The Beatles are angling for a piece of that sweet, sweet TikTok pie, finally joining the platform with their own official account and making 36 of their songs officially available as soundtracks for videos.
The band’s account has just two videos so far, and despite having a trove of archival footage at their disposal (surely there’s much to be done with all the charming sequences in A Hard Day’s Night), they’ve only dropped a couple of generic-looking clips so far. One, set to “All You Need Is Love,” encourages users to explore the Beatles’ Number One hits, while another is essentially a teaser clip for both the upcoming reissue of Let It Be and Peter Jackson’s new documentary about the album.
As for the music the Beatles have made available on TikTok, it includes all of Let It Be, as well as all of the band’s Number One hits in the U.K. and U.S., from “Love Me Do” to “The Long And Winding Road.” While TikTok often favors the new, it’s not inconceivable that the Beatles might score an archival hit on the platform: Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams” went famously viral, while the Beatles’ arch-nemesis — and, per a spicy Sir Paul, mere “blues cover band” — the Rolling Stones had a bit of a TikTok hit when “Paint It Black” became a meme.
The Beatles, as a band, though, are actually late to the TikTok game, with all four members of the group — including the dead ones — having set up accounts over the past year. John Lennon’s solo catalog was launched last October, Paul McCartney joined that December, Ringo Starr followed over the summer, and George Harrison made it to the platform in August.
While the Beatles joining TikTok is technically the “big news” here, those more inclined to obsess over cultural minutiae might zero in on one particular hashtag accompanying the two Beatles TikTok clips: “#Rocktober.” Indeed, TikTok will be celebrating rock & roll music all throughout the month of October, which means the platform at the vanguard of music discovery, creation, and distribution is ripping a marketing ploy straight from the dusty pages of corporatized classic rock radio stations everywhere. Truly, there is nothing new under the sun. But that doesn’t mean we all still can’t have a dignified, reflective, and joyous Rocktober.