Detroit’s Sam Austin, and their song "Seasons" is absolutely blowing up. I wanted to catch this one early, while it's breaking, instead of looking back like we usually do. The growth is just wild - they shot up to number 10 on the viral 50 chart with 1.6 million monthly listeners, way up from around 200,000. The song is taking off so fast, that the numbers can barely keep up. But what makes this super interesting is their whole journey. They've been putting out music for a long time, including a period when they were signed to Atlantic Records. And here's what's hilarious - now that they're no longer with Atlantic, things are going way better. By the time you're seeing this, their numbers are gonna be like 10 times what they were during the Atlantic days. Sometimes leaving a major label turns out to be the best move.

Sam Austins’ Sound

"Seasons" is blowing up largely thanks to Rodaidh McDonald's production, building on their work with The xx, David Byrne, and Hot Chip. You could hear that they had something special even in the demo, but McDonald - obviously coming from working with these very fresh-sounding groups - really helped take it to another level. The track has this incredibly fresh future garage sound that shows just how far Sam Austin has come.

Back in his Atlantic days, people were comparing him to Jai Paul or Brockhampton, and you could definitely hear those influences. Those earlier tracks were solid, but they weren't quite there yet. Now with these latest two songs, especially "Seasons," he's really found his groove. The wild thing is Sam's been doing these falsetto vocals since way before Tommy Richmond did "Million Dollar Baby" and turned it into a trend. The trend caught up to him.

The Catalyst

The growth here is wild - Sam went from 8,000 to 54,000 TikTok followers in a single month, and he did it with pretty raw, low-effort content. People just genuinely love the song.

"Seasons" actually dropped back in May, and it was getting modest traction - a couple hundred views here and there. But the real breakthrough came when Sam noticed people were using his song for outfit and fashion videos on TikTok. He leaned hard into this trend, encouraging these fashion posts, reposting them, and engaging with the content. That's when things really took off.

TikTok Strategy

Content

The most interesting thing about how this song is working on TikTok is its simplicity. Most of the posts are just straight-up fit checks or people describing their vibe - just showing how the song makes them feel. It's not some complex strategy; the song is just a vibe and people are rolling with it.

What's really working here is how people are naturally embodying the emotion of the song. They're not doing anything super planned or choreographed - just kind of chilling and moving to it in a way that feels authentic to the track. The movement matches the vibe perfectly, and that's something that's consistently doing well on TikTok right now.

They're smart with their hashtag strategy too, using specific micro-genres like ghetto tech to tap into those dedicated music communities.

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