In the last few months, there has been a surge in “sped-up” remixes of songs that have been appearing on many platforms accumulating millions of listens. These remixes are being created and used in videos by users on TikTok which are being viewed by millions and have helped certain songs become viral. This is because TikTok enables users to mess around with songs and upload their own versions of popular sounds. TikTok is popular for its high-speed interface as users swipe through and consume lots of short videos. Moreover, TikTok and sped-up songs complement each other well as they are both fast-paced. Sped-up songs are then well suited to the short attention spans of TikTok users as the songs can be condensed into a shorter window of time. On TikTok, the hashtag “spedup” has 17.4 billion views and similar hashtags such as “spedup sounds” have garnered 11.9 billion views which demonstrates just how popular these remixes are.
But this trend is not only popular on TikTok and has spread to other platforms. For example, on YouTube, there are many playlists filled with sped-up versions of songs that have accumulated millions of views. On Spotify, there is a playlist made specifically for sped-up versions of songs which has 105 songs and over 1.1 million likes. Moreover, an artist on Spotify called “sped up nightcore”, dedicates their account solely to posting sped-up remixes of popular songs and has over 9 million monthly listeners. Because of the recent popularity of sped-up versions of songs on TikTok, many artists have seen their songs become popular and, in some cases, even go viral. As a result, many artists are now releasing an additional sped-up version of their songs along with the original to capitalise on the trend.
Steve Lacy had one of the biggest songs in 2022 with “Bad habit” which was his first song to chart in the Billboard 100. The song was released in June 2022 and was already accumulating millions of listens. But TikTok users began using unofficial sped-up remixes of the song in their videos, including one used in over 430,000 videos, which were all helping the song gain even more attention. The success of these remixes presented an opportunity for Steve Lacy and saw him release an official sped-up version just one month after the original was released.In an interview, he was asked about the sped-up version of his smash hit where he revealed that it was his music label which introduced the idea of releasing a remix to his song after they saw it go viral on TikTok. At the time, the song had sat number 2 on the Billboard charts for four weeks straight, but Steve Lacy wanted it to reach the top spot, so he gave his music label the go-ahead to release the sped-up version of the song. This turned out to be a good decision as it helped the song finally reach number 1, dethroning “As it was” by Harry Styles who held the top spot for 14 consecutive weeks.
Steve Lacy is just one example of many artists taking advantage of the success of sped-up songs. More recently, artist RAYE with her song “Escapism” was the next artist to see success through this method. Her song was released in October 2022 and soared up the charts after it went viral on TikTok where users were making fan-made sped-up versions. Seeing the success of this, RAYE would release an official sped-up version of the song just one month later. The original version of the song now has 213 million listens on Spotify, whilst the sped-up remix has 86 million making for a combined 299 million streams in total. On TikTok, the official sped-up version of the song has been used over 600,000 times by users in their videos, with all of this eventually helping her song to top the UK singles chart in January. In a recent interview, RAYE revealed that she was flattered by the original fan-made sped-up version of the song as it helped it gain popularity, and she even went on to thank the fan personally.
But it is not only new songs that have benefitted from sped-up remixes. Songs that were released years ago such as Ellie Goulding‘s “Lights” and Sam Smith‘s “I’m Not the Only One,” both enjoyed a surge in streams thanks to the success of the remixed versions on TikTok. This shows that sped-up songs have the potential to breathe new life and attract new listeners to older songs that otherwise might have been forgotten. Record labels have also noticed this which has made it become more common that sped-up versions of songs are being released officially. It also helps that this is relatively fast and cheap to make, as they are not creating anything new and are just remixing the original version.
This recent trend of sped-up songs being popularised on TikTok has helped artists see their songs become more successful as it can act as free promotion that helps it reach a new audience. Not only does this drive engagement for the original song and propel them up the music charts, but in some instances, the remixed version is as popular or even more popular than the original. Even old songs have received new life that would not have done so without this trend. Therefore, it is becoming common that more and more artists and their record labels are catering to this demand for sped-up remixes of songs and as a result, they are releasing official remixes to reap the rewards.