Dredge agrees: “A lot of the influencers on places like TikTok are a few years older, so they are probably using songs from the 2010s that soundtracked their teenage years.”
Taylor Swift’s Cruel Summer (2019) could even be described as a sleeper hit – it wasn’t released as an official single at the time, but eventually reached number one in 2023 and was the fifth-biggest song of 2024 overall on Apple Music.
Others, though, are not such obvious hits. Musically, most sound quite restrained and atmospheric – they’re emotive soundtrack songs rather than upbeat bangers or full-blooded anthems.
“These aren’t songs that were released with the intention of being a pop hit,” Kloboves says.
“Not to bash on pop music or pop stars, but sometimes they all sort of sound the same. But I think a lot of these songs are very different from what you might usually hear in the mainstream,” she says.
“I think that’s why listeners really resonate with them, because they’re slightly unique and different-sounding.”
