We’ve heard of one hit wonders but what about one- line wonders.
From ice spice to Steve lacy. It seems as if people only remember one line from their hit songs. Tik tok has seen the rise of new artists which is great to see. But it seems another unfortunate trend is emerging.
A recent video of steve lacy hit twitter the other day. It shows steve lacy encouraging his concert goers to sing the lyric to to his hit song. Unfortunately, the crowd was only able to sing the main line of the song. Which is strange as the single spent two weeks at number 1 in the billboard charts and received over 10 million streams on Spotify . Still, Lacy was left embarrassed when he asked the crowd to sing the next part but there was murmur, people looking around with their phones to see if anyone else knew the next part.
A similar situation happened a month ago with ice spice. The New York rapper rose to fame when her song ‘munch’ went viral on tiktok. However, when it came to performing, people only knew the first line. After that the crowd went mute.
Why is this the case?
Tik tok is so focused on created viral moments rather than quality music. I mean this is nothing you, prior to tik tok artists had to make ‘radio hits’ to be successful. But at least people could finish their song from top to bottom. Now because Tiktok pushes 30 second clips, artist are beginning to feel pressure to shorten their music or create a one stand out line of their song.
Earlier this year, jack harlow did this with ‘first class’ and central cee did it with his hit song ‘doja’. The problem with this though is that when the full song is released, the people have no interest in getting to know the full song. Many people felt that Harlow’s first class was lacklustre as the whole song failed to live up to the hype it received online.
A study done by music- analytics found that 67% of users are most likely to search for songs on streaming services like Spotify after hearing them on TikTok. We are now in an era where music consumers listen to songs based on how viral it is. It seems that people are less interested in an artists discography. Which is sad because what makes an artist great or memorable is their discography. I remember going to see Beyonce in 2016 and knowing all her songs word for word. If any song went viral during the formation era it was the entire song not just a lyric.
So when you go to concerts/parties, have a look and see if the people around you know more than just the lyric they heard go viral on tik tok.
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