How to be a TikTok music megastar

Paris: Tom Rosenthal is a 35-year-old singer-songwriter from London. He had already built a decent career over a decade, but when he joined TikTok in 2020 he said the impact was "seismic".

His songs -- including hits like "Lights Are On", "It´s OK" and "Go Solo" -- have been used on 1.6 million TikTok videos, driving fans to other music services where he has picked up hundreds of millions of streams.

Rosenthal gave a few tips on the secrets of his TikTok success.

- Good video -

"Some things are a must: you will not go viral without the lyrics written on the screen. It´s a funny thing, but lyrics have never been more important than now.

"It has to be lit really well. Face is key -- you´ve got to show your face. You can´t be off by a tree.

"In the swiping culture, the first milliseconds matter. You can´t be fumbling with a guitar.

"People often do it by speaking first: ´Here´s a song about Nelson Mandela...´ or whatever. That´s better than if you just start singing a song about Nelson Mandela."

Don´t get fancy, he adds: "TikTok doesn´t reward high production costs. Me sitting here in my studio singing a song is no different than if I had 50 oiled-up dancers in a football stadium."

- Simple hooks -

"There´s a crudeness to my piano style. It´s gentle, melodic and rhythmic, but quite blocky -- not up and down the keys like a virtuoso. That means it edits nicely for TikTok videos.

"They´re hooky lines, which is important because you only get 15 seconds (the most common time for TikToks). Plus, I´ve got a pleasant, inoffensive voice -- you´re not going to throw up in your tea if you hear it.

"TikTok is a great leveller. Anyone can do it. Maybe you´ve got two chords on the guitar. You can put it on TikTok and millions of people can find it."

- Ignore the easy money -

"When one of my songs goes viral, the labels rush in and they are absolutely praying that I´m 22 and haven´t got a clue what´s going on and will take £20,000 (around $25,000) for the rights.

"I tell them: ´I know exactly how much these songs are going to be worth so if you want to start talking, fine, but it´s going to be in the many millions.´

"As soon as they realise I know even a handful of things about how this business works, they disappear.

"There´s still a place for record labels, they´ll be fine. But if you´re doing well as an independent artist and you´re slightly good at organisation, you don´t need them.

"A friend had 200 million streams, but unfortunately he was with a major label and he´s yet to see a penny from it. That should have been close to a million quid. It´s unbelievable what they get away with it.

- You can´t force it -

"I´ve seen artists of significant calibre who write a whole album that they think will be perfect for TikTok and it´s totally flopped.

"It doesn´t work for an artist to say, ´My song deserves to be viral´. Sixty thousand songs are released every day -- it´s not for them to decide, it´s for the listener.

"The songs that have shot off for me, I haven´t said: ´I want these songs to do well, I´m going to make a nice campaign and a special video where I wear a gold suit in a fancy studio.´

"I´ve done nothing. The songs are out in the world, people I don´t know have used them. You can´t control it."

- But you can connect -

"With TikTok, you know people are listening but they might not know who you are. You have to connect to them, and say: ´I´m the one who did that song, come over here for a bit.´ Connect your face to the sound.

"There´s a lot of moaning pop stars at the moment, saying: ´Oh no, I´m not a content creator, I´m a musician, I couldn´t possibly make a video explaining what I do.´ But really it´s not that hard to make the occasional video!"