Celebrating British music at the 2021 BRIT Awards with some of our most-loved artist nominees 11 May 2021
We're counting down to the 2021 BRIT Awards, set to take over The O2 once more on Tuesday 11 May.
We want to celebrate the incredible British artists that have smashed it this year and brought new music that has inspired our creative community. Rising talent has been given a huge voice on our platform, like Young T & Bugsey in the Breakthrough Category, to established names like Dua Lipa who have embraced TikTok and found new, authentic and creative ways to engage with their fans.
We analysed the BRITs nominees on TikTok, looking at the success of their catalogues on the platform globally. Incredibly, it's revealed that the 2021 BRITs nominees have collectively amassed over 217 billion video views across 222 million video creations.
Paul Hourican, Head of Music Operations UK for TikTok: "From all of us at TikTok, a big congratulations to each and every artist nominee in the 2021 BRIT Awards. The BRITs are always such a big moment on the music calendar, and this year, our community is throwing their support behind their favourite nominees by creating content with these much-loved sounds.
It has been a big year again for British music, and we're honoured so many of our homegrown artists are choosing TikTok to reach their fans, share their talent and inspire our creative community. "
The BRITs Bounce!
Our community has undoubtedly thrown their support behind the BRITs, with several artists experiencing a huge jump in engagement in the UK alone since they were nominated. Across almost every category, we saw an uplift in video views and video creations - here's a snapshot of some of the biggest 'bounces' since the nominees were announced looking at the average increase between pre- and post nomination announcement.
- Best Album: +155% average increase in UK video creations across nominees
- Best British Female: +144% average increase in UK video creations across nominees
- Best British Male: +71% average increase in UK video creations across nominees
- Best British Group: +42% average increase in UK video creations across nominees
- Breakthrough Artist: +25% average increase in UK video creations across nominees
(Data based on analysis for 4 weeks pre and 4 weeks prior by UK TikTok users, averaged per category across nominees)
Some artists in particular saw a massive boost in engagement across their music catalogue:
For Best Album and Best British Female, Dua Lipa continues to be 'Queen of TikTok' as the most popular UK artist. Since her BRITs nomination, her catalogue of music has seen a 519% growth in video views and staggering 600% growth in video creations.
TikTokers also love J Hus' upbeat afroswing, throwing their weight behind his nominations for Best British Male and Best Album with a 411% growth in video views and 499% growth in video creations.
For Best British Group, Little Mix saw an incredible 175% increase in video creations and 46% increase in video views following their BRITS nod.
For Breakthrough Artist, TikTok favourites Young T and Bugsey saw a big BRITs bounce with 40% increase in video creations in the month after their BRITs nomination leading to an 81% increase in video views.
You might also remember that the standout track of last summer was Harry Styles' Watermelon Sugar and it took off on TikTok in a big way too. It comes as no surprise that he's in the running for Best British Single, with it being one of the most popular nominated tracks both in the UK and around the world, with an amazing 1.3million video creations globally since first landing on TikTok and capturing our community's hearts and creativity.
Looking wider to our global talent, those nominated for International Female, including Cardi B, Arianna Grande, Billie Eilish, Taylor Swift and Miley Cyrus, together enjoyed almost half a million additional video creations using their music and over 388 million views from UK fans in the four weeks after receiving the nomination - a significant BRITs bounce.
TikTok Playlists & Hashtag Challenges
We've also got an exciting line-up of in-app activations, from hashtag challenges to playlists, to help TikTokers celebrate the BRITs.
Our community has been gearing up for the awards night, with over 18 million video views on the #BRITsCovers challenge as users reimagine their much-loved tracks from the nominees. Even the legendary Rick Astley has paid homage to Biffy Clyro with his cover of 'Many of Horror', whilst Hozier performed his favourite Billie Eilish track.
If you're looking for more BRITs inspiration, you can check out our BRITs Nominees Playlist on the Sounds Page which has top tracks from all of the artists nominated at the BRITs 2021. We also have a BRITs Breakthrough Playlist featuring the brilliant Arlo Parks, Bicep, Celeste, Joel Corry and Young T & Bugsey.
To spice up your video creations after the awards ceremony, we'll also have a playlist dedicated to the BRITs Winners!
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THE HEADLINES
V&A East Storehouse to open the David Bowie Centre (see News)
ESCA calls on the EU to block Universal Music’s deal to buy Downtown (see News)
Virgin Music CEOs push back against critics of Downtown Music deal (see News)
Record labels are running on empty (see Opinion)
AI music is going viral, but it’s not what fans want (see Comment)
The Velvet Sundown may be the first breakout AI band from Suno (see Digital)
Amid cuts, WMG to "continue to supercharge our capabilities in long-term artist, songwriter, and catalog development" (see Business)
WIN CEO writes to European Commission Vice-President over Universal's acquisition of Downtown (see Comment)
If Spotify truly champions discovery, it should champion fair compensation from the first stream (see Comment)
Selected Glastonbury coverage (see News, Features, Showbiz, Reviews)
Streaming is both retail and radio – it shouldn’t be (see Comment)
Impala’s Helen Smith on UMG's planned Downtown acquisition (see Comment)
Retiring Arista CEO David Massey shares his top 10 career highlights (see Features)
Budweiser’s royalty loophole ad: How AI and social have changed the value of creators (see Comment)
When did making music get so lonely? (see Comment)
How will Taylor Swift’s masters ownership saga be remembered? (see Audio&Visual)
The copyright war between the AI industry and creatives (see Comment)
Interview: Lyor Cohen, the head of YouTube Music (see Features)