TikTok is quietly testing ‘Hot 50’ and ‘Viral’ song charts in its app as it pushes deeper into the music business

• TikTok has begun testing showing “Hot 50” and “Viral” charts to some users.
• The feature enables users to see which songs are trending and add tracks to videos.
• TikTok’s parent ByteDance announced a new “TikTok Music” streaming app in two markets this week.

TikTok is testing a new feature that shows “Hot 50” and “Viral” music charts to a small subset of users, a spokesperson confirmed to Insider.

For charting tracks, a button now appears at the top of the song’s sound page that indicates how high it landed on TikTok’s Hot 50 or Viral rankings. The button clicks into a separate “TikTok Music Charts” page where a user can browse through popular songs and select a track to add to a video.

As is often the case on TikTok, many of the ranked songs are only available in snippets. The top three tracks on July 6 in TikTok’s US Hot 50 ranking were a 17-second clip of “Get Off The Wall” by Philly Goats, a 24-second sped-up version of the song “Collide” by Justine Skye, and the Young Nudy song “Peaches & Eggplants (featuring 21 Savage).”

TikTok’s music charts may never expand beyond its current limited test, the spokesperson said. “We are constantly testing new products, and not all go on to be launched to all users,” they said. 

TikTok’s test mirrors efforts by music-streaming platforms that share song rankings with users

TikTok’s experiment with showing users trending tracks mirrors similar efforts by audio-streaming platforms like Spotify that also share song rankings with users. 

TikTok is also expanding its music business internationally. This week, the company announced it launched a dedicated “TikTok Music” streaming app in Indonesia and Brazil that will ultimately replace Resso, a streaming app from TikTok’s parent ByteDance that competes with Spotify in those markets.

The company has been pushing deeper into other aspects of the music business in recent months, as well, launching a song-distribution and artist-services platform called SoundOn and even signing artists directly. 

The short-video app has become a key part of artist storytelling and the song-promotion playbook, as tracks that take off on TikTok often end up gaining streams elsewhere.

Up-and-coming performers use TikTok to get discovered by new fans, even capturing the attention of A&R staff at traditional record labels. Older songs can also find a new life on TikTok. Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams” and Matthew Wilder’s “Break My Stride” both went viral on TikTok and reentered the cultural mainstream. 

“It’s the most important thing that’s happened in the music industry in a long time,” Jonny Kaps, cofounder and CEO of the independent label +1 Records, told Insider in May. “It just allows us to build a new artist audience in a way that we’ve never really been able to do before.”