Luminate
Page: 3
Luminate — which provides data to the Billboard charts — is proceeding with a previously announced plan to retire its weighted data modeling used to measure physical sales in the independent retail sector, according to a note sent Wednesday (Dec. 13) to industry partners and indie retailers.
The change will take effect Dec. 29, the first day of Luminate’s 2024 calendar; and will apply to both the U.S. and Canadian markets, which are measured separately within the Luminate system.
For over 30 years, Luminate and its predecessor companies have relied on sampling of independent stores to extrapolate sales of CDs, vinyl and cassettes for the entire U.S. marketplace.
According to the note to the industry on eliminating weighting, “the goal of this change is for us to present the most accurate data possible to the industry, which is always our primary goal.”
Luminate said that after discussions with all facets of the industry, including retailers, labels, distributors and industry bodies, it decided to proceed with its planned new way of counting indie store sector sales because there was “a consensus that the current weighted modeling should be retired.”
That “consensus” apparently is a new development because Billboard’s reporting over the last six weeks has so far found widespread industry resistance to Luminate’s planned changes for the indie sector.
Going forward, as of Jan. 29, Luminate will count only actual sales from indie stores without extrapolating to measure sales in the entire U.S. market. As of Nov. 15, Luminate stated that it already has 93% coverage of the total U.S. physical market; and was receiving data from 95% of U.S. independent retail stores that reach over 1,000 sales per week.
Luminate’s note says it will work with the entire music industry to find solutions that make the most sense collectively for all parties. Consequently, it said there is agreement that the industry should work to increase the number of retailers reporting sales to Luminate. The company says stores not already reporting its sales can learn more at luminatedata.com or email music.merchantservices@luminatedata.com.
Luminate said it would work with retailers and their point-of-sales systems to streamline the reporting processes; and will assign resources to liaise with indie stores to address questions and provide feedback.
Moreover, Luminate says it will share free weekly physical sales data to all indie reporting stores in the U.S. and Canada that will reflect the best-selling titles for only the indie store sector.
The Luminate note concluded that the data company is confident that its change to actual sales without weighting “is the best way for the industry to access the highest-quality data.”
Note: Luminate is an independently operated company owned by PME TopCo, a PMC subsidiary and joint venture between Penske Media Corporation and Eldridge. Billboard is an independently operated company owned by PME Holdings, a subsidiary of PME TopCo.
Billboard‘s data partner Luminate is improving the way it collects and reflects album sales data from independent music retailers. This week, Luminate revealed to all clients that in week 1 of 2024 (the reporting week that begins Dec. 29, 2023), data on physical sales (vinyl, CDs and cassettes) will reflect a direct representation of those […]
This year has been defined by consistency at the top of the charts, and one record label has led in current market share in each of the first three quarters: Republic Records, which has 12.28% of the market through Sept. 28, according to Luminate. That’s a negligible drop from last quarter’s 12.46% and more than four percentage points higher than the 8.77% share the label had for the same period last year.
Republic’s market share — much like the year overall — has been headlined by the massive Morgan Wallen album One Thing at a Time, which has racked up more than 4.5 million equivalent album units since its March debut, and Taylor Swift’s prolific release schedule, which not only includes her latest collection of new tracks, Midnights, but also the release of Speak Now (Taylor’s Version). Both are among the top 10 albums of the year so far. (Republic’s share also includes Island, Big Loud, Mercury, Cash Money and indie distributor Imperial.)
Wallen’s dominance is such that his label, Big Loud, would rank eighth among all labels on its own, with a 2.69% current market share if it were broken out from Republic, with both One Thing at a Time and his last release, Dangerous: The Double Album, both counting toward current share. (Current is defined as albums released within the past 18 months or that have remained in the top half of the Billboard 200.)
Coming in at a comfortable second place, with big third-quarter releases from Olivia Rodrigo and NewJeans, was Interscope Geffen A&M, which hit a high mark for the year so far with an 8.55% current share, a half-point increase over its midyear mark. That’s down from the 9.23% current share IGA posted at the third-quarter mark of 2022, but is a strong showing in a year in which Republic has vacuumed up so much market share. (IGA’s share also includes Verve Label Group.)
