TikTok success gives millions for Aurora Aksnes – VG

In February 2015, the then relatively unknown Aurora Aksnes (now 24) released «Runaway».

It has opened doors both for Aksnes himself and others; Among other things, Billie Eilish – one of the world’s biggest pop stars right now – has stated that the song and the video for it were crucial for her to become an artist.

– Something inside me fell into place, has Eilish stated.

– I owe this song everything, reported Eilish later.

Now “Runaway” has been given another new life – and now it is serious commercially.

This weekend, the song surpassed the top 100 most played on Spotify globally. It is now played over a million times a day on the streaming service.

There are figures of the type the international power giants Kygo and Alan Walker note on good days.

At the time of writing, “Runaway” has just moved up to 80th place Spotify’s global hit list – a jump from 91st place the day before and 112th place the day before there again.

Before the song started to take off again last autumn, it was approx. 70,000 daily plays, according to Aksnes’ record company Petroleum.

– Old flame

Aksnes has previously informed her followers that industry success such as list placements and awards are not things she is particularly interested in.

“Usually this is not something I get so excited about”, says Aksnes in a message to VG conveyed by the record company.

“But it’s always nice when an old flame is allowed to live again. It would have been great fun to tell this to 11 year old Aurora when she wrote this song. And then I think she would probably have been happy! », she reports.

According to Kim Paulsen in Petroleum Records, the new spring for “Runaway” began in August last year – organically, but also as a result of new interest after Aksnes’ participation in “Frost 2”.

Wanted

The artist’s own activity at TikTok has yielded results, Paulsen believes.

– Aurora has shared cover versions as well as its own versions of “Runaway” which has led to great spread, and from February this year “Runaway” began to move violently.

At TikTok, there are now over 61 million hits on the hashtag “#aurorarunaway”.

At the time of writing, the song is the 13th most popular in the world on the music search service Shazam.

– It is also among the 50 most shared songs on Spotify in 28 countries, says Paulsen.

He further says that Aksnes has worked with new music throughout 2020 and that new releases will come this year.

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By the way, Aksnes is not the only Norwegian artist who is now experiencing new success with old music with the help of TikTok: Astrid S has in recent months conquered new market internationally med sin 2016-slager «Hurts So Good».

Smeplass released a new version of the song a week and a half ago, in response to the new interest.

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