- Music Marketing Trends by Jesse Cannon
- Posts
- How Lola Young Took Being "Messy" Viral
How Lola Young Took Being "Messy" Viral
Revealing the TikTok strategies any artist can replicate for MASSIVE engagement

Music Marketing Trends is a Newsletter by Jesse Cannon that breaks down how musicians really get their music heard. If you know a story we should be telling or an artist we should cover just hit reply to this email.
Lola dropped her first music in 2019 starting from absolute zero monthly listeners. Fast forward to April 21st - she's sitting at 40 million monthly listeners. Insane growth curve. She wasn't starting from nothing though - had already built a decent following before things exploded, which gave her the perfect foundation when her breakthrough moment finally hit.
It took 10 months of pushing “Messy” to go viral
Looking at Lola's numbers, things really started happening in October, which is wild because "Messy" actually dropped back on May 30th, 2024. She'd been pushing it consistently since then, just like we saw with Julia Wolf, Dasha, and Lay Bankz. That 10-month timeline is worth talking about because people constantly ask me why they can't just release more music. Sure, you can release whatever you want, but getting a song to finally tip over into viral territory takes serious time and consistent effort.

Lola Young’s Spotify Monthly Listener Growth
"Messy" wasn't struggling in those early months — videos were hitting six figures in views. But there's a massive difference between decent performance and what happened when it finally caught fire. The song's still viral right now, 10 months later.
This was positioned as the final track before her album This Wasn't Meant for You Anyway released. That's typically a sign the label has serious faith in the song. Lola did put out other tracks they tried promoting, but this was clearly their big bet. The final single before an album drops is usually the one they're banking on to create momentum for the full release - and in this case, the strategy absolutely paid off.
Key Details on How "Messy" Exploded
Looking at Lola's one-year trajectory, her growth was already on a steady upward trend. The song was performing well and gradually building momentum month after month. But then something changed dramatically.

Subscribe to Premium Subscription to read the rest.
Become a paying subscriber of Premium Subscription to get access to this post and other subscriber-only content.
Already a paying subscriber? Sign In.
A subscription gets you:
- • Read Paywalled Content
- • View Full Artist Dissections
- • View Album Rollout Breakdowns & Recaps In Full
- • Ask Lecturers Questions
- • Access To Full Unabridged Podcast Episodes
- • Discord Access
Reply