In the last few months of 2021, The Rare Occasions, a small indie-rock band from Boston, got caught in a TikTok algorithm that led their song on a journey from the B-side to viral anime videos, national radio stations and then, eventually, the stage. Now, as they get a taste of the post-pandemic era after spending a large portion of their fame behind a screen, they navigate the thrills of larger live performances and a changed independent music industry.

But The Rare Occasions aren’t alone. Many musicians who’ve become famous through TikTok share a similar experience of learning to succeed in a changed industry. The democratization of music, as the band’s bassist put it, has changed the way artists make music and, for some, the motives behind it.

“The music industry has been democratized a little bit, where rather than, you know, really big companies at the top telling people, ‘What's the next big hit’? People now have the power to really decide themselves what that song is gonna be,” explained bassist Jeremy Cohen.

The indie-rock band’s rise to internet fame was essentially an accident. Landing a hit single was not something they ever imagined, and their drummer, Luke Imbusch, was more focused on his film composing career than on the band. “We all had day jobs,” he said. “The band was just something we kept doing on the side and never really expected it to become our full time jobs, but here we are.”

“Notion,” their claim to fame, which they released on a 2016 EP, gained traction on YouTube before TikTok users made it a trend. According to Brian McLaughlin, the band’s lead singer, it was “kind of a B-side” and was never even meant to be a single. In late 2021, that all changed. “Sometime around the beginning of October, suddenly we saw the streaming numbers of ‘Notion’ go way, way up in a day,” he said. “We were like, ‘What the heck is going on?’ It took us at least one or two days to figure out the source of it all.”

According to Cohen, there’s a formula that seems to be successful for landing a TikTok hit. Contrary to radio, songs don’t have 30 seconds to build up to the chorus. They need to catch the listener’s attention fast. “We saw that first hand a little bit with ‘Notion’ because of the way it was set,” he said. “It has an intro that's like seven to eight seconds long and it's this orchestral thing, and then it goes right into like this really kind of dark indie rock kind of vibe. Um, just a big juxtaposition. And that happens within a 15 second period.”

But as TikTok changes the way the industry works, labels fight back. They might even use the app and its algorithm to their advantage. “An artist will go to a label and the label will say, ‘Okay, we need you to get three viral songs, three viral videos,’ and try to farm that virality,” explained Nashville-based guitarist Diego Vargas.

Gayle, a teenage singer-songwriter who self-promotes her music on the app was at the center of controversy in January after she released a song with the intention of landing a TikTok hit. In a video, she replied to a comment from a supposed fan that asked her to write a breakup song using the alphabet. She then played an acoustic version of her song “ABCDEFU,” and it quickly became a trending audio. It was later discovered that the comment had been sent to her as a marketing tactic by someone at her label, Atlantic Records. Fans questioned the musician’s motives but ultimately continued to promote the song.

Singer-songwriter Meghan Mahowald, professionally known as MEGG, was frustrated by the situation. “There's a lot of real hope and a lot of false hope because there is a lot of shit on TikTok that is planned and planted like that. Everyone's like, ‘Oh my God, this girl, blah’. And that was just a fake fucking user, which, I don't know, kind of steals some of the magic away.”

Motives Matter

Steve Nice, owner of Nice Management, explained the danger of false motives. “I think there are some bands that probably set out to write a radio hit for sure. But now it's much easier in their mind because they just have to write 15 second hooks,” he said. “So they're gonna get some royalties from TikTok views. What happens then? Someone's not just gonna hand them a record contract. What else do you have [to offer]? Even if they do, they're gonna fail miserably cause they have nothing else to offer.”

Yet Gayle appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, and she’s currently on tour, so it seems that the algorithm worked in her favor.

Alternatively, as a result of instant, and, often, temporary fame, musicians such as The Rare Occasions deal with the age-long pressure of becoming a “one hit wonder.” The catch with TikTok’s model is that something that might have been trending a month ago might not ever be trending again. “It's easy to get frustrated because the algorithm, the algorithm didn't pick me this one time, but at the end of the day, you just have to, you have to create your own look,” explained Cohen. “I mean, chasing a pipe dream that every song is gonna be a viral TikTok sensation is you're, you're in the wrong business if that's what your goal is.”

Nice talked about the challenge of overcoming temporary fame. He compared following a musician to buying a product. “It's like impulse buying, but are you really gonna keep buying from that person? In that moment, they connected with you, but are you gonna be long term? And that's the danger I think as an artist of putting too much investment into one thing, cause at the end of the day, you still have to go through all those steps to get to where you're able to be successful.”

While some artists go into the industry with ulterior motives, many indie musicians are dedicated to their craft, despite the possibility of not landing another hit. “We're musicians cause we wanna write good music,” said Cohen.

hear from MEGG

Mahowald also explained her frustration with the algorithm. She spends time curating videos to promote her music on TikTok, but she also likes to post things for fun. “There are two that went viral that I wasn't trying to do anything with, I was just like, ‘Oh, this is a really funny moment in time. I'm gonna just upload this,’ and fucking poof, I don't know, 3 million views. The other one got almost a million views and it was just like, so fucking frustrating cause the ones you put, like so much time and energy and effort in to actually promote something that has to do with your craft or what you're trying to do, it just doesn't seem to be the same outcome.”

She partially credits this to the audience. According to Mahowald, TikTok’s audience values authenticity over aesthetics. This is something she admires, but admittedly is still getting used to.

The singer-songwriter released her latest single, “Hitting Nicotine,” in September and has been self-promoting it online. She may not have had her big TikTok moment yet, but that’s not her end-goal. “It is hard because like every new release is like, okay, where's that TikTok moment, which I fucking hate,” she explained. Mahowald is more interested in being herself and being able to put out music that feels authentic on a platform that celebrates it.

Vargas has a similar goal. “The general message I like to give is just be the ultimate version of yourself,” he explained.

With honest intentions and the help of TikTok, the sky's the limit for indie artists. The Rare Occasions will embark on their first tour next month and they won’t stop there. “We want to play on the moon,” chimed Imbusch. They all laughed. Then Cohen responded, “Let’s get a noise complaint from mars.”