A TikTok musical has made the transition from social media darling to Grammy-nominated album.
Abigail Barlow and Emily Bear, known professionally as Barlow & Bear, got their first-ever Grammy-nomination Tuesday for best musical theater album.
While the platform has jump-started the careers of musicians like Lil Nas X, “The Unofficial Bridgerton Musical," based on the hit Netflix series "Bridgerton," is arguably the first album conceptualized on TikTok, turned into a mainstream album and then recognized by the Grammys with a nomination.
The show "Bridgerton," which debuted on Netflix last year, is a period romance about the powerful Bridgerton family and their children's attempts to find love.
The album idea originated in January when Barlow posted a TikTok video posing a question: “Okay, but what if ‘Bridgerton’ was a musical?”
She sang part of a ballad that would go on to be the album's closing song, titled "Ocean Away."
From there, the concept exploded, with Barlow and Bear sharing clips of new songs they were working on with their audience on TikTok.
Since the album's release in September, the songs have been streamed millions of times.
A clip of Barlow and Bear crying as they learned that the album had been nominated Tuesday has been viewed more than 265,000 times.
