For the sake of TikTok: Are our musicians losing their craft?

Mike Shinoda, Halsey and Florence Welch to name a few, have all spoken out about the labels forcing the prioritisation of social media on their artists – be it up and coming or established artists in their craft.

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“How is a young artist expected to put in enough time to get great at their craft when they need to feed all these content channels? The time they spend generating mind numbing ‘content’ might have been at the expense of the best song they never wrote.” – Mike Shinoda ponders as he took to Twitter for a rant.

You can read the full discussion HERE.

Even Florence shared her eye-rolling contempt at creating ‘lo-fi TikToks’ to keep up with the rustic trend:

help is needed, indeed.

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With the majority of artists being abdicated to the frivolities of social media to “upkeep attention” with their fans and their music, it begs a rather important question to the future of our music industry: are musicians ultimately losing their craft?

With the industry what it is today, it goes without saying that saturation is becoming a never-ending issue for our artists trying to break down the doors, allowing avid listeners getting them on their profiles and pages. Now, I’m not saying that social media is not importnat – it’s hugely important and generates unlimited benefits to finding the next fan or next artist – it is a circle of compliments. While it is important, it is perhaps become too important, as the industry becomes a depravity pit without the self-sustaining source of social media credibility and influence. As the old dinosaur labels catch up with how the new boys run things, our artists are coming under even more pressure to follow suit, producing TikTok viral videos, promoting new music on Instagram live and actively hosting time into the depth of social media channels. All this as opposed to tackling the important stuff – the music itself.

But, are our music artists merely complaining about nothing at all? It is simply part of the industry grind, slowly becoming a socialised norm – albeit a necessary evil – within the world of music? Or can we do without the influence of TikTok floodings from our favourite artists who have to follow the trends – rather than be their weird, extravagant selves?

Let me know what YOU think to this one. Leave your thoughts in the comments BELOW x

4 responses to “For the sake of TikTok: Are our musicians losing their craft?”

Rocking Specter

Jul 7, 2022 at 9:26 pm

This is a really interesting post. While social media can help launch careers, forced social media like TikTok can cause some problems. More established bands like Trivium turned to Twitch and YouTube to push their influence, which gives the listener and viewer a more polished product. We definitely think we do without TikTok as an influencing tool for more established acts. Bands like Trivium, Journey, Iron Maiden, and Shinedown has throngs of fans who organically introduce music to younger generations. One of closest friends started listening to Rush, Iron Maiden, and Dream Theater because of their parents. TikTok only effectively works for acts trying to “get discovered” among younger generations like Generation Z and the one after it. Great post. Thank you for sharing, and we hope you check us out.

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1. manvmusic
  
  Jul 7, 2022 at 10:03 pm
  
  You’re spot on with your analysis here, my friend. It’s certainly making a habit of producing a polished product amongst younger fans and again, it’s tapping into that next generation of potential consumers. Above all else, it’s artists who have been in the game a long time, trying to stay relevant among a generation who can’t keep their attention spans for no more than a few seconds!
  
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  1. Rocking Specter
    
    Jul 7, 2022 at 10:26 pm
    
    That’s very true, and we definitely understand the problems with shortened attention spans.
    
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EclecticMusicLover

Jul 8, 2022 at 9:32 pm

Social media is both a blessing and a curse. I waste a lot of time on social media, especially Twitter, with little to show for it other than a lot of followers who ignore my tweets.

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