What TikTok and Shorts taught me about songs

A lot of people found me through «Tan Cateto». Not through an album, or the website, or the song I'd have picked as my calling card. Through a snippet of «Tan Cateto» that somebody saw on TikTok while they were doing something else. It seems only fair to start there, because that song forced me to think about something I used to take for granted: that people listen to a whole song.

They don't. Not the first time, anyway.

What I do know is that «Tan Cateto» became the front door. People came in that way, and some of them stayed to see what else was in the house. And there was plenty to look at, because behind that video were two years of work.

I think the title helped. Cateto, roughly "hick" or "yokel", is a word everyone in Spain knows, and it has something of the affectionate insult about it, the kind your friends throw at you when you make a fool of yourself. It's short, it sounds good and you get it instantly. Somewhere people decide in a second whether to stay or keep scrolling, a word like that is gold dust. I didn't plan it. I'd love to say I did, but I'd be lying.

The first few seconds

I direct my music videos, more than 280 by now, and I've cut hundreds of Shorts. Making short videos taught me something nobody had ever explained to me properly: the first two or three seconds decide everything. If there's a long intro at the start, a pretty shot of nothing, a wait, the person has already gone.

That changed the way I think about videos. Now, when I cut a Short, I look for the moment where something happens: a line with some bite, a sudden change in the picture, the title hitting you all at once. I start there, even if in the song it doesn't come until minute two. The short video doesn't respect the order of the song, and I've accepted that it doesn't have to.

The funny thing is that it's also made me look at songs differently. I ask myself more often what happens in the first seconds of a full track. If it takes too long to get going, maybe something needs to go. I don't always change it. Some songs need their slow way in, and I don't want everything I make to sound like a shampoo advert. But the question won't leave my head now, and that's sometimes uncomfortable.

The chorus is in charge

On TikTok and Shorts, what travels furthest is nearly always the chorus. It's the bit people recognise, the bit you can repeat and the bit someone else can use to make their own video over the top. A verse tells you things; a chorus sticks.

That has a consequence that makes me a little uneasy. If you know only the chorus is going to travel, the temptation is to write songs that are a chorus with padding around it. And that doesn't interest me at all. The verses are where the characters are, the odd detail, the scene. Without verses what you've got is a slogan, and banks already have slogans covered.

So I try to do both at once, and I don't always manage: a chorus that can live on its own in twenty seconds and verses that make it worth staying the full three minutes. When it works, I can feel it. When it doesn't, I can feel that too, and then the clip does fine and the song limps.

Twenty seconds against three minutes

This is the part that makes me think the most. A twenty-second clip and a full song are two different experiences, even when they use the same material. With the clip, people laugh, share, leave a comment and keep scrolling. With the full song there's time for a line to touch something in you, for you to understand who's speaking and why they're so angry, or so in love.

My fear, at first, was that almost everyone would stop at the clip. And plenty do, of course. But I've seen some people make the whole journey: from the short video to the full music video, from the music video to Spotify, from one song to another. I have no figures to show you and I'm not going to make any up. What I have is the feeling that the clip works like the free sample at the market. You try the sliver of cheese and decide whether to take the wedge home.

I've also learnt not to look down on the clip. There was a time when it felt like a poor version of the song, almost a necessary evil. Now I think it's something else, with its own rules, and that it has to be well made in its own right. A badly cut Short takes nobody anywhere. A well-cut one can lead someone to a song they'd never have gone looking for.

And there's a contradiction I can't resolve. I'm glad «Tan Cateto» opened the door, but sometimes it drives me a bit mad that so many people stick with that one and never get further. I suppose it happens to anyone with one song better known than the rest. You don't get to choose which one they'll ask for.

What hasn't changed

Some things TikTok hasn't changed. I still write lyrics that make sense from beginning to end. I still think of albums as stories you listen to in order, from the first song to the last, and that doesn't fit into twenty seconds. That's fine. There's room for both, and each feeds the other more than I thought it would.

What has changed is that I no longer assume anyone will come to my music through the front door. They come in through the window, or through a video a cousin sent them at two in the morning. And that's fine. What matters is that once they're in, they find more than the snippet that made them laugh, and that the more is up to scratch.

If you came in through a clip and want the whole song, it's at mikesaintlouis.com.