Music discovery has moved from radio and MTV to TikTok and Instagram. An old industry practice has followed listeners onto their phones, often without their knowledge.
You’re scrolling TikTok when someone recommends a song you’ve never heard. They play a few seconds, nod along, react to a lyric and insist the artist deserves more attention. The enthusiasm feels real, partly because the person isn’t a celebrity or a radio host. It’s someone whose taste you’ve come to trust.
What you might not know is that a record label paid them to post it.
As music journalism has shrunk and radio has lost cultural ground, music influencers have become one of the main ways audiences find new artists. But an NPR investigation published in July found that some creators regularly take money from labels and marketing agencies to promote songs without telling their followers.
The music industry has always paid people to shape what audiences hear. What’s new is that the person delivering the pitch looks less like an industry insider and more like a friend.
The Business Behind Your Next Favorite Song
NPR reporter Isabella Gomez Sarmiento spoke with five music creators who said they often accept payment to feature songs or artists without disclosing it. One, who asked not to be named, has more than 1.1 million followers.
Carly Bogie, who posts playlist videos to about 80,000 followers as @hahakcoolgtgbye, told NPR she charges $150 to $400 per promotional video, depending on the campaign. She said she recently received $400 apiece for two videos about a major-label pop artist fresh off a Billboard Hot 100 entry. Bogie said she only promotes music she genuinely likes and would post about anyway.
The arrangements themselves are routine. A label or agency contacts a creator or their manager, asks for a rate card and negotiates a fee. The creator makes the video, sometimes submits it for approval, and posts it once both sides sign off.
To the viewer, the result can look identical to an unpaid recommendation, and that is exactly what makes it valuable. People have learned to recognize a traditional ad. An influencer’s recommendation works differently because its power comes from the audience’s trust in someone’s taste. Labels aren’t just buying a few seconds of exposure. They’re renting that trust.
Payola Never Really Disappeared
Long before TikTok, labels were caught paying DJs to spin their records. The practice became known as payola. After congressional hearings in the late 1950s exposed how widespread it was, Congress amended the Communications Act in 1960 to make undisclosed payments for airplay illegal. The principle was simple: listeners deserved to know when money was shaping what they heard.
Those broadcast rules, enforced by the Federal Communications Commission, generally don’t reach an individual’s TikTok or Instagram account. But the Federal Trade Commission’s endorsement guidance does cover financial ties between advertisers and influencers. When a material connection could affect how an audience weighs an endorsement, it generally must be disclosed clearly and conspicuously. Asked about undisclosed song promotions, the FTC told NPR it evaluates each situation case by case.
Advertising Disguised as Conversation
What makes influencer promotion so effective is that it can turn an ad into what looks like a cultural moment.
A commercial announces itself. An influencer can frame the same artist as a personal discovery or a hidden gem. When other creators pick up the song, the buzz can look organic to people who never saw the original paid post.
None of this means the music is bad. A song can be excellent, and a creator can sincerely love it while being paid to share it. The problem is that audiences are denied information they need to judge the recommendation for themselves. That matters most for younger listeners, who are more likely to rely on social media than on publications or radio to find music.
Who Gets Heard
Paid recommendations also shape who gets discovered.
Streaming and social media lowered the barrier to releasing music. Any artist can put out a song without a label. But distributing music and getting people to listen are different problems, and if influential accounts increasingly function as paid channels, artists with bigger marketing budgets gain an edge.
Independent artists can buy promotion too, and social media has opened doors that radio kept shut. Still, a marketplace built on paid visibility risks rebuilding the financial gatekeeping that digital platforms promised to tear down. It also muddies what “going viral” means. A sudden surge of attention might be spontaneous, coordinated or both, and without disclosure, listeners can’t tell which.
The Creators Who Say No
Some creators refuse paid music promotion because they believe it erodes their credibility.
Australian music commentator Derrick Gee told NPR he doesn’t accept money from labels, artists, agencies or publishers to promote music, and he has published an ethics and transparency policy laying out why. In his view, buying influence from people who built audiences through genuine enthusiasm undermines the very thing that made them worth listening to. Critic Anthony Fantano has raised similar concerns about paid promotion and about algorithms’ role in deciding which artists get attention.
Neither objection is an argument against creators getting paid. Researching music, producing thoughtful commentary and building an audience is real work. The question is whether the audience knows when a recommendation has become a transaction. A labeled sponsorship lets listeners decide for themselves. An undisclosed one takes that choice away.
When a Recommendation Becomes an Ad
The same issue runs through product reviews, restaurant picks and travel advice online. Music is distinctive because discovering a song rarely feels like a purchase. But streams, shares and attention all have economic value, helping an artist find more listeners, earn more revenue and build commercial momentum. That makes music discovery a legitimate marketing opportunity, and it makes transparency essential.
Labels have always wanted a say in what becomes popular. Radio programmers, DJs, magazines and TV networks once stood between artists and audiences. Today a single creator with a phone can hold that kind of sway over a community of listeners. The technology has changed. The incentive hasn’t.
The next time someone tells you an unfamiliar song is about to blow up, their excitement may be completely genuine. They may also have been paid to say it.
The question isn’t whether labels should be allowed to promote music. It’s whether audiences should be left guessing when promotion is dressed up as personal taste.