I’m going through the daily charts and I click on the Spotify US top 50. As I’m scrolling down I spot Ritt Momney. I’m asking myself why the heck would Utah Senator Mitt Romney make a debut at #42 on the Spotify Charts. Did he trade his political career for a singing career. But then I stopped for a moment and looked at the name again. It wasn’t Mitt Romney, it was Ritt Momney.

Here is the deal. Ritt Momney is the alter ego of ex mormon and Utah based Jack Rutter. He made a splash on TikTok with a Corinne Bailey Rae cover Put Your Records On. The track picked up steam when Skiian had started a make up trend using the song. Soon after, he was on zoom calls with labels and he signed a deal with Disruptor/Columbia Records last week.

Like most artists Rutter didn’t expect to release a viral cover song.

For the last several months, music labels have been chasing artists with tracks that are ticking upwards on TikTok. It makes sense to jump on a moving train but how far are the tracks and how long the train moves is in question.
A track going viral on TikTok is not enough. Let’s say the track gets 10 million TikTok views, then what? It’s over, it burns out. It’s back to step one. TikTok can skyrocket the track up the streaming charts, but faster the rise, the faster the fall. The spike in your analytics will disappear and nothing tangible would have been built and the artist remains faceless.
Slow and organic growth always proves to be the winner. One fan at a time. One shows up, then two shows up. If you’re good, then the crowd becomes larger over time and begins to spread the word. Building over time means you grow with your audience. An artist that catches “Algorithmic luckiness” isn’t growing anything and in fact, may not even have a fan in the world.
Oh, and how long will viral TikTok songs last? As long as it takes until we reach herd immunity. We’ll all become immune, it will be a daily part of lives, and nobody will care anymore.

By the way, I like Ritt Momney. And who knows? Maybe he’ll catch fire agin. Remember, success is not a matter of luck—it’s an algorithm.

Lewis Capaldi scored his second #1 Top 40 song with “Before You Go”. In his own words, he’s an official two hit wonder.

The Scotland singer-songwriter says, ““I’m still here, with no signs of leaving.”

Where is Capaldi now? He’s home with his parents locked up.

“They both spend long days at work and come home to their 23-year-old son, who’s essentially unemployed at this point, to see him in his underwear, cheesy Doritos all over his stomach,” he explains. “It’s not a pretty sight to come home to after a long day of working hard.”
There is big change of plans now that he has two #1 hits.

He told Billboard, “To be honest with you, I’m extremely angry,” he jokes, “because I just approved a whole line of merch that was all, ‘Lewis Capaldi: Your Favorite One-Hit Wonder.’ So we’re gonna lose out on a lot of money from this.”
Such first world problems.

In all seriousness, he deserves it. He has a ridiculous voice, works hard, and isn’t afraid to take chances musically and professionally.

It was reported that TikTok would suffer its final fate today. That’s right. Last week it was reported that a deal couldn’t be reached and that TikTok would be banned today. Ironically, 12 hours later Trump Ok’d the Oracle and Walmart deal.

After months of going back and forth, Oracle and Walmart will form a new entity called TikTok Global, which will be headquartered in the United States. The whole point of this was to get TikTok out of the hands of China. India also banned the Chinese owned app.
Can China still use the app for spying on Americans? Well, Chinese tech company ByteDance is expected to hold its majority-ownership position, so skeptics are unsure.
Oracle will host all of TikTok’s U.S. user data and will safeguard TikTok’s computer systems “to ensure U.S. national security requirements are fully satisfied,” TikTok said in a statement.
There you have it. TikTok is saved and get ready for the new dance challenge.

Spotify has launched a global RADAR hub on the platform which will contain playlists, new releases and exclusive content featuring RADAR artists. Spotify launched the artist program 6 months ago that highlights rising artists around the globe.
The folks at Spotify are touting Radar Artists as a huge success. The artists have collectively generated over 2 billion streams and 112 million listeners across 102 countries. They have cumulatively generated more than 8 million followers since the launch.
Spotify’s Andy Sloan-Vincent says the RADAR hub is designed to further the program’s mission to break local artists on a global scale. “What we’re starting to see — we’ve seen it with K-pop — [is that] fans aren’t necessarily listening to just the music of their home language anymore,” he says. “They’re starting to listen to artists from completely different geographies, speaking different languages.”

The time has come. The Trump admin will ban the Chinese owned TikTok and WeChat on the app stores on Sunday. China banned Google, Facebook, YouTube and WhatsApp. We are venturing into a new frontier. Countries are creating apps, targeting users, and weaponizing them for political purposes.

Earlier in the week it was reported that American company Oracle was going to buy TikTok.
India banned TikTok while Australia have been critics of the app. China is collecting data from American users that is streamlined to the Chinese government.

WeChat is the most popular in China. It’s used as a chat app, a payment platform, and a news source. It’s used to monitor the citizens and is a conduit for Chinese propaganda and surveillance.
Now lets be clear. It’s not an outright ban. TikTok will still function but users won’t have access to updates and upgrades.
Will TikTok ultimately go away? Most definitely not. A deal will be made eventually, it’s just taking slower then expected.