Why Sped-Up Music—From SZA, Steve Lacy And Many More—Took Over TikTok And Became A Key Marketing Strategy

Topline

Here’s why your favorite recent chart-topper has probably gotten that sped-up remix treatment on TikTok, the app’s latest viral phenomenon, which artists and record labels are jumping to capitalize on.

Key Facts

Remixes of popular songs on TikTok set to a faster tempo, making the vocals squeaky and more child-like, have been blowing up, helping songs both new and old rack up streams and climb the Billboard charts.

The trend has created a new opportunity for marketing: hitmakers like SZA and Steve Lacy have released sped-up versions of their songs on streaming platforms, and Spotify curates a sped-up songs playlist with more than one million followers.

Sped-up songs are having a TikTok-fueled renaissance, but the musical trend has roots in the early 2000s, when Thomas S. Nilsen and Steffen Ojala Soderholm, a Norwegian music duo known as Nightcore, launched the musical trend that bears their name.

Though the trend is decades old, there’s an audience hungry for sped-up songs on TikTok, and the numbers are staggering: popular sped-up audios have been used in millions of videos, in many cases more than their regular-speed counterparts.

SZA’s song “Kill Bill” was an immediate hit when her album SOS released in December, and it’s been used as an audio in more than 100,000 TikTok videos — but an unofficial sped-up remix easily eclipsed the original, with uses in more than 1.1 million TikToks.

“Kill Bill”’s TikTok success has helped the song rocket to No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100, and in response to the viral trend, SZA released an official sped-up version of her song on streaming platforms last week.

A sped-up remix can also shine a spotlight on old songs, like Lady Gaga’s 2011 deep cut “Bloody Mary” — a song that never charted upon release, but debuted on the Billboard Hot 100 for the first time in January thanks to millions of videos of people (including Gaga herself) recreating the viral Wednesday dance to the song.

“Bloody Mary” isn’t even featured in Wednesday, but the song’s association with the show became so strong through the TikTok trend that a teaser trailer for Wednesday’s second season, released on January 6, features the sped-up “Bloody Mary” remix.

Sped-Up Remixes Are A New Marketing Opportunity

Steve Lacy had one of 2022’s biggest hits with “Bad Habit,” his first song to chart on the Billboard Hot 100. For months, the song was everywhere on TikTok—“Bad Habit” has been used in more than 700,000 videos and counting—but that’s just the original version. A number of unofficial remixes speeding up the song’s relaxed tempo gained traction, including one used in more than 430,000 videos. The demand for speed presented an opportunity for Lacy and his record label: last fall, “Bad Habit” climbed the charts but stalled at No. 2 on the Hot 100 for four straight weeks. Lacy told The Guardian his label asked about releasing an official sped-up remix to the hit song for 69 cents — which he said sounded “gross” — but he acquiesced. “OK, sure – I’m No 2 and I want to be No 1, so go ahead,” Lacy told The Guardian. “Bad Habit” finally topped the Hot 100 in October, dethroning Harry Styles’s “As It Was” from its historic 14-week run at the top of the chart (and now Lacy is up for four Grammys, including three for “Bad Habit” alone). Lacy is just one of many artists now hopping on the sped-up remix trend. Releasing a sped-up remix on streaming platforms has become more common, like SZA with “Kill Bill” and RAYE with “Escapsim” — a popular sped-up remix helped the latter top the UK Singles chart. These remixes can rack up huge numbers on Spotify: Escapism’s sped-up remix has more than 51 million streams on the platform, a notable tally compared to the original version, which has 128 million Spotify streams. A Spotify artist called “sped up nightcore,” which releases sped-up remixes to popular songs, boasts a remarkable 11 million monthly listeners.

Where These Remixes Come From

Many popular sped-up remixes on TikTok are fanmade, and plenty of TikTok accounts solely dedicated to speeding up songs have racked up thousands of followers, all likely racing to claim the next viral sped-up trend. One of these accounts — @lanascinnamongirls on TikTok — has more than 340,000 followers and posts almost exclusively sped-up song remixes. One of their original sounds, a sped-up remix of Amy Winehouse’s “Back To Black,” has been used in more than 250,000 TikTok videos. TikTok has praised the user-made nature of the sped-up trend: “At the heart of TikTok is the belief that anyone can take a sound, trend or cultural moment and flip it, remix it and collaborate with others to create something entirely original and entertaining,” Clive Rozario, Global Music Program Manager at TikTok, told NME, adding these fanmade creations have led to increased engagement with these songs on streaming platforms and chart success. Artists are starting to beat fans to the punch, releasing sped-up versions of their songs before fans get a chance to remix them on TikTok, Secretly Distribution digital marketer Ashley Hoffman told NME.

Why These Remixes Are Popular

Sped-up remixes and TikTok share a core trait: A fast pace. TikTok is famous for its high-speed interface — users swipe quickly through short videos, consuming lots of content in just seconds — and the app has taken advantage of shortened attention spans. This pairs well with sped-up remixes, which pack more emotion and lyrics into a shorter timespan, The New York Times reported. “That’s what makes [sped-up remixes] perfect for social media videos on sites like TikTok, where you stop people from scrolling by grabbing their attention and making them feel something,” Hoffman told NME.

Big Number

15.7 billion. That’s how many views videos with the hashtag #spedup have racked up on TikTok, demonstrating how huge the audience is for these remixes. Clicking on the hashtag brings users to a seemingly endless stream of these fast-pased songs. Related hashtags, like #nightcore and #spedupsounds, have 13.1 billion and 10.8 billion collective views, respectively.

Key Background

In 2002, Nilsen and Soderholm, then high school classmates in Norway, were tasked with creating a song for an assignment. When they got a low grade, they felt inspired to create a whole album using the technique they had come up with: squeaky vocals and an exceptionally high beats-per-minute of 170 (they got an A+ for their album). They didn’t keep up with music beyond 2003, but found out years later that their music had been uploaded to Limewire, the music-sharing service, and many others that had been remixed using their technique — launching the “nightcore” trend. Nightcore has influenced many artists and has seeped into the mainstream. British producer Danny L Harle — who has produced for artists including Charli XCX, Lil Uzi Vert, and Rina Sawayama — told The New York Times nightcore was a “revelatory discovery” in his musical development. High-pitched vocals were also popularized by the “chipmunk soul” trend — typically fast-paced R&B hits sampled in hip-hop songs.

Further Reading

Why is Spotify full of faster versions of pop hits? Let’s bring you up to speed (The Guardian)

TikTok Is Filled With Sped-Up Remixes. Two Norwegians Pioneered Them. (The New York Times)

Sped up songs: why are music fans becoming captivated by quick TikTok hits? (NME)