In third place, Atlantic — which encompasses 300 Elektra Entertainment — has also moved to a high mark for the year, with a 7.39% share, up from 7.34% at midyear. The music group’s performance was boosted by releases by Gunna, Lil Uzi Vert and, most significantly, the Barbie soundtrack, which is among the top five albums of the third quarter with over 650,000 equivalent album units.
However, factoring in back catalog to look at overall market share shakes up the top two. Interscope takes the top spot with 9.57%, besting Republic’s 9.49% by a shade over 500,000 units through the first three quarters, with Atlantic in third at 8.31%. That’s due to the deeper catalog of IGA and Atlantic: They are Nos. 1 and 2 in catalog-only share, with 9.91% and 8.62%, respectively. Republic finished third at 8.54%. Coming into the final quarter of the year, that’s a race to watch.
Capitol, which includes Motown/Quality Control, Blue Note, Astralwerks, Capitol Christian and indie distributor Virgin Music, remained steady in fourth place at 6.01% (from 6.0% at midyear) through three quarters. (Although HYBE acquired Quality Control earlier this year, Universal Music Group [UMG] continued to distribute the label.)
In fifth, Warner Records has made large gains throughout the year, largely due to the successes within Warner Nashville. (Its market share also includes catalog label Rhino, as well as Warner Music Latina.) Zach Bryan’s self-titled album has been a standout success in the quarter, while Bailey Zimmerman’s Religiously. The Album continues to perform well. Notably, both Capitol and Warner made big leaps in current market share year over year: Capitol jumped from sixth place to fourth, growing from 4.50% in 2022 to 6.01% in 2023; Warner grew from 4.77% in 2022 to 5.89% in 2023.
Slipping down the rankings year over year was Columbia, which dropped in current share from fourth through three quarters in 2022 (6.93%) to sixth in 2023 (4.93%). Columbia scored big this year with Miley Cyrus’ Endless Summer Vacation, though 2022’s slate with releases from Harry Styles, Beyoncé and Adele represents a tough act to follow. RCA, in seventh, remains on a hot streak led by the huge success of SZA’s SOS — still the No. 2 album of the year — with the label coming in at a 4.64% share, up from 4.47% this time last year.
Epic has roared back after a relatively quiet 2023 on the strength of Travis Scott’s mammoth Utopia, which boosted the label from 1.82% in current share at midyear to 2.39% at the three-quarters mark — its highest quarterly showing for the year. Sony Nashville (eighth, 2.50%) and Sony Latin (10th, 1.96%) round out the top 10, with each growing more than half a percentage point year over year.
Among the label groups, both UMG (up from 32.54% to 34.61%) and Sony Music Entertainment (up from 27.09% to 27.50%) made big year-over-year strides, while Warner Music Group (down from 18.64% to 17.46%) and, collectively, independent labels (down from 21.73% to 20.43%) lost share compared with the same period in 2022.
At the midyear mark of 2023, there’s one over-arching theme: so far, it’s the year of Morgan Wallen. The artist’s album One Thing At a Time is the most-consumed album of the year so far by far, racking up 3.312 million equivalent album units in the U.S. since its March release, while its single “Last Night” gobbled up the most U.S. on-demand audio streams of the year so far, with 588.7 million.
That helps explain a huge leap in country music market share so far this year, with the genre growing to 8.36% of the U.S. market, from 7.83% at the halfway point last year. Overall, in terms of current consumption units — those derived from albums released within the past 18 months — country music increased by 4.5 million equivalent album units over the same period in 2022, the highest among all 15 genres tracked by Luminate in 2023 so far.
But that’s just one of the big takeaways derived from combing through the data six months into this year. Here are four other observations from the first half of 2023.
Why is Rock so big? Catalog.
Overall, rock has grown most of any genre year over year in consumption units, with 11.2 million more units in 2023 over 2022. That growth, however, is almost entirely from catalog — 10.3 million of it, compared to 900,000 units of growth from current releases. It’s the second-largest growth metric among genres in terms of catalog, just behind R&B/hip-hop in raw numbers (11.2 million), though because R&B/hip-hop actually declined in current releases (more on that later), rock saw the biggest overall growth in unit terms.
