Empty Pinata – TikTok Girl (2025)
Previously performing as LA Rodriguez, Empty Pinata delves into the realm of indie-pop with a bold air of charm, but also the fragility of a scared kid. A musician and photographer, the US-based singer-songwriter uses creativity as an expression of life in all its grit and glory, and as Empty Pinata, he unpicks the real, raw, emotive experiences in everyday existence. Join us as we jump headfirst into his most recent release, ‘TikTok Girl’.
Following his singles, ‘I Have A Huge Crush On Doja Cat’ and ‘Bonfire’, ‘TikTok Girl’ is a harmonic twirl of glittering synths, soaring guitars, and a pulsating drumbeat acting like a heartbeat in the background. For me, it’s quite amusing that the melody brims with a sensation of head-twirling giddiness as it so beautifully aligns with the theme of the track. A romance with a girl who is lost in the digital world, lost in her mobile phone, while still attracting the infatuated teen in the real world. Empty Pinata explains:
“A youthful single that draws from real-life experiences as a kid. Trendy girls, substances, driving around, getting ghosted; a tale as old as time. ‘TikTok Girl’ paints the story… this girl he likes is almost literally stuck in her phone with the amount of time she spends on it. At night with a “bowl in her hand”, a play on weed bowl or food bowl, fading away…”
Produced with Daniel Paris, ‘TikTok Girl’ is a short two-minute flush of music. It fills you up with kaleidoscopic sweeps, then as effortlessly as it hits your system, it flows out. For me, the song is elegant, but it is the vocals that really add a raw human quality to the track. Swimming in and out of the moving instrumentation, Empty Pinata’s voice haunts in the background, yet the narrative has a sense of urgency – a besotted kid trying to deal with the unreciprocated instances of “oh, yeah, you’re there… well, okay.” At only two minutes, it further emulates the briefness of a TikTok video and, in this case, the “fading away” of the TikTok girl.
Find out more about Empty Pinata on his Facebook, Instagram, X, YouTube, TikTok and Spotify.
This artist was discovered via Musosoup #sustainablecurator
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