One Trillion. That’s the number of Global On-Demand Audio streams accumulated in 2023 by the end of March, which marked the fastest pace to reach that number yet in a calendar year. And not only is streaming accelerating Globally as well as in the US and other markets, but our data also reveals that physical sales are up across all formats so far in 2023 as Super Fans drive sales of vinyl, CDs and cassettes. Today, with the release of our Luminate 2023 Midyear Music Report, we explore how these metrics and other trends are defining the state of the music industry through the first half of 2023.
Trend 1: Bands, Brands & Super Fans
- Now more than ever, fans hold the power of influence — shaping the ways their favorite artists make, market and release music. In this year’s report we explore trends surrounding Direct-to-Consumer (D2C) sales from official artist and label stores including category growth, genres, and catalog vs current.
- Super Fans make up 15% of music listeners in the U.S., and this group spends 80% more than the average listener on music activities monthly. This is part of the reason why Goldman Sachs listed Super Fans as a key contributor to worldwide industry revenue growth in their latest Music in the Air update (June 28, 2023), which heavily cites Luminate’s data. Join as we discuss Super Fan value with key stats ranging from likelihood to purchase physical music and apparel to the genres with the highest concentrations of Super Fans.
Trend 2: Locals, Lyrics & Languages
- It’s no secret that non-English language music has grown in popularity both in the U.S. and globally. But how many music listeners are engaging with that content? What are the consumption trends around non-English music in the US and around the world? This year we look at listener engagement with non-English music in the US and Globally as we show the languages that are growing.
- We’ll also deep dive on the US Country music genre, which experienced its largest On-Demand Audio streaming week ever in the US with 2.26B streams the week ending 6/1/23. But what is fueling this growth? In our report we’ll analyze the demographic changes bringing these new trends into focus.
Trend 3: Impacts of New Tracks
- Now with full Q2 2023 data, there were an average of 112k ISRCs loaded to DSPs daily through the first half of 2023. Read along as we break down how many of those ISRCs come from major label distribution and the remaining industry.
- In this year’s report we’ll also provide a case study on one of this year’s most infamous songs,“Heart on My Sleeve” by Ghostwriter. This song was produced with the use of AI to sound like Drake and The Weeknd. We’ll show how the song spread from the US to other territories while raising important questions regarding how AI-assisted content can proliferate in a music world without borders.
As always, we hope our findings are both informative and enlightening. Luminate is committed to being a trusted, objective and accurate data source reflecting and serving the entertainment industry at-large, helping to bridge gaps in any business planning. The charts included in this report are presented by Billboard, Luminate’s exclusive chart partner for more than three decades.
Click here to view the 2023 Midyear Music Report.