It’s a testament to the enduring value that exists in classic rock recordings — and a reason those catalogs continue to be valued, bought and sold at such high figures — and helps explain why it still represents such a large part of the market, despite rock not generally being represented in the highest echelons of the charts. Rock’s catalog share of 23.31% is behind R&B/hip-hop’s 27.15% in the rankings, but is much higher than that of pop (12.91%) and country (7.69%), the next two genres in share.
Courtesy Photo
Consider the rankings in terms of current share: rock (10.32%) slides to third place, behind pop (10.69%) and barely ahead of country (10.16%), with Latin coming in fifth at 7.84%. And its current unit growth year over year of 900,000 is significantly behind country (4.5 million), world music (3.3 million) and Latin (2.5 million), although at least it’s still growing, while R&B/hip-hop and pop is not.
R&B/Hip-Hop: The Elephant In the Room
The drumbeat has been growing louder over the past year when it comes to what, exactly, is going on with R&B/hip-hop from a market share perspective. But despite concern that the genres’ grip on the public consciousness is getting diluted, a few things have remained consistent: it remained the largest genre in consumption units, it was still growing the most in raw numbers (if not percentage-wise), and R&B and hip-hop artists were continuously topping the charts dictating the culture.
Some of that dominance, however, has begun to slip. There is the biggest one — in the first half of the year, no hip-hop album had yet topped the Billboard 200, a distinction that finally ended in the first week of the third quarter with Lil Uzi Vert’s Pink Tape this week. And in terms of year over year unit growth, R&B/hip-hop slipped to second at 13.01% of the market’s growth, behind rock (17.71%) and just ahead of country (12.35%). And as consumption overall grew by 13.4%, R&B/hip-hop remained stagnant at 6.3% — the same mark it had at the midway point of last year. Still, it’s been a weird year; R&B/hip-hop actually accumulated more growth in raw units in the first half of 2023 (8.3 million) than in the first half of 2022 (7.8 million).
Yet there are signs for concern — and not necessarily just because of gains in other genres. R&B/hip-hop’s overall market share has slipped from 27.64% halfway through 2022 to 25.92% halfway through 2023, more than a point and a half. Its share of on-demand streaming has dropped from 29.39% to 27.31% — more than two percentage points. Overall album sales growth — huge for rock (45.85%) and pop (30.99%) — was just 2.53%, though growth at all in that metric is still positive. Even more concerning are its current numbers, which we’ll get to in a second. So, with R&B/hip-hop’s market share at its lowest point since 2018, is it just a cyclical, first-half blip due to domination by the likes of Morgan Wallen and Taylor Swift so far this year? Or something deeper?
Current Share Tells the Story of the First Half
The three genres that experienced the biggest growth over the first half of 2023 also tell the story of the first six months of the year, and they’re undeniable on several metrics. In terms of overall percentage growth year over year, World Music — which encompasses ex-U.S. genres like K-Pop and Afrobeats — was up 42.5%; Latin was up 21.9%; and Country was up 21.1%. Each managed to grow their overall share of the market significantly over the same period last year: Country, the fourth-biggest genre, rose from 7.83% to 8.36%; Latin, in fifth, grew from 6.25% to 6.72%; World, in seventh, grew from 2.20% to 2.76%. In comparison, the top three genres — R&B/Hip-Hop, Rock and Pop, in that order — all ceded share of the market at least somewhat year over year.
Looking at the current share illustrates where those gains came from. The country genre came in 4.5 million units higher than at the same point in 2022, boosting its current share from 7.98% to 10.16%. world music added 3.3 million units, vaulting over dance/electronic into sixth with a 5.22% share of the current market, up from 3.29% at this time last year. And Latin added 2.5 million units over last year’s total, increasing from 6.86% to 7.84% this year.
The flip side of that is the current percentage drops from the other leading genres. Current R&B/hip-hop share fell from 27.50% halfway through 2022 to 22.62% this year, an almost 5% decline, and dropped 8.0% in consumption units year over year. Pop slid from 12.87% to 10.69% in share, dropping 7.1% in consumption units year over year. Rock’s slip in share was more modest (10.83% to 10.32%), but also still fell, though its unit count actually grew (the slide in share is due to larger gains elsewhere). It’s a reflection of how the first half of the year has gone in terms of impactful releases in the market.
