‘Life comes at you fast’, so they say, and now that’s more true than ever. With the option to watch everything from film and TV and listen to podcasts at 1.5 speed and in half the time, it was pretty much guaranteed that music would follow suit. But what’s behind the trend for sped up songs and fast music?
The Popularity of Sped-up Songs: A Modern Music Trend?
As with many trends, the rise of sped-up music can be attributed to social media: TikTok in particular. But do a slightly deeper dive, and you’ll find pitch-shifted, sped-up audio as far back as the 1950s. A novelty track called ‘Witch Doctor’ used vocals which were manually recorded at half speed and then sped up the tape so the voice of the ‘witch’ sang at a higher pitch.
‘Witch Doctor’s originator, Ross Bagdasarian Sr., recorded under the name of David Seville, who became the fictional character who was the adoptive father/producer of Alvin and the Chipmunks. Yes, our tiny, squeaky pals were there first, in the early 60s.
Bagdasarian’s son explains in the video above that a DJ in Philadelphia on a graveyard shift in 1980 played Blondie’s ‘Call Me’ sped up to give it that Chipmunk sound. Sadly, instead of kick-starting a whole new way of Blondie making money, he announced it as a new Alvin record, which led to a record label commissioning Chipmunk Punk.
What Are the Other Origins of Sped-up Music?
Leaving Alvin and chums behind, let’s take a look at ‘nightcore’, a micro-genre that emerged in the early 2000s in Norway. Nightcore takes a core song and speeds it up by 30%, to around 160-190bpm – for vinyl fans, it’s essentially the same effect as playing a 331/3 RPM vinyl at 45 RPM.
The genre is named after a Norwegian duo, Nightcore, who released pitch-shifted versions of trance and Eurodance tracks. They were influenced by German group Scooter’s pitch-shifted vocals in ‘Nessaja’ and ‘Ramp! (The Logical Song)’ – the pair later told SuperSuper! Magazine that, ‘Nightcore has become a style of music, a way to make the music happier – ‘happy hardcore’ as they say.’
From the 2010s, nightcore crossed over into pop and hip hop, K-pop and electro house, but it’s undoubtedly TikTok’s massive popularity in the 2020s that’s led to the global appeal of fast bpm music.
Sped up TikTok Audios: Changing the Pace of Social Media Entertainment
So, what is the big appeal of sped-up tunes? Producer, performer and comedian Oliver Tree, whose nightcore track ‘Miss You’ was a hit, told the NME that, ‘The current state of living in a digital society, with the advent of social media and online dating, is that we’re all quickly swiping to see what’s better. This leaves us moving at an incredibly fast pace. Music’s a mirror of humanity, so no one should be surprised that sped-up music has become popular, when you look at the speed in which we’re living.’
Fans and creators remixing songs is part of TikTok’s appeal – Clive Rozario, TikTok’s Global Music Programme Manager, highlighted the fact that people don’t just come to it to consume, but also to create: ‘Fans are empowered to become part of the music-making process, which often manifests in creators experimenting with their own sped-up or slowed-down versions.’
Fan-First Fresh Takes
When you speed up a track, you can transform it into a dance hit – and create an entirely fresh take on songs from any number of genres. There have always been remixes created and promoted by music labels, but the difference now is that social media’s making these new versions a fan-first activity, which the labels then jump on, officially releasing the sped-up versions. The result? Another chart boost for an already successful track – a sped-up remix of RAYE’s ‘Escapism’ was credited with helping her to top the UK Singles Chart.
The Psychology Behind the Appeal of Fast Music
Speeding up or slowing down tracks might have originated on YouTube as a method of creators trying to get their content past the platform’s copyright censors, but creators often enjoy sped-up TikTok audios because they’re just more energetic and interesting to watch. Plus, TikTok is notorious for tapping into people’s short attention spans – you have to grab them, and stop them from scrolling past your content.
Sped-up remixes pack more emotion and lyrics into a shorter timespan: ideal for TikTokkers’ speedy swipe rates and the platform’s short videos. Look for the hashtag #spedup on TikTok and you’ll find videos that have racked up over 16 billion views. Related hashtags like #nightcore and #spedupsounds also have billions of collective views – it’s clearly a genre that’s not going anywhere fast (ironically).
Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger
Many acts, artists and label execs are getting proactive and automatically creating nightcore versions of their songs to boost streams (RAYE’s remix has more than 51 million Spotify streams), but TikTok songs are also resurfacing old tracks. Miguel’s 2011 hit ‘Sure Thing’ was just one instance of a massive TikTok smash in 2023 that was returned to Billboard’s Hot R&B Songs’ Top 20. Lady Gaga’s 2011 track ‘Bloody Mary’ didn’t even chart on its original release, but it debuted on the Billboard Hot 100 thanks to millions of people, including Gaga herself, recreating the viral Wednesday dance to the song.
You can instantly see the crossover and influence on streamers such as Netflix from social media with this track – it wasn’t on the original Wednesday soundtrack, but a teaser trailer for the second season features the sped-up ‘Bloody Mary’ remix, alongside Wednesday’s voiceover dryly shouting out the fact she’s been ‘mimicked millions of times across the internet’.
All of the biggest songs in TikTok in 2023 were sped-up remixes; according to its year-end report, ‘Collide (more sped up)’ by Justine Skye was top amongst its US users.
Used in more than 4.2 million TikTok videos, this was another track that was nearly a decade old. K-poppers Fifty Fifty and ‘Favorite Song – Sped Up’ by Toosii were all more widely used than more obvious hits such as Taylor Swift’s ‘Cruel Summer’.
You can instantly see the popularity of sped-up TikTok audios when you look at the stats for SZA’s song, ‘Kill Bill’. The original has been used for more than 100,000 TikTok videos – whilst the unofficial sped-up remix vastly eclipsed it, being used in more than 1.1 million TikToks.
What’s the Downside of Sped-up TikTok Songs?
In short, if you’re an artist or label and you’re not releasing your own sped-up versions, then fan-made remixes are costing you money. Forbes reports that digital rights company Pex found hundreds of millions of modified audio tracks were distributed on social media between July 2021 and March 2023, and in November, it identified at least a million tracks on streamers such as Spotify and Apple Music were unlicensed manipulated audio tracks. Pex’s senior VP pointed out that these tracks, ‘generate millions in cumulative revenue for the uploaders instead of the correct rightsholders.’
Want to dive into fast bpm music? Spotify curates its own sped-up songs playlist:
The Story Behind the Music
Explore more music genres with our deep dives into the rise of microgenres, electronic music, the evolution of hip hop and the differences between synthwave and vaporwave.
Need to license music for TikTok, YouTube and other social media platforms? Check out our Trending playlist to stay ahead of the curve.
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