Streaming has made the charts a largely indie-free zone (aside from the Killers’ deathless Mr Brightside). Now it seems that guitar music is slowly being muscled out of the way on social media as well.
TikTok has revealed that views of posts using electronic music as a soundtrack, including techno and house, outgrew those tagged ‘indie and alternative’ for the first time last year. Apparently, there were more than 13 billion videos tagged ‘electronic music’ in 2024, 45% more than in 2023, a faster growth than those tagged either indie or ‘rap and hip hop’.
TikTok suggested that its users were turning to electronic music as a soundtrack for specific types of clips, such as sport, fitness and fashion, as well as travel content and summer holiday recaps.
TikTok’s head of music partnerships for the UK and Ireland, Toyin Mustapha said: “Dance music has become more accessible and big in the commercial sphere. We are seeing the breaking down of boundaries for artists, and TikTok is part of that.”
Interestingly, indie and hip-hop both remain more successful overall on TikTok – again, something that is not reflected in streaming figures. Needless to say, last year’s news of the impending Oasis reunion bumped up those figures considerably - the hashtag ‘#OasisReunion’ received more than 100 million video views in the first couple of weeks after the Gallaghers' reconciliation was first announced.
There is also the trend of TikTok users resurrecting old tracks, including Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s ever popular 2001 hit Murder On The Dancefloor and Bronski Beat’s classic Smalltown Boy. Some are more obscure, though: Blood Orange’s 2011 track Champagne Coast was used by an incredible 1.1 million TikTok posts and, Come And Get Your Love, a 1974 single by the US band Redbone (which was never a hit in the UK) was used in 386,000 posts.
Meanwhile Harness Your Hopes, a Pavement B side (and you surely can’t get more indie than that) has been used by 217,000 TikTok users and become their most streamed song in their entire catalogue.
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