What makes a song become a hit today?
While listeners certainly play a role, new research suggests that streaming platforms and their algorithms also have a powerful influence on which songs rise to the top.
A recent study from researchers at University of California, Davis explored how the business models and recommendation systems of TikTok and Spotify help shape both the music artists create and the songs audiences end up hearing.
The study, published in the journal Information, Communication & Society, analyzed the Top 100 song charts on both platforms between 2020 and 2022.
The researchers found that hit songs on these platforms are not determined by listeners alone. Instead, popularity emerges from a mix of user activity and algorithm-driven promotion.
When platforms highlight certain songs in their charts or recommendations, they make those tracks more visible to listeners, which can help them become even more popular.
Cuihua (Cindy) Shen, a professor of communication at UC Davis and the study’s lead author, explained that these charts reflect both audience choices and the platforms’ influence.
“Hit song charts represent both user feedback and selections curated by the platforms’ algorithms that also influence users’ choices,” Shen said. “By publishing hit song charts, platforms are declaring what songs are visible and dominant.”
The researchers compared how music performed on TikTok and Spotify and discovered clear differences in the types of songs that succeed on each platform.
TikTok, which focuses on short user-created videos, tends to favor songs that work well with dancing and visual creativity. Dance music and tracks that support popular trends such as dance challenges often become hits there. Because TikTok users frequently remix and reuse song clips in their videos, the platform encourages creative reinterpretations of music.
Spotify, on the other hand, is primarily a music streaming service designed for listening to full-length songs and albums. As a result, its Top 100 charts show a different pattern. Love songs and tracks about relationships appear frequently, while songs dealing with political topics tend to be less popular. Spotify’s hit songs are also more likely to come from major record labels and often fall into genres such as pop and hip-hop.
The researchers also found that the overlap between the two platforms was surprisingly small. During the two-year study period, TikTok’s Top 100 chart included 321 different songs, while Spotify’s chart featured 1,707 songs. Only 68 songs appeared on both platforms’ hit lists.
Another interesting difference was how long songs stayed popular. Songs tended to move on and off Spotify’s daily charts more quickly, while TikTok hits often stayed relevant longer, possibly because users continued to create new videos using the same sound clips.
The study highlights how modern music platforms influence the industry in different ways. Spotify mainly functions as a traditional distribution channel where listeners stream full songs, while TikTok acts more like a creative playground where users reshape and reinterpret music.
Together, these platforms show that in today’s digital music world, a hit song is shaped not only by listeners—but also by the technology that delivers the music.