World Music’s Growth Isn’t Slowing Down
World music now accounts for 2.76% of the overall market in the U.S., up from 2.20% at the midway point last year. It’s not huge, but by percentage, it’s far and away the fastest-growing genre (up 42.5% year over year) in the industry; by raw consumption unit growth, it’s sixth-highest, having increased by 4.4 million units over its midyear 2022 mark. And it’s up by huge percentages in just about every metric: overall album sales (71.3%), physical album sales (76.4%) and on-demand streaming (38.2%) growth all far outstrip the industry overall.
Some of this is just a function of how percentages work: a smaller number that’s growing quickly will naturally have a higher percentage growth than a larger number that, while growing at a larger volume, is growing at a slower rate. But these percentages continuing getting higher, not smaller: in 2020, it grew 8.0% over 2019; in 2021, the metric was 18.9%; in 2022, it was 26.4%. From the first half of 2019 through the first half of 2023, world music is up 131.3%.
So far this year over midway through 2022, K-pop consumption is up 154.9%, and Afrobeats consumption is up 143.8%. They’re still small in terms of actual consumption numbers — K-pop’s numbers compare most directly to those of children’s music for the first half of the year, for example — but they no longer exist in the realm of the potential. The industry has spent the past few years pouring money and resources into these areas and hoping to boost these artists in the States. The metrics are no longer about what the future may look like: it’s here now.
In the first half of 2023, an average of 112,000 new tracks were added daily to digital service providers such as Spotify and Apple Music, Luminate revealed in its 2023 midyear report Wednesday (July 12). That’s an increase of 19.9% from the 93,400 new tracks uploaded daily to digital platforms in the first half of 2022.
At the current rate, digital services will add around 41 million tracks this year, about 7 million more than the 34.1 million tracks added in 2022 and more than double the 16.4 million tracks added in 2018.
The flood of tracks did not bring a commensurate increase in listening, however. While the number of tracks uploaded to digital platforms grew 19.9%, audio on-demand streaming rose only 13.5%. That disconnect between supply and on-demand streams is not unusual. In 2022, on-demand streams increased 12.2% while average daily new tracks grew 12%. But in 2021, on-demand streams grew 9.9% while average daily new tracks grew 18%.
Low barriers to recording and distributing digital music give unknown artists a chance to compete against established, big-budget releases. Major labels — some of whom, like Universal Music Group, have endorsed a system that rewards their music with better royalty payouts — accounted for just 3.3% of new tracks added to digital platforms through June 30. Streaming services are filled with music not just from independent labels — who may be distributed by companies owned by the majors — but also independent musicians, bedroom producers using inexpensive digital audio workstations and a variety of “functional music,” a term used for generic music that often fills streaming playlists aimed at helping people sleep, relax or study.
The possibility that 112,000 new tracks per day will seem low in a few years is causing consternation in some quarters of the music business. A new generation of AI tools will further reduce the barriers to creating music. Just as generative AI programs such as Midjourney and DALL-E-2 create images based on text prompts, AI will instantly create songs without the need for musical expertise or technical ability. “We see a huge market with many billions of original unique songs, similar to photos,” Alex Mitchell, CEO of AI music platform Boomy, told Billboard earlier this year. Such a scenario had previously prompted Universal Music Group CEO Lucian Grainge to warn against “a vast and unnavigable number of tracks” of “lower-quality functional content” created to game algorithms and “divert royalties.”
While independently released music and AI content chips away at major labels’ market shares, the majors continue to produce hits that stand out in an increasingly crowded field. The most popular albums and tracks fared well in the first half of 2023. The top 10 albums took a 2.49% share of equivalent album units (EAUs), up from 2.18% in the first half of 2022. That improvement can be chalked up to Morgan Wallen, whose album One Thing at a Time had 3.31 million EAUs — 67% greater than the No. 2 album, SZA’s SOS. Excluding the No. 1 albums from each half-year period, the remaining top 10 albums’ share of 1.88% in the first half of 2023 was almost equal to the 1.85% in the prior-year period.
