In her delightful Super Bowl Verizon commercial, Beyoncé vowed to do one thing: break the Internet. As the commercial showed, she didn’t succeed, at least not in the literal sense. Instead, after the commercial ended, she did something else: she hacked the Internet, launching two new songs, ‘Texas Hold “Em” and “16 Carriages”, the first of which is already on track to become the viral dance song of the year on TikTok.
This was always going to happen. Pretty much everything Beyoncé does, every album release, every outfit, goes viral. That’s why her Verizon commercial didn’t feel like a superficial attempt at astroturfing. Also, ‘Texas Hold “Em” is a great pop-country crossover track, and its rapid banjo riffs (by master Rhiannon Giddens) and lyrics about whiskey and taking it to the dance floor are perfect for line dancing. The line dances, which lend themselves to amusing imitations and interpretations, naturally do well on social platforms. It would have been stranger if TikTok had not been flooded with new dances in the week following the song’s release. (If you’re looking for the video that best exemplifies this trend, check out this chart-topping track by artists Matt McCall and Dexter Mayfield and then simply follow the sound down, down, down).
Inevitability, however, is not the only reason why ‘Texas Hold “Em” is currently the musical basis for nearly 134,000 videos with millions of collective views. The song is making its way onto TikTok at a time when much music has been silenced on the platform following a dispute between TikTok and Universal Music Group.
In January, after the two companies failed to reach a licensing agreement for UMG music, the major record company pulled songs it owns the rights to from TikTok, including cuts by artists such as Taylor Swift and Billie Eilish. This means that any video that uses music by those artists is now played without sound. Beyoncé’s music is distributed by Columbia/Sony, a rival of UMG, so ‘Texas Hold “Em” now sits at number 5 on TikTok’s Viral 50 list.
Now, like a glittering, holographic disco horse, Beyoncé is at the top of the social web. When she announced her new album, Act II, and released ‘Texas Hold “Em” and “16 Carriages,” the internet was abuzz with the fact that Beyoncé was making what felt like an entire country album, a continuation of country-soaked “Daddy Lessons” from 2016’s Lemonade. (‘It’s coming to put the pussy in country!!!’ were the responses on the @BeyLegion X account. ‘‘Daddy Lessons’ reloaded!’ said another).
On Tuesday, ‘Texas Hold “Em” made Beyoncé the first black woman to debut at #1 on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart. The song has currently been streamed nearly 20 million times.
The sounds of TikTok don’t count towards Billboard’s charts, but there is no doubt that viral dancing creates the kind of hype that leads to song streaming, album sales, and radio airplay. Beyoncé has no control over the TikTok/UMG situation (probably), and she had no way of knowing if their licensing dispute would still be going on when her new music was released (again, probably), but its existence paved the way for her new song to be one of the biggest things happening with music on the platform right now. There’s no doubt she would have reached these heights anyway, but with less competition, there’s nothing holding her back.
