Americans are streaming more music than ever before
Americans are streaming more music than ever before
By Richard Morgan July 6, 2018 | 10:19pm
US music fans continue to increase their consumption of
tunes.
Fueled by a 45 percent rise in on-demand streams, the
amount of music Americans either bought or streamed during the first half of
2018 increased by 18 percent over the same period a year earlier, a report out
Friday revealed.
During the six-month period, Drake’s “God’s Plan” was the
top-streamed on-demand song, with more than 1.1 billion streams, according to
the Nielsen Music Mid-Year Report.
Post Malone’s “Psycho” was the No. 2 streamed song, with
576 million streams, while BlocBoy JB’s “Look Alive” came in third with 543
million.
While streaming drove the industry, vinyl LP sales
continued to enjoy a revival, posting a 19 percent gain in sales from the year
earlier.
Outside of streaming and vinyl sales, the story was
predictably less pretty. CD sales declined 20 percent, digital-album sales
dipped 22 percent and digital-track sales fell 27 percent.
On balance, the performance was strong enough for Nielsen
Music general manager Erin Crawford to declare the industry “still in the thick
of an exciting growth spurt.”
The uptick began in 2016, when the US music industry
posted double-digit gains for the first time in nearly two decades.
A year later, R&B/hip-hop overtook rock as music’s
leading genre.
R&B/hip-hop widened its lead in the first half of
2018 to account for 31 percent of total volume, leaving rock music in the dust
with 23 percent.
Two other genres posting solid growth in the year’s first
half were Latin, up 39 percent, and pop, up 19 percent.
Luis Fonsi’s “Despacito” boosted the former, while Ed
Sheeran’s “Perfect” moved the needle for the latter.
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