Led by Wallen’s “Last Night” and SZA’s “Kill Bill,” the most popular tracks also increased their share of total streams. The top 10 tracks at the midway point of 2023 owned a 0.63% share of on-demand audio streams, well above their 0.5% share in the prior-year period.
In 2023 so far, what’s happened in the last three months of the year largely mirrors the first when it comes to U.S. record label market share: the top two albums of the year — Morgan Wallen’s One Thing At a Time (Big Loud/Mercury/Republic) and SZA’s S.O.S. (TDE/RCA) — are still dominating the top two slots among consumption albums through June 29, according to Luminate. But while that may come as little surprise to industry chart-watchers, the rest of the top five points to a relatively surprising level of domination by one record label in particular: Republic Records.
In the first quarter of the year, Republic — which encompasses Island, Big Loud, Mercury, Cash Money and indie distributor Imperial — put up a current market share (defined as albums released within the past 18 months) of 12.45%, nearly five percentage points higher than second-placed Interscope Geffen A&M’s 7.75% (Interscope also encompasses Verve Label Group). At the end of the first half of the year, Republic’s current share stands at 12.46% — a remarkable level of consistency that shows the staying power of Republic’s current big releases, even as IGA has tightened the gap a bit, posting an 8.08% mark of its own to remain in second place.
Republic’s 12.46% current share at the midway point is also a significant leap from where it stood at the halfway mark in 2022, when it posted a current share of 8.92%, good for third place behind leaders Atlantic Records (9.92%) and second-placed Interscope (9.36%). Republic releases — chiefly Wallen’s album, but also Taylor Swift’s Midnights (one week) and Stray Kids’ 5 Star (one week) — spent all 13 weeks of the second quarter at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, part of a run of 17 straight weeks that only ended with Lil Uzi Vert’s new album Pink Tape.
Both Republic’s consistency and Interscope’s growth helped propel parent company Universal Music Group to a 34.48% current market share at the midyear mark, an improvement over both its first quarter current share (33.59%) and its current share at the midyear mark of 2022 (33.18%). Sony Music, in second place at 27.54%, dipped slightly from its huge Q1 current share of 28.46%, though it is still up significantly from the midyear mark in 2022, when it posted a 26.01% current share. And the Warner Music Group, in third among the major corporations, grew to 17.26% at the halfway mark of the year in current share, up from Q1’s 16.81% and 2022’s 15.33%. The collection of indie labels came in at 20.72% in current share at midyear, down from 21.15% in Q1.
Atlantic, in third among current share, grew to 7.34% at the midyear mark from 7.22% in Q1, though still down from the leading 9.92% it had midway through 2022. (Atlantic includes the combined 300 Elektra Entertainment Group.) But Capitol Music Group — which includes Motown/Quality Control, Blue Note, Astralwerks, Capitol Christian and indie distributor Virgin Music — surged from sixth place in Q1 2023 (5.56%) to fourth at the midyear market (6.00%), up significantly from the 4.31% it posted at the midway mark of 2022. Fifth-placed Warner Records (encompassing catalog label Rhino, Warner Latin and the bulk of Warner Nashville) also jumped two slots, from seventh in Q1 to fifth at midyear, to put up a 5.62% current share, up from 5.23% in Q1 and a 4.63% mark halfway through 2022.
Those two jumps from Capitol and Warner mean that Columbia (which includes some labels from indie distributor RED) and RCA Records slide down to sixth and seventh among current share, respectively. Columbia dipped from 5.85% in Q1 to 5.16% at the midyear mark in 2023 — though down significantly from the 6.65% it had at midyear 2022 — while RCA dropped from 5.76% in Q1 to 4.98% at the halfway point this year, a mark which is improved from the 4.31% it posted midway through 2022.
Rounding out the top 10 among current share is a trio of Sony labels, including two that made large strides: Sony Nashville, in eighth, at 2.55%, which grew from 2.30% in the first quarter and 1.72% midway through 2022; and Sony Latin in ninth, at 1.95%, up from 1.92% in Q1 and 1.22% halfway through 2022. Epic Records, at 1.82%, came in 10th in current share, dropping from 2.06% in Q1 and 2.24% at this time last year.
