Simon Cowell to launch TikTok music project

New project StemDrop will release singles along with the music stems on TikTok, enabling artists to make their own versions of the song

Simon Cowell is launching a new music project in conjunction with TikTok that he claims will help new artists get noticed on the platform.

The StemDrop initiative is pitched as an incubator for new talent, giving aspiring artists a way to showcase their skills in a “competitive” industry.

StemDrop will work by releasing music on Tiktok made by prominent industry figures. As soon as the track is released, the TikTok community will then be able to access the stems for the record so they can create, record and share it.

Stems are the individual components that make up the song such as bass, drums, vocals. TikTok users will be able to access these through the StemDrop H5 page, which allows them to recreate an original version.

The project, led by Swedish record producer Max Martin and backed by Cowell and Syco Entertainment along with Universal Music Group, invites “a new evolution of musical collaboration, curation and artist discovery”.

Max Martin is the producer behind many huge hits including Britney’s “...Baby One More Time” and Taylor Swift’s “Shake It Off”.

Though Cowell admitted he “doesn’t have a clue” how the process will evolve, he said he is confident that a fan-based system of talent-finding could be capable of creating artists on the same level as One Direction.

“The premise was always very straightforward…’What would happen if the best songwriters in the world wrote a song for the world?’,” Cowell told PA news agency on the ideation of the project.

“I’ve always believed that hit songs are probably the most important part of anyone’s career, and now there’s only a handful of what I call diamond copyrights written every year. With everyone trying to get noticed at the moment online, it’s so competitive,” he added.

“Essentially (with StemDrop), you’re going to be co-writing potentially your first single with some of the biggest songwriters in the world.”

Cowell said he believes that the project will provide the resource to kickstart artist careers: “It might be the missing link right now, because there are apparently tens of thousands of new songs being uploaded every day.

Cowell’s new venture will draw on his previous experience within music talent shows. He wants artists to see StemDrop as a competition to get noticed.

“It’s almost like the whole world’s auditioning right now,” he said. “That’s what I love about what TikTok has done – it’s enabled people to get in front of a record label where they normally wouldn’t,” he added.

On 26 October StemDrop will launch with the release of a TikTok exclusive 60-second version of a new single created by Max Martin, Savan Kotecha and Ali Payami.

Additional reporting by PA