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- The Echo Vol. 8 - Unique and hypnotizing sounds
The Echo Vol. 8 - Unique and hypnotizing sounds
French rap is back and so is a distinct trend, but you can never guess what happens to the most viewed churros...
June 4, 2025 | by Parasition |
HOW’S IT GOING?
This week’s Echo is filled with awesome stuff. Let’s get to it.
GLOBAL TIKTOK TREND (SOUND) OF THE WEEK
 360k+ likes | Afro Trap pt.3 (Champions League) | MHDGenre: Afro Trap This french sound starts with an intense and distinct beat. The song has clear and repetitive lyrics that really make it stick. Once again, we have a specific dance attached to the sound. There’s almost something hypnotizing with beats like this, and we think that’s a big reason why it has performed so well. Could also have a bit to do with PSG winning Champions League 😉 Takeaways— If a song suits a current event it can go extremely viral — Very viral sounds often come with a specific dance trend |
LOCAL TIKTOK TREND (SOUND) OF THE WEEK
United Kingdom
 180k+ likes | Illegal | PinkPantheressGenre: 2-Step / Dance Pop Here we have a sound that quickly became trending. A big reason for this is the connected trend you can see in the example. The sound is also used for a bunch of other stuff. Overall, it’s a very unique song with a singer with a gentle voice. It’s satisfying to listen to, which makes the videos more satisfying to watch. And that’s what it’s all about right? Takeaways— Newly released songs can blow up, even when they’re not from the biggest of big artists — If the sound is satisfying, that will also become true for the video. This lays the foundation for viralness |
WHAT’S HAPPENING IN SOCIAL MEDIA:
SoundCloud integration on TikTok
TikTok has launched a new integration with SoundCloud through its "Add to Music App" feature, allowing users to save songs they discover on TikTok directly to their Liked Tracks playlist on SoundCloud. The feature is rolling out to all TikTok users globally.
Why this matters for music marketing
This creates a direct pipeline from viral TikTok moments to sustained fan engagement on SoundCloud, where listeners can revisit and share tracks. You can now more effectively convert casual TikTok viewers into real fans, track the impact of TikTok-driven campaigns, and leverage SoundCloud’s unique audience for new talent.
DATA | THE WORLD OF MUSIC QUANTIFIED
Spotify’s weekly global top 5 songs
— #1. Ordinary | Alex Warren // 40 m weekly streams
— #2. Don’t Say You Love Me | Jin // 37.5 m weekly streams
— #3. Die with a smile | Lady Gaga & Bruno Mars // 34.9 m weekly streams
— #4. Birds of a Feather | Billie Eilish // 32.9 m weekly streams
— #5. back to friends | sombr // 29.3 m weekly streams
Spotify’s weekly global top 10 artists
— #1. Bad Bunny // Latin trap
— #2. Taylor Swift // Pop
— #3. Morgan Wallen // Country
— #4. The Weeknd // Alternative R&B
— #5. Drake // Pop
— #6. Fuerza Regida // Varied // Regional Mexican
— #7. Billie Eilish // Alternative Pop
— #8. Kendrick Lamar // Hip Hop
— #9. Lady Gaga // Pop
— #10. Arijit Singh // Playback Singer
TIKTOK VIDEO OF THE WEEK:
Exploding churros
Views: 80,800,000 | Likes: 9,600,000
Finally we’re off the wholesome train. At least kind of. Here’s a video of a girl who made churros, but when her dad tries them something quite surprising happens: they explode.
This TikTok was from an unknown account, and it’s blown up all over the world. Here’s why:
— #1. Very professional filming grabs your attention. The lighting, angle, camera — everything is top notch. This works as a hook in a way, since you’re more likely to give a great-looking video a chance.
— #2. The caption let’s you know what it’s about, and makes you curious. It makes you curious as you want to know if the video is really only about regular churros? This is further amplified by the insane amount of views and likes.
— #3. The explosion is extremely unanticipated and makes you re-watch, because you want to see if what you saw really just happened. The algorithm loves this.
— #4. Huge shareability as people love sharing surprising and funny stuff. This one goes without saying right? Who doesn’t want to surprise their friends?
— #5. Engagement-creating since you want to figure out what happened. Did those churros really just explode? And if so, how the f does that happen? People turn to the comments…
MUSIC EVENT OF THE WEEK:
Primavera Sound
Primavera Sound 2025 is returning to Barcelona’s Parc del Fòrum from June 5–7. Now in its 23rd edition, Primavera Sound has become one of Europe’s most prestigious festivals, known for its diverse genre-spanning lineup. This year’s headliners include Charli XCX, Sabrina Carpenter, and Chappell Roan and plenty of other mega artists are expected to draw over 75,000 attendees per day.
The seaside location in a city as cool as Barcelona combined with the awesome performers are sure to make it an event that will be seen in tons of places.
TIP OF THE WEEK
Design short-form content for no sound first
Did you know that tons of people (sometimes most) actually scroll in silence? This is especially the case in the first few seconds. So, your content needs to make sense visually before a single note is head.
How to get it right
— #1. Use on-screen text as a guide — Introduce your topic or headline immediately. Treat it like a billboard: big, clear, and easy to skim.
— #2. Visually anchor the action — Use expressive body language, gestures, or facial expressions to convey tone and urgency.
— #3. Lean on visual storytelling — Use images, movement, or changes in setting to imply narrative progression.
— #4. Subtitles should complement and not clutter — Take advantage of styled captions that enhance the viewing experience, rather than default auto-captions.
— #5. Once all this is figured out, add your sounds of choice to make it even better — this step should be seen as enhancing the content, and not something foundational.
PARASITION: Campaign breakdown
 54k+ views | Dance Alone | Maria SurGenre: Pop Dance Alone by Maria Sur is a great pop song we’ve helped promote. We created an open brief for our creators, and from our results we learned it really suited humoristic captions and lots of movement. In this viral example, the creator had a super strong hook with lots of action and movement. The lighting is outstanding, and writing “the feeling when” is golden for creating relatability. Campaign learnings— Pop songs go hand in hand with movement and humor — Adapting more videos to the ones that went viral would here increase total views |
ROUND-UP
— Sounds that match current events are way more likely to go viral
— Specific dance trends that are connected to the song continue to rule TikTok
— Satisfying sounds create satisfying videos
— Newly released songs can blow up
— SoundCloud and TikTok has launched an awesome integration that’s bound to shake things up
— Short-form content should be designed for viewers scrolling without sound, because very many do
Wow! You made it to the end! Fantastic 🤝
We hope you liked this week’s Echo!
Are you in the business of music marketing? And are you someone that wants to make tracks blow up? Reach out to us at Parasition, and we’ll make it happen 🕺🚀
// The Echo Team