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There’s nothing more exciting than when your favorite artist announces new music. Whether it’s been years since they’ve last released music or if it’s been less than a year since their last album, it always brings a rush of excitement. It used to be that the announcement was all you’d get. Maybe the artist would post a short clip to Instagram but really you waited in anticipation to see what the song would sound like. Now it’s completely different.

Much of that has to do with TikTik. Artists are constantly pushed by their labels to promote their music through TikTok, often through countless videos using the same 15 second clip over and over, and maybe after a few weeks, a different 15 second clip. This brings about two problems. First, fans get sick of the artist incessantly promoting their song for weeks, sometimes months, before it’s out. Second, the 15 second clip they use can be very different from the rest of the song, and fans find themselves disappointed with the full single. 

TikTok has also increased our access to live performances. Everyone and their mother saw live performances of Chappell Roan’s “The Subway”. The full performances from Gov Ball and Kansas City can be found on YouTube, and even Spotify as podcast episodes. Fans could not get enough of the unreleased song. The hype for “The Subway” was astronomical and yet fans still found issues with the final recorded version. 

A video from TikTok user @music.vibes_32, which featured the lyrics to the released version of “The Subway” has 871 comments featuring a range of emotions. User @goofball.final_level wrote “I love the artist but half of the song felt so [shallow], like there were good moments but the songs itself is kinda mid (don’t come and hate on me it’s just my opinion)”. User @eugenewgen wrote, “tbh there’s a huge diff between the released version and the live one. u can literally hear how the liver version of The Subway hits way harder, the instrumentals more colorful and dramatic, the beat’s got that intense build, The released one sounds way too country for me. Also, Chappell’s articulation here sounds a lil cursive, and the part in the outro where she skips ‘she’s got away’ kinda throws off the whole emotional punch. but still love it tho” Despite fans claiming they wanted a released version once the released version was theirs, they couldn’t help but critique. 

Even smaller artists run into this issue. In October of 2025 Annabelle Dinda uploaded a video of her playing her song “The Hand” The video quickly went viral with people praising her songwriting abilities

TikTok editors made countless edits of their favorite female characters inspired by the song’s lyrics. Millions of people were clamoring for an official version of the song and Dinda delivered on November 7th. Despite begging for an official version, the reactions to the studio recording were mixed. 

On the official lyric video for “The Hand,” commenters did not hesitate to share their thoughts on the final version. Youtube user @chuggywap wrote “Please also [release] the original acoustic version. I understand you're allowed to release whatever you like most and it's your decisions at the end of the day, but I really don't vibe with the sound of this one and just want the original sound. It was so good.” TikTok users also had thoughts with user, @popskasounds made a video saying “I think I fixed ‘The Hand’ by Annabelle Dinda.” (Which feels painfully on point to the message of the song.) 

There are other artists that for some reason haven’t suffered this same fate. Wasia Project teased their latest song “Letters From the Day” by playing live, including at Lollapalooza, before releasing an official version. The studio recording finally dropped on November 13th, and fans were incredibly positive with their reactions. On the song’s YouTube video positive comments flooded in with user @harry69006 writing “so so good, absolutely love it (heart emoji), been listening to it on repeat since it came out!!” and user @chloec5828 saying “Yessssss finallyyy gonna start replaying it now”

Now everyone knows that social media comments can be a bit of a wild place. So we asked some of our Ones to Watch readers their thoughts on how unreleased music is shared these days. Overall our readers seemed a bit more relaxed than social media comments. Autumn, 25, shared that she tends to wait for recorded versions of songs to be released. “It's easier to hear and comprehend versus having to compete with the audience's reactions,” she shared. While Autumn avoids live performances from festivals or concerts, she did enjoy Chappell Roan’s “The Giver” performance on SNL. While Autumn loved the SNL performance, it did result in slight disappointment with the final, recorded version. “I was expecting the same spoken part of the song like she did on SNL but she just left it blank,” she explained. 

Seamus, a 33 year old musician, also shared his opinions on unreleased music. While Autumn pretty strictly listens to final recorded versions, Seamus’s background as a musician gives him a different perspective on live performances. “To hear an unreleased song is a special thing, for a few reasons. One, many of them won't ever release the song in any official capacity and two, if they do, it will never be quite the same as listening to an earlier version of it,” he shared. Seamus also feels that recorded versions sometimes lose the emotion and energy that comes with a live performance. 

Clearly, the way artists tease music, and how fans interact with unreleased music, has changed. Social media has allowed for fans all over the globe to witness iconic performances of unreleased songs even if they aren’t in attendance at a concert or festival. On the other hand, this also allows fans to build up opinions before songs are released, especially with long promotion campaigns on social media. While it’s incredibly difficult to please everyone all the time, it’s important for fans and artists alike to take a step back and remember that we’re all here because of one thing: a shared love of music.