When we published our Global and U.S. Audio Track Streaming Pyramids for the first time in 2023, one of the questions we received was, “This is fascinating, but can you tell us what’s happening inside these different rank thresholds?” Well, in Luminate’s 2024 Midyear Music Report published last month, we looked to provide more insight throughout the different rankings, but with a couple changes…we converted the streaming tiers to be based on number of artists rather than ISRCs, and we analyzed for the distributor listed on the artist’s most streamed track.
Looking at the data this way reveals a trend in the rise of independent artists throughout the ranks and reflects the evolving dynamics of the U.S. music industry. While 43 of the 46 artists with more than 1B U.S. On-Demand Audio (ODA) streams through the first half of 2024 had major distribution, an inflection point is seen in the 10M-50M U.S. ODA rank where 62.3% of artists have major distribution, and in the 1M-10M U.S. ODA rank where 62.1% have independent.
And when looking into the share changes in the N number of independent artists throughout the tiers, we see that indie artists have grown their representation at each of the higher levels.
There are also more artists entering into the 1M-10M and 10M-50M tiers. Through the first half of 2024, there were more than 29K artists that reached 1M-10M ODA streams, an increase of approximately 1,400 over H2 2023. And in the 10M-50M tier, there were more than 5K artists counted in H1 2024, which is 267 more than the second half of last year.
Not to be ignored, emerging genres on the whole also reveal key insights. For example, HyperPop listeners are highly engaged, 160% more likely to listen to vinyl and significantly more likely to discover music on platforms like Twitch. The trend of independent artists reaching new heights in the streaming economy highlights a shift toward greater diversity and a broader array of voices reaching audiences globally.
