The other day, while producing a reel for Instagram, I came to the part of the process where I could choose to add music. The video and captions in my post asked whether my adult dog would ever learn to ring the bell hanging on the kitchen door to signal he needs to be let out to relieve himself.
Obviously, “Who Let the Dogs Out” came to mind.
I ended up sending the post without music, and immediately felt guilty — not because my dopey post was less compelling in its music-less form, but because I was taking money out of the pocket of a college chum who became the music industry hotshot behind “Who Let the Dogs Out” by Baha Men, which was released in 2000.
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Steve Greenberg was my classmate and the student government president at American University. Stevie G and I were both on the college radio station (which could only be heard in the dorms and student union). He also was the mastermind of our college band, which played a few shows on campus.
He went on to bigger and better things.
Greenberg and his S-Curve Records label “discovered” Hanson, the Jonas Brothers, Andy Grammer, Joss Stone, and Baha Men. Greenberg received a 2000 Grammy Award in the “Best Dance Recording” category as producer of “Who Let the Dogs Out.”
I emailed him, in part to assuage my guilt by confessing I didn’t use his song in my reel (which as of this weekend had a nowhere-near-viral 125 views), and also to learn more about the intersection of the music industry and social media.
“That song has a never-ending life,” Greenberg said. “‘Who Let the Dogs Out’ is definitely used all the time on social media for all things having to do with dogs, not surprisingly. So, it’s definitely the kind of song that lends itself to social media posts about a particular subject and probably always will.”
So, with all the social media posts about dogs, Stevie G and the Baha Men must be singing “Yippie-Yi-Yo” all the way to the bank, right?
Nah.
“It’s not a moneymaker,” Greenberg said. “Social media is not a moneymaker for artists.”
‘Music is not the main event’ on social media
Hit songs that predate social media take a back seat in current usage as people create content that’s often consumed on a smartphone.
“I wish I could say music’s role in social media posts is more central than it is, but, really the way social media is used today, for the most part, music is a feature,” said Greenberg. “It’s not the main event.”
While a recording artist might create a lengthy, well-produced post to highlight a new release, in most social media posts, a 10- or 15-second snippet of music is just one aspect of an overall package.
“The same way music might be used in a TV commercial,” said Greenberg. “The point of the commercial isn’t the song, it’s the product that’s being sold.”
Musicians and songwriters make very little money when their songs are used on social media, Greenberg said. In fact, in January, Universal Music Group — which represents big-name artists like Taylor Swift, Bad Bunny and Drake — said that it would no longer allow its music on TikTok as the two companies negotiate a new licensing deal.
“Universal wants the rates to be much higher, and TikTok feels the promotional value of having your music on TikTok is worth it, in and of itself, and therefore the label shouldn’t care about getting paid money,” said Greenberg. “That argument is frighteningly close to the argument by MTV, 40 years ago, when they started and didn’t want to pay for the music videos.”
Greenberg said the three main social media content platforms using music are TikTok, Instagram and YouTube shorts, and “each platform actually does a separate deal with each label group.”
How social media is changing the music industry
Asked if the presence and importance of social media is affecting the music that is being recorded, Greenberg said yes, in several ways.
“Let’s start with the recording. It’s definitely impacting the music, and it’s in combination with the increasing ease of home recording. Social media and that phenomenon go hand in hand,” said Greenberg.
Songwriters and musicians are able to record studio-quality songs using digital tools at home, bypassing expensive studios.
“TikTok and Instagram, for their part, their algorithms really favor an individual face on a screen,” said Greenberg. “And, if you think about a TikTok screen, it’s a vertical screen — so really one person is the ideal visual on a TikTok screen.”
With the ease and low expense of home recording, Greenberg said current songwriters often say to themselves, “I can just do it by myself, without a band or backup singers, and I’m feeding the music into a platform that really likes one person.”
So, the traditional process of gathering musicians, rehearsing, and going into the studio, sometimes with the help of a record label, is bypassed.
“What you really wind up having is a lot of music that’s made at home by one person, that becomes popular on TikTok and Instagram. So, it’s the combination of the technology and the preferences of the platform,” said Greenberg.
Why today’s music videos should look like FaceTime
The technology through which people experience music always influences the music that gets made, said Greenberg. As a music historian, he’s described how The Beatles went viral in 1964, decades before the Internet, because of the advent of cheap transistor radios.
“In the case of social media, it’s really come to favor very personal, intimate, diaristic type of music, made by young people, usually at home,” Greenberg said. “It’s young people, sharing the music, and it’s all about very personal emotions, about breakups, about being upset with your ex.”
Greenberg said social-savvy musicians are tailoring the way they record their songs, to gel with the intimate, personal subject matter.
“The best TikToks in music are the ones that sort of seem like the artist is talking to you over FaceTime,” Greenberg said. “It doesn’t really seem like a piece of professional content.”
“It’s changed music,” concluded Greenberg. “If you look at the charts now, there’s just so much of that kind of music — it’s interesting to see the trends that have emerged musically, because of the dominance of TikTok.”
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