Nightcore: Sped-up versions of existing songs more popular on Spotify than the original versions

The Guardian looks for clues for the popularity of nightcore, sped-up versions of existing songs, on streaming services and social media. Spotify-produced playlist Sped Up Songs is liked by more than 975,000 people; views of nightcore versions of songs on YouTube count in millions; on TikTok, the hashtag “spedupsounds” has 9.6bn views. The G sees record labels behind this trend - "sped-up music is a quick way for labels to monetize old music" since these kinds of remixes “drive songs up the charts” and are especially lucrative for catalogue material. There's a new trend going on parallel to nightcore - “slowed + reverb”, a slowed-down alternative "where producers pull down a song’s tempo to 60 or 70 quarter-note beats per minute, then add some skips, scratches, and stop-time moments. It’s a TikTok staple, with over 1.3m views on the app, and 623,000 followers on Spotify’s 'slowed and reverbed' playlist".