I’m listening to the accelerated, chipmunk voice of the British singer Raye on Escapism, a rebound-sex anthem that’s currently climbing UK pop charts. Raye actually has a low, brassy singing voice, but I’m not listening to her official version. This one is paced 150% faster than the original song, making it sound like Raye has just inhaled helium and is spitting out her lyrics like an auctioneer on Adderall.
Who wants to listen to a song that sounds like a triple shot of espresso? Perhaps more people than you might think.
The Escapism remix can be found on Sped Up Songs, a Spotify-produced playlist liked by more than 975,000 people. It runs over four hours and manipulates songs such as Steve Lacey’s recent TikTok anthem Bad Habits and older hits like Ellie Goulding’s Lights and Summertime Sadness by Lana Del Rey.
On YouTube, users upload hours-long videos of sped-up songs. One from last year has over 4.9m views and features 2000s pop songs loved by millennials – including Nelly Furtado’s Say It Right and Jennifer Lopez’s On the Floor – made faster to suit Gen Z’s preference for turbocharged beats.
On TikTok, the hashtag “spedupsounds” has 9.6bn views, as users dance along to I Wish by Skee-Lo and Thundercat’s Them Changes at whiplash-inducing BPMs. Wednesday Addams, Netflix’s massively popular series, kickstarted a trend where users recreated Jenny Ortega’s viral choreography. Their moves were set to a breathless, sped-up version of Lady Gaga’s Bloody Mary.
Though that song was released in 2011, the TikTok craze saw its popularity soar in 2022. Sped-up songs have the potential to breathe new life – and push new listeners – to older songs that might otherwise be forgotten. So, as Billboard has reported, these kinds of remixes “drive songs up the charts” and are especially lucrative for catalogue material, or songs that have been out for more than 18 months.
“People are discovering the main version from the sped-up or slowed one,” Nima Nasseri, global head of A&R strategy for Universal Music Group, told the trade publication. “Instead of spending $50,000 for a remix from a big-name DJ, you’re spending relatively minimal amounts [on a sped-up rendition] and getting much more in reach and return.”
But who makes these remixes – and who benefits from the trend? It’s a murky business that leaves industry-watchers skeptical of potential deals between labels and streaming services. One Spotify playlist, called “sped up nightcore”, has a DIY look to it, with lowercase titling and a stock photo of a lightning bolt as its avatar. But Billboard found that the playlist only posts remixes of songs from Warner Music Group. It averages over 12 million listeners a month and 2 million listeners a day. WMG did not respond to requests for comment from Billboard and the Guardian on any collaboration with Spotify. (A representative for Spotify did not respond to a list of questions sent by the Guardian.)
So what’s behind the trend? It has roots in nightcore, the official name given to sped-up songs. Two Norwegian high school students, Thomas S Nilsen and Steffen Ojala Soderholm, “pioneered” the sound during a class project in 2002. Though the pair never ended up working in the music industry, they recently reunited in a New York Times profile, where they described writing an original son
