When The Weeknd's “Die for You” was released in 2016, it was only a moderate success, failing to crack the top 40 on the Hot 100. But the track has been revived during the pandemic, thanks in part to the community of TikTok users who they love sped up and slow remixes. Interest in “Die for You” eventually grew enough that it was promoted to radio as a new record, and after Ariana Grande remixed it, the ballad reached No. 1 on the Hot 100 in March 2023, more than six years later its circulation.
In recent years, starting especially during the pandemic, big hits following a similar trajectory have become a regular feature of the pop landscape. Two months after “Die for You” peaked, Miguel's early 2010 R&B hit “Sure Thing” climbed to No. 1 on the Pop Airplay chart — No. 11 on the Hot 100 — more than a dozen years after its original release . And in October, Taylor Swift's 'Cruel Summer' topped the Hot 100, four years after it was released as a deep track in 2019 Lover.
“There's a huge trend for chronologically old music to have a second life,” said Amazon Music's head of global music programming, Mike Tierney. he said Advertising sign in 2022. “The lines are getting incredibly blurred.”
It was reasonable to assume that this blurring process would continue. In a surprising turnaround, however, those lines seem more stable this year: So far, no track from the catalog — defined as more than 18 months old — has topped the Hot 100.
The closest thing would be Djo's neo-glam hit “End of Beginning,” which peaked at No. 11 in late March, just 18 months or so after its original release. At the start of the year, Sophie Ellis-Bextor's 2002 nu disco track 'Murder on the Dancefloor' looked like it might become ubiquitous after being revived via hit film. Saltburnbut it eventually peaked at No. 51 — pretty good for a song released more than two decades ago, but not on the same level as 2023's reincarnated hits.
Executives believe this shift is due in part to the flood of superstars and breakout artists grabbing attention with new releases, preventing listeners from drifting aimlessly to oldies. Additionally, they say, disruptions in the film and TV pipeline last year, and the music ecosystem on TikTok this year, have closed some avenues for old songs to morph into new hits.
Although it's not even halfway through 2024, the new release calendar is already packed with high-performance albums – a pair from Future & Metro Boomin, double LP-sized releases from Beyonce and Taylor Swift, plus full-lengths from Ariana Grande, Billie Eilish, J. Cole and other A-listers. Kendrick Lamar and Drake didn't release an album, yet they still grabbed everyone's attention for weeks with diss records. “The quality of new music released this year is so high that we haven't had to bring back old records for use on TikTok,” says Mike Weiss, VP of music and head of A&R at distribution company UnitedMasters.
That sentiment was echoed by R Dub, director of programming at Z90, a top-40 station in San Diego: Playing old-timers “is a little easier to justify,” he says, “when there's just not enough current top-end product coming out .”
This matters because when chart hits are on the verge of becoming massive, radio acts as a closer. After these songs have gone bananas on short-form video platforms and have a similar hit on streaming services, then it's radio's turn to cater to the rest of the population. Not only did “Die for You” and “Sure Thing” top Pop Airplay, “Cruel Summer” spent more time at No. 1 on that chart than any of Swift's many other hits.
But a track doesn't usually make it big at radio without a major label push, and right now, with so much current-release firepower, labels don't feel the need to dust off old records and pitch them to program managers as if they were fresh. “It's exciting to be back in the top 40 because of all these great new singles,” says Jay Michaels, brand manager for Y101, a pop station in Mississippi. “It's different styles, from pop to country, hip-hop to alternative. they are big and legal.”
Importantly, these songs aren't just coming from the usual suspects in the pop elite: Debut acts also seem to be breaking out at a steady clip, after several years of stagnation.
In 2022, executives described the landscape for major new artists as “abysmal” and “dry as f–k.” In recent months, however, Shaboozey, Sabrina Carpenter, Sexyy Red, Chappell Roan, Benson Boone, Tommy Richman and other upstarts have been competing for real estate at the same time. Their approaches vary widely: Richman's “Million Dollar Baby” is an homage to Memphis' underground hip-hop; Shaboozey's “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” is a country club-wreck. Boone prefers pop power ballads.
The emergence of all these artists in succession over the course of a few months is a welcome sign in the music industry. Artist development suffered “because of the pandemic,” according to Weiss. Now, he says, “we feel like we're over that hump, there was enough time to make really great records, develop artists and put in the work” – building the kind of foundations that can lead to continued breakthroughs.
That means new music has enjoyed a wave of top-notch reinforcements as it battles legions of old for eyes and ears. At the same time, the catalog has been struggling with one hand tied behind its back for many months.
First, Hollywood's cutbacks and belt-tightening — combined with double strikes in 2023 — have slowed the flow of new TV shows and movies. Netflix plans to cut the number of original movies it makes by nearly half, according to Variety. And Deadline noted in December that while 2023 “counted 124 major releases (opening in 1,000-plus theaters), the dual WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes forced a large portion of the stage delays leaving 2024 with only 107 major titles.” This leaves less opportunity for the syncopated soundtrack moments that often enliven catalog records.
Earlier this year, the catalog was further crippled when licensing negotiations between Universal Music Group and TikTok collapsed. “A lot of the titles that 'come back' do so through TikTok — they just explode out of nowhere,” notes R Dub. That process was stymied when UMG and TikTok failed to reach an agreement in late January.
Most of the labels official recordings were subsequently removed from the platform. After a month, most of the recordings featuring contributions from Universal Music Publishing Group songwriters were also pulled.
As a result, it's been much harder to come across a large portion of popular music on the app that plays a big role in music discovery — especially for younger listeners. And these listeners are more likely to listen to a catalog piece and experience it as new, simply because they are younger and have heard less music. An 18-year-old TikToker was around four or five when “Sure Thing” first came out.
Despite this turmoil, several executives believe that catalog hits are merely experiencing a temporary slump. Mike Biggane, a former UMG and Spotify executive, predicts that “earlier music will continue to be rediscovered beyond the moment of release.”
The star-studded release schedule can't continue at this rate forever, leaving more room for reinvention. And UMG and TikTok reached an agreement in May.
“As long as people have a platform like TikTok where they have a viral mechanism to share their own renditions of their favorite songs, you're going to continue to see these moments [where old tracks] show up,” says Benjamin Klein, a director who also runs Hundred Days Digital, a TikTok marketing company.
The question is: Now that the pandemic is in the rear-view mirror, when these throwback singles resurface, will they sound more like “Die for You” or “Murder on the Dancefloor”?
