For decades the average pop song has hovered around the three-minute mark, because that was the length they originally had to be to fit on one side of a 45RPM record. Now, thanks to the clip-sharing app TikTok, which has had a vast influence on the singles chart in the past couple of years, you don’t even need to hang around for that long.
Vibe (If I Back It Up) by New Jersey rapper and singer Cookiee Kawaii is all over in a mere 83 seconds, but that hasn’t stopped it from becoming the subject of two million TikTok videos and racking up 44 million Spotify plays.
Never mind multiple verses and a catchy chorus – it appears all that’s needed to make your music stand out is a whip-cracking sound effect, a strange squeaky toy noise and the sudden arrival of a rapid kickdrum rhythm.
That beat is a key characteristic of the “Jersey Club” sound, a local dance sub-genre in which Ms Kawaii has operated for almost a decade. So she isn’t cynically jumping on the TikTok bandwagon – she says she didn’t even have the app when her song began to go viral – though now that she has also made Vibe Pt 2 and Vibe Pt 3, there are five entire minutes of music ready to keep her star in the ascendant.
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