Revamping the Older Order: TikTok’s Classical Music Comeback

TikTok is a fairly new app, but it has amassed well over one billion users since its launch in late 2016. App users, most of whom are in their teens and twenties, know that trends move unusually fast, but a recent resurgence of classical music has emerged on the platform, and it might be here to stay. While younger generations may regard classical music as outdated or perhaps too vintage, increasing numbers of TikTok users have chosen classical music to back their content, ranging from Mozart’s Requiem in D minor to Studio Ghibli’s Howl’s Moving Castle string soundtrack to Saint-Saëns’ “The Swan” in Carnival of the Animals. The resurfacing of popular music from hundreds of years ago has even bled into today’s pop sounds, with some TikTokkers featuring their own string renditions of iconic 2000s pop songs like “Toxic,” recorded by Britney Spears.

How and why has classical music made a comeback? While there is some overlap between older classical music and today’s pop music, the differences seem to far outweigh the similarities. Compared to pop, classical music tends to place far greater emphasis on instrumentals than the singer, if voices are involved at all. Additionally, the chord progressions found in today’s pop songs are more predictable –usually only utilizing four different chords– whereas classical pieces feature a variety of chord sequences. Pop music’s repetitive, predictable chord progression gives way to more simple melodies, unlike classical music’s longer, more intricate melodic phrasing. In sum, it seems that some of classical music’s most distinct qualities –complexity, length, age– would not be conducive to backing short, fifteen-second TikToks made mostly by today’s teen population. 

And yet, as the numbers of videos backed by classical music climb, TikTok users’ appreciation for these older music pieces seems to surmount the technical differences between the classical and pop genres. Despite these differences and the fact that classical music may not be the obvious choice for TikTok content, the platform’s ability to expose younger users to snippets of classical pieces is arguably (and ironically) the very crux of the recent revamping of classical music. Amongst younger generations, the hesitation to embrace classical music may not even be rooted so much in its accompanying, stereotyped stigma (too old, too boring, etc.), but rather in the lack of translation between older and newer music styles. It can be difficult to adequately transcribe one’s appreciation of current pop music–anchored in lyrics and characterized by heavier bass and drum lines and more repetitive phrasing– to an entirely different and much older genre that rarely coincides with those same identifiers. While teens may not want to sit through 45 minutes of listening to a multi-movement classical suite, it makes sense that they would be much more willing to listen to 15 seconds of that same piece, especially when given the opportunity to apply the music to their own content.

The reason that TikTok has been so successful in bringing classical music back in style is that it allows the user to connect personally, albeit for less than a minute, with a given soundtrack. Individually choosing a soundtrack and then applying it to your own life through a visual medium makes that soundtrack more relatable and personal, even if it is a classical piece from hundreds of years ago. For example, one of the many recent trends involving classical music has been to “put this sound (Camille Saint-Saëns’ “The Swan”) over a video of you in love,” which jump started the creation of over 120,000 videos accumulating millions of likes and views. Many users probably have little connection to French composer Saint-Saëns, who composed this piece 135 years ago, but it still clearly resonates with users around the globe. Each person’s connection to The Swan probably differs, but the piece’s inherent musical simplicity is what seems to attract many listeners; the swelling crescendo is clean and clear, the ease and purity of the sound overlaid on a video, a video of two people in love, for example, elucidates the love on screen. Unlike a pop song, with heavy drums or vocals that might detract or distract from the display of love, Saint-Saëns’ “The Swan” allows for a purer, more focused viewing and appreciation of the content. Similarly, TikToks like this one use a simple string rendition of Merry Go Round of Life from Howl’s Moving Castle to allow for easy and more appreciative viewing of natural beauty. 

While some users opt to produce more sincere or serious content backed by classical music, others have decided to go in an entirely different direction; many use the weighty and powerful sounds of classical pieces to ‘meme’ everyday activities. For example, the somber-sounding full orchestra and chorus of Mozart’s Requiem in D Minor has been used ironically for many TikTok videos. Some users joke that it heightens the impact of even the most mundane activities like typing or browsing on a computer, while others have used the sound as mere background noise while sporting their trendy daily fit, perhaps hoping to garner likes and comments instead of actually enjoying the classical music.
 But regardless of how each user decides to apply classical music to their videos, the continuity is that these users are actively choosing classical music as their preferred background sound. Used purely out of love or for satirical purposes, classical music has stepped back into the spotlight. And TikTok has shown that not only does classical music have the potential to be fleetingly stylish on a surface level, it is also being woven into aspects of everyday life, big and small. It seems that classical music may have yet to reach its expiration date.