Universal Music Group’s announcement to withdraw music from artists “under its management” from TikTok has made many Kpop fandoms worried.
Recently, Universal Music Group (UMG) caused a stir in the music industry with its official announcement to remove all songs from singers and musicians signed to release from the TikTok platform. As the world’s largest record label, UMG releases a huge music store with today’s most popular artists such as Taylor Swift, The Weeknd, Bad Bunny, Ariana Grande, Justin Bieber, Adele, Drake, Billie Eilish, Kendrick Lamar , Rosalía, Harry Styles,… Meanwhile, TikTok is increasingly “expanding” its influence in the music industry, becoming the promotional channel with the most users currently.
In a statement sent to the media, UMG confirmed: “…Universal Music Group, including Universal Music Publishing Group, will stop licensing content for TikTok and TikTok Music services.” The fact that the two giants are “at odds” with each other has become an extremely hot topic for music fans. Not only USUK star fans are confused, but even Kpop fans are worried that their idols will be affected when UMG withdraws their music from TikTok.
BLACKPINK
and BTS are the two most famous music groups on TikTok
In Korea, through its affiliated record labels, UMG is releasing products for many top artists such as BLACKPINK , BTS, SEVENTEEN , NewJeans, LE SSERAFIM, TWICE, ITZY, Stray Kids, (G)I-DLE, Jeon Somi,… Grasping the trend, in recent years TikTok has become an indispensable platform when promoting entertainment company products, the most prominent being the dance challenge promotion activity.
Jisoo’s solo performance exploded partly thanks to the “blossoming” dance challenge
Jung Kook owns videos with tens of millions of views
SEVENTEEN takes advantage of TikTok to promote music every time they come back, from creating dance challenges to duets with colleagues
Dance challenge culture is no longer strange to Kpop groups that focus on dance
On TikTok, many artist hashtags have views of up to billions or even tens of billions of views (views compiled from authorized official sounds). Among them, BTS, BLACKPINK or SEVENTEEN are extremely famous names with international Kpop fans.
TikTok is not only a place to interact and connect fans, but also an extremely effective music promotion channel. New generation music groups such as NewJeans , LE SSERAFIM ,… are also at the forefront of applying the “hit-making formula” from TikTok, as a premise to enter prestigious music charts. Therefore, if UMG really “turns its back” on this short video sharing platform, the above artists are at risk of lacking a music promotion platform, doing more harm than good.
