat under her part of the song makes it sound so much better. 

Still, TikTok does generally promote good artists. It’s the users that need to learn when too many plays are too many plays.

The views in this column do not necessarily reflect the views of the HiLite staff. Reach Katie Maurer at [email protected].