the year is half over but a few trends are becoming clear in music.
Not surprising, streaming continues to rise; already reaching one Trillion streams faster than ever. Globally, streaming has surpassed two Trillion on demand streams – up over 15 percent.
Latin music is growing more popular and is the fastest growing genre on streaming services; up over 15 percent in the U.S. While not in the top 10; Bad bunny, Peso Pluma, Fuera Regida, Karol G. Rauw Alejandro, Aventura, Junior H, and Carin Leon are among the top 200 streamed artists in the U.S.
When CD’s became popular, the “experts” claimed that vinyl music was dead. Similar statements were made about the CD with the popularity of streaming; but since 2020, physical music releases – vinyl albums, cassettes, and CD’s – are growing in popularity; including fans buying multiple editions of the same album. Physical album sales are up nearly four percent over last year at this same time. Taylor Swift, Beyonce, Billie Eilish, Tomorrow x Together, Ateez, and TWICE are among the top artists in album sales.
While some artists receive more streams than others; some artists are seeing more consistent numbers outside the streaming world. Metalheads Metallica have become just the fourth artist in history to see one of their albums remain on the Billboard Album 200 Chart for over two years!
The Metallica album “The Back Album” has now been on the Billboard Album Chart for 750 total weeks. Metallica joins Pink Floyd with “The Dark Side of the Moon” at 990 weeks, Bob Marly’s “Legend” album at 843 weeks, and “Journey’s Greatest Hits” album at 813 weeks.