Earlier this summer season, Lizzo unveiled an entertaining sufficient mixtape titled My Face Hurts from Smiling. Now, the actor-singer isn’t precisely smiling as she’s taken to TikTok for a rant towards the present state of the music business.
Within the 3.5-minute clip, the a number of Grammy Award winner begins by saying the business is in “full shambles proper now.” Lizzo then goes on to elucidate that after years of working underneath an “algorithmic mannequin,” the business has misplaced management to a sure extent. As such, “nobody can serve the lots anymore,” and that inevitably means one thing just like the much-coveted Tune of the Summer time (the place disparate teams can rally round one artist in a showcase of true cultural significance) is now not potential.
There’s one thing to that argument, after all. In a current Wired piece titled “The Song of the Summer Is Dead,” author Jason Parham argues the media panorama has change into fragmented after “music streamers changed radio stations, [and] TikTok killed the music video.” He goes on to explain a number of explanation why 2025 was an “unpredictable summer season for music.” That features more and more eclectic musical preferences throughout streaming platforms like Spotify; an “authenticity disaster” spurred on by a deluge of “AI slop”; and even Donald Trump, whose “domineering affect could signify a brand new model of monoculture that not even the music business can evade.”
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For her half, Lizzo says that the breakdown of the algorithm and lack of inventive authorship/management has altered the way in which during which artists handle their careers. Whereas musicians had been beforehand “servicing songs out to sure channels and radio stations,” an more and more congested “web house” meant there’s no “clear channel out for folks to place their music out and serve the lots.” She factors to a platform like TikTok, the place even with a follower rely effectively past 26 million, Lizzo herself struggles with getting her movies/content material onto folks’s screens.
So, then, what’s the answer? Lizzo says that extra main artists “need to serve your folks,” which implies beginning non-public fan pages the place you may “have a dialogue with folks that really give a fuck…” Along with interactions along with her personal “small however mighty” military of “Lizbians,” Lizzo uplifts Taylor Swift, whose personal Swifties are “locked the fuck in.” And, to an extent, Swift’s followers are each a path ahead and an indication of the instances for the music business. As a result of as problematic as some of their collective behaviors can be, one can’t deny the cultural weight held by this legion of followers. (See the semi-swaying energy of Swifties for Kamala and the way the fandom helped push “The Eras Tour” towards a record-smashing $2 billion in sales.)
However maybe Lizzo’s most uplifting message is particularly for the younger/up-and-coming artists. She says this second in time means “you might have a bonus over even main artists,” as impartial artists can join with folks at a “means faster charge.” Lizzo goes on to say that if she had been a younger artist in 2025, she’d keep away from “the old-school route [of getting] signed” and as an alternative document ample music/different content material and debut it on-line straight away. And it’s arduous to argue that time, both. In a current video with Drowned in Sound, British singer-songwriter Mary Spender referred to as 2025 the yr for impartial artists, noting that her “small, not viral” strategy has helped her construct a fanbase of paying, massively supportive followers that make her profession aspirations potential.
Be you fan, main music star, or indie upstart, Lizzo’s video is actually price your time. As a result of along with these different decidedly salient factors, she ends the video with one correct gem: “It’s been an unbelievable yr for music; it simply hasn’t been in your algorithm.” Which is to say, nice music releases and subsequent consumption imply going past the fashions and different approaches we’ve been offered and doing a bit of digging. When that occurs, business taking part in fields are leveled, extra artists get recent alternatives, and we interact with music as folks and never mere receptacles for algorithms.
However, no, Lizzo, I nonetheless don’t suppose PLUTO’s “WHIM WHAMIEE” is kind of tune of the summer season.
@lizzo The tune of the summer season is Whim Whammy btw #fyp
