These artists are TIRED of making TikToks to promote their music, apparently

Even Ed Sheeran’s moaning about it

2 years ago

Okay, so it’s probably fair to say a viral TikTok song is more valuable than a number one at this point. You’ve almost certainly heard ABCDEFU, Material Gworl and Meet Me At Our Spot more times than you can count – but how many times have you listened to Godzilla by Eminem?

Turning a song into a dance, meme or general *vibe* on TikTok must be an absolute goldmine for record labels. Suddenly, hundreds of millions of people are streaming your song and sharing it with others, who share it with others, who share it with others… You just can’t buy that kind of marketing.

Naturally, though, musicians seem to be getting pretty sick of it. Imagine spending your life working your way up through the music industry, priding yourself on your art, perfecting your craft and investing months into an unmatched body of work. Only for your label to tell you it isn’t catchy or danceable enough to go big on some app.

Celebrities are starting to expose their labels for doing just that. Here’s everything you need to know:

Halsey says their label won’t let them release a new single yet

@halsey ♬ original sound – Halsey

“Basically I have a song that I love that I wanna release ASAP,” the Badlands singer confessed on TikTok. “But my record label won’t let me. I’ve been in this industry for eight years and I’ve sold over 165 million records, and my record company is saying that I can’t release it unless they can fake a viral moment on TikTok.”

They continued, “Everything is marketing. And they are doing this to basically every artist these days. I just wanna release music, man. And I deserve better tbh.”

Their previous record label, Astralwerks-Capital, responded in a statement to Variety. “Our belief in Halsey as a singular and important artist is total and unwavering,” it said. “We can’t wait for the world to hear their brilliant new music.”

Twitter pulled up evidence of other musicians complaining

but some artists also told the truth, not just you ! pic.twitter.com/i1iS7X5OAK

— aldana (@halseyscardigan) May 23, 2022

It turns out, several artists have tried to warn us about this before. Florence Welch made a tongue-in-cheek video after “the label begged her for ‘low-fi TikToks.” She said, “pls send help.”

In a now-deleted video, FKA Twigs said: “It’s true all record labels ask for are TikToks and I got told off today for not making enough effort.”

Even Ed Sheeran has made several TikToks moaning about… erm, having to make TikToks. “When you’re supposed to be making promos for your song, but you just really want a snack and you decide that eating a snack can be promo for a song because everyone loves snacks,” he said.

Could moaning about promo actually be the new promo?

honestly idk the tiktok is already viral + I still don’t have a release date. I would say just do what you guys normally are amazing at doing when I announce a song (under better circumstances). They haven’t given me a date and I wanna release it ASAP so that’s really the hold up https://t.co/fu2GfCEBSI

— h (@halsey) May 23, 2022