Meanwhile, countless videos can be found under the hashtag „spedup“ in which famous songs are either sped up or pitched and then used as sound millions of times over on the TikTok platform. It’s a trend that’s gaining more and more attention.
What are „sped-up“ songs? Meaning, definition, explanation
Other global trends include speedreading, speedwatching or speedlistening, especially when it comes to listening to voice messages. As is well known, TikTok stands for the fast pace of today’s world. New trends or challenges are constantly emerging on this platform, attracting numerous interested parties.
In the case of Sped-Up-Songs, well-known songs are played at almost double speed with squeaky voices. The fact that this is supposed to be an absolute trend sounds absurd at first, but nevertheless it can be justified. Because it has now been scientifically proven that just fast music triggers a lot of activity in the human brain. People tend to particularly like music with a fast tempo and regular patterns. When people like a certain song or a certain type of music, the happiness hormone dopamine is released.
Artists embrace the sped-up trend
For the reasons mentioned above, more and more artists are now jumping on this bandwagon. With a simple TikTok sound from a private user, little capital can be generated. It doesn’t take long for interested parties to end up with the normal-fast original song.
Of course, you can stay one step ahead of your fans by releasing either a „slowed-down“ or „sped-up“ version yourself. This is a path that many artists are already taking at the moment. The procedure is as follows: First, one song is released. Shortly after that, the other two versions are released. The chance that one of these three songs will be a success is multiplied. Of course, the artists are accused of thinking too commercially, but you can’t blame them in a time when every stream only brings a few cents.
However, with this trend, the authenticity and independence of the artists is somewhat shaken. Many are of the opinion that a musician should release his song at the pace at which he himself considers it appropriate. In addition, a musical uniformity still creeps in with the „Sped-Up“ songs. Due to the increased speed of a song, the vocals are pitched much higher and thus the important vocal characteristics are lost.
Vocal recognition features as well as special vocal performances therefore move enormously into the background. This is particularly noticeable in the song „Summertime Sadness“ by Lana Del Rey. In the „Sped-Up“ version, the song sounds more like the Chipmunks than a sad girl. When certain songs are made faster, they often sound happy or cute, even though it may be a more sad song. It is the other way around with slowed down songs, which then often sound somber and draggy.
Some music educators agree that such a sped-up version of a song leaves little room for a musical journey in the brain. Because of the high pitching, the voice is deprived of all identity as well as special vocal characteristics. Also missing are the important short pauses in between, where time is normally used to analyze the meaning of the song and the vibe. With „sped-up“ songs, the focus is more on an overarching mood than on the meaning of the song. Nevertheless, many artists embrace this trend, whereas other musicians suffer in turn because of the „damage“ done to their song.
Sped-up songs: fast music is suitable for short attention spans
If you think back a little further, you will be able to remember that YouTube was often in a clinch with GEMA. Official versions of famous songs were therefore a rarity on the platform. But even in those days, some superior users came up with the idea of simply changing the BPM up or down so that one could circumvent a blocking on YouTube.
Today, the tools from the days of the „gray market“ are more fashionable than ever. This is most likely also due to the fact that today’s time has become much more fast-paced overall. Thus, also due to the acceleration of songs, a faster input is more stimulating for our brain.