TikTok is introducing a brand new approach for musicians on the platform to advertise their music — this time via a video collection.
The collection, known as “Off the Report,” is produced by TikTok and options musical artists like Shakira, Charli XCX, and Meghan Trainor. The quick clips are much like collection like Track Exploder or The New York Instances’ “Diary of a Track,” the place artists speak about their inspiration behind songs, the writing and recording course of, and extra. The movies — a few of which have already gone stay — are shared by artists over the course of June.
TikTok additionally introduced a hub on the app the place Off the Report movies stay. Customers can discover the web page by looking for #OfftheRecord.
“Off the Report is a part of TikTok’s continued efforts to assist artists in any respect factors of their journey and deepen the connection between artists and followers, which is just doable on TikTok,” the corporate wrote in a weblog submit.
TikTok has so completely reshaped the music trade that there’s even a Billboard chart monitoring the most well-liked songs on the platform. The platform has created new stars, reignited the careers of established musicians, and birthed a subgenre of music that feels engineered to go viral on the platform.
However the music trade’s relationship with TikTok has been rocky at occasions. Like with different streaming platforms, together with Spotify, artists and labels have stated that compensation is insufficient for the artists that make the music soundtracking billions of TikTok movies. Within the age of highly effective synthetic intelligence instruments, deepfake voices resembling well-known musicians have flooded on-line platforms, and in lots of circumstances, artists don’t have management over their AI doubles. On TikTok, the friction reached a boiling level in February, when Common Music Group — which represents artists like Taylor Swift and Drake — started taking down its catalog as licensing negotiations with TikTok stalled. The 2 events reached a brand new deal in Could, saying “defending human creativity” was a shared purpose.
In current months, TikTok has launched options which can be extra clearly promotional for musicians. A set of themed photograph frames and “challenges” that rolled out for the discharge of Swift’s latest album, for instance, got here within the midst of UMG and TikTok’s struggle, and Swift’s music returned to the platform earlier than an official deal had been introduced. The brand new TikTok-branded interview collection is an extension of this: one other advertising and marketing alternative for 2 codependent industries.