Top TikTok Songs of 2023 show shifts in music trends
TikTok is its own not-so-little world when it comes to music trends, and those trends can teach us a lot about how music listeners are changing.
by Bobby Owsinski of Music 3.0
Like many social platforms, TikTok provides a lot of year-end information that, if nothing else, shows you what trended during the year. One of the best categories of these trends were the top top songs on TikTok during the year. It’s broken out for both the United States and Global. See how many songs you know (commentary from TikTok).
United States Top TikTok Songs
1. “Collide (more sped up)” – Justine Skye: TikTok continues to demonstrate its power to breathe new life into older releases with Justin Skye’s “Collide”.
2. “Cupid – Twin Ver – Sped Up Version” – FIFTY FIFTY: Capitalizing on the TikTok audience’s affinity for sped-up songs, this version of “Cupid” was popular across the board as a backing track to food tutorials, outfit picks, and more.
3. “Her Way (Sped Up)” – PARTYNEXTDOOR: A simple movement paired with a sped-up track is sometimes all that’s needed to revive an old song and give it new life.
4. “Favorite Song – Sped Up” – Toosii: In 2023, Toosii put on a masterclass on how to use TikTok to promote a song. Through interacting with fans and recreating trends, “Favorite Song” landed on the Billboard Hot 100.
5. “Boy’s a Liar Pt. 2” – PinkPanthress & Ice Spice: This hit took off on the platform, primarily thanks to people filming their dogs grooving to the track while wearing headphones.
6. “Bounce When She Walk” – Ohboyprince: Ohboyprince yet again finds success thanks to a simple dance-based movement, which received millions of creations in the US.
7. “Peaches & Eggplants (feat. 21 Savage)” – Young Nudy: This single was not only a popular fixture of Drake’s It Was All A Blur Tour, but a hugely popular TikTok track that resonated in just about every genre of video you could imagine.
8. “In Ha Mood” – Ice Spice: A track first teased out on Ice Spice’s TikTok, then driven by both a sped-up version and a mashup version featuring animated dogs from an obscure 90’s Barbie video game, “In Ha Mood.”
9. “Makeba” – Jain: French singer-songwriter Jain rose to new heights in 2023, becoming a global top 10 with this catchy track that was stuck in everyone’s head this summer.
10. “Cruel Summer” – Taylor Swift: The impact of fans capturing every moment of the track caused the song to first trend on TikTok before ascending to the top of the Billboard Hot 100 nearly four years after its initial release.
Notice anything? The top 4 songs were sped up, which is a continuing trend on the platform. Even though you can now post videos up to 10 minutes in length, the average video length is 38.3 seconds, while TikTok recommends 10 to 11 seconds for maximum engagement. That means that you have to get through the hook of a song fast and sometimes the only way to do that is to speed things up.
Usually chasing a music trend is fools gold, since by the time you execute on it, the trend has passed and a new one has formed. That said, I think that sped up songs are here to stay.
Bobby Owsinski is a producer/engineer, author, blogger, podcaster, and coach. He has authored 24 books on recording, music, the music business and social media.
