TikTok has published its Year in Music Report, in which it reveals the most popular artists, songs, trends and musical moments on its platform globally for 2025.
KATSEYE, the Los Angeles-based girl group jointly signed and developed by South Korea’s HYBE and Universal Music Group’s Geffen, has been named as TikTok’s Global Artist of the Year.
Despite only forming in 2023, the group has “become one of the biggest bands in the world,” TikTok noted on Tuesday (December 9), with over 30 billion views and 12 million creations using their music on the platform this year.
On learning that they are TikTok’s Global Artist of the Year, 2025, KATSEYE commented: “We had an unforgettable year on TikTok, and it was all because of the EYEKONS who showed up for us every single day.
They added: “You turned our songs, our moments, and our chaos into something truly global, and we are so grateful for this community.”
The TikTok milestone caps off a big year for KATSEYE, whose members come from the US, South Korea, Switzerland and the Philippines. They were recently nominated for their first two Grammy Awards, as well as the TikTok Award for Breakthrough Artist of the Year.
Speaking on HYBE’s Q3 earnings call last month, the company’s leadership team indicated that KATSEYE’s Grammy nominations are evidence that the expansion of HYBE’s K-Pop production system into the US market has been a success.
“It is extraordinary that KATSEYE was nominated considering the fact that this group debuted just a little more than a year ago,” CEO Jason Jaesang Lee told analysts. “This result suggests that the group has built a strong global fandom and achieved commercial success in a short span of time.”
He added: “It’s a symbolic example that shows that HYBE’s global production system is competitive in the Western market as well. In other words, K-pop’s production model and creative processes has been successfully applied in the US music market, resulting in gaining the recognition at the prestigious Grammy awards.”
TikTok noted on Tuesday that KATSEYE was behind “multiple viral music moments” on the platform this year, including a trend with their track Gnarly.
Other K-Pop superstars LE SSERAFIM, TOMORROW x TOGETHER and ENHYPEN “jumped on the trend” TikTok noted, as did Camila Cabelo, driving 2.4 million creations and 13.5 billion views. Gnarly became KATSEYE’s first-ever entry on the Billboard Hot 100.
Their track Gabriela also sparked a dance trend, going viral with 2.8 million creations and 9.9 billion video views on TikTok, going on to become a “global commercial hit”, according to TikTok. It reached No.7 in the Global Top 50 on Spotify, and was nominated for the Best Pop Duo/Group Performance Grammy Award.
Elsewhere at TikTok, more than six decades after its original release in 1962, Pretty Little Baby by the late, great Connie Francis became TikTok‘s Global Song of the Year.
TikTok said that its userbase “embraced the track in their millions”, using the sound over 28.4 million times, leading to over 68.6 billion views.
Connie Francis was a big star in the 1950s and 1960s, with hits including Who’s Sorry Now, Stupid Cupid, and Lipstick on Your Collar, and was the first woman ever to reach No.1 on the Billboard Hot 100.
After going viral on TikTok, Pretty Little Baby became Connie Francis’ most-streamed song, with over 130 millon streams on Spotify alone. It spent five weeks on the Billboard Global 200 chart and four weeks on the UK Official Chart this year.
Connie Francis joined the platform in 2025 as a result of Pretty Little Baby going viral. In her first post on TikTok, Connie Francis said:”I’m flabbergasted and excited about the huge buzz my 1962 recording of pretty little baby is making all over the world. To think that a song I recorded 63 years ago is captivating new generations of audiences is truly overwhelming for me. Thank you TikTok.”Music Business Worldwide
