We often hear about the damaging impact of social media on pop, from toxic fan culture to the way online gossip reduces lyrics to a treasure hunt for details about artists’ private lives. But it’s also worth noting its positive effects: how TikTok users can make improbable tracks from pop history go viral; how social media can transform the fortunes of an artist who probably wouldn’t have got past a record company’s reception in our current, risk-averse era.
Which brings us to North Carolina’s Isimeme Udu, better known as Hemlocke Springs, who rose to fame posting homemade videos of her songs on TikTok. There’s always a chance that a label might have gone all in on a bespectacled 27-year-old former librarian fond of neon-coloured wigs, purveying “awkward Black girl anthems” via a lo-fi take on 80s-influenced synth pop, but you wouldn’t bet on it. Self-released, her tracks have racked up millions of streams and attracted the attention of Doja Cat and Chappell Roan, both of whom took her on tour: cue a video of Springs supporting Roan at New York’s Forest Hills stadium last autumn, performing Girlfriend while most of the 13,000-capacity audience sings along.