But current market share — while a strong indicator of recent performance for any label — does not tell the whole story, particularly at a time when Luminate reports that catalog (albums older than 18 months old, or the bulk of many major labels’ repertoire) share has increased again in 2023 so far, to 72.8% of all consumption from 72.4% in 2022, with a corresponding drop for current from 27.6% to 27.2%. And when taking into account all consumption, Interscope actually leads the U.S. industry in overall market share, posting a 9.48% mark at the midway point of 2023, up from 9.44% in Q1 and slightly down from its leading 9.80% mark halfway through 2022. That nudges Republic into second, ever so slightly, at 9.34% in overall share, a number that is also up from its Q1 mark (9.16%) and a significant increase from midyear 2022, when it posted a 7.96% share and came in third.
Outside those top two labels, the next handful of slots in the top 10 remain in the same order as their current share rankings, with Atlantic (8.31%) equalling its Q1 mark despite falling from the 9.30% it had in 2022; and Capitol also remaining static over Q1, posting a 6.70% (from 6.68% in Q1 and 6.06% in 2022). Warner (6.55%), in fifth, swapped positions with Columbia (6.23%) from their respective Q1 showings, while RCA (5.27%), in seventh, dropped from its 5.50% in Q1 but improved on its 4.92% mark from midway last year. Epic (2.54%), Sony Nashville (2.13%) and Def Jam (1.88%) rounded out the top 10 in overall market share.
Among the major label groups, UMG grew from 37.25% in overall share at the midpoint of last year to 37.98% this year, while Sony grew a full percentage point, jumping to 27.34% from last year’s mark of 26.34%. Warner Music Group, meanwhile, jumped significantly from 16.26% midway through 2022 to 18.75% halfway through this year, largely at the expense of the Indies, which fell from 20.15% to 15.93% in overall share this year.
In the first six months of 2023, Morgan Wallen’s monster album One Thing at a Time was the most popular album, while Miley Cyrus’ smash single “Flowers” was the most-streamed song (by on-demand streams, audio and video combined), respectively, at the midyear point in the U.S., according to Luminate. “Flowers” was also the most-heard song on radio airwaves, with over 2.4 billion in radio audience impressions.
Explore
See latest videos, charts and news
See latest videos, charts and news
Read more about midyear metrics in the 2023 Luminate Midyear Music Report.
‘One Thing’ is Tops: For the tracking period of Dec. 30, 2022, through June 29, 2023, Wallen’s One Thing at a Time was the most popular album in the U.S. The country star’s latest studio effort was released on March 3, 2023 via Big Loud/Mercury/Republic Records and earned 3.312 million equivalent album units in the first half of 2023. (See full top 10 chart, below.) One Thing at a Time spent 15 nonconsecutive weeks atop the weekly Billboard 200 chart in March-July – the most weeks at No. 1 for any album since Adele’s 21 racked up 24 nonconsecutive weeks in 2011-12.
Concurrently, the One Thing at a Time single “Last Night” was the most-streamed song by on-demand audio streams in the first half of 2023 in the U.S., with 588.7 million on-demand audio streams (inclusive of user-generated content streams). “Last Night” spent 13 nonconsecutive weeks at No. 1 on the weekly all-genre Billboard Hot 100 chart from March through July – the singer-songwriter’s first leader on the tally.
The most-streamed song by total on-demand streams (audio and video combined, inclusive of user-generated content streams) was Cyrus’ “Flowers,” with 750.7 million clicks in the first six months of the year. “Flowers” led the Hot 100 eight nonconsecutive weeks from January through early April. It marked Cyrus’ second chart-topper, following 2013’s “Wrecking Ball.”
Equivalent album units – for album titles and chart rankings cited below (but not industry volume numbers) – comprise traditional album sales, track equivalent albums (TEA) and streaming equivalent albums (SEA). Each unit equals one album sales, or 10 individual tracks sold from an album, or 3,750 ad-supported on-demand official audio and video streams generated by songs from an album, or 1,250 paid/subscription on-demand official and audio streams generated by songs from an album.
Equivalent album units cited for album titles below, and in the “Midyear Top 10 Albums in U.S.” chart do not include user-generated content (UGC) streams. UGC streams are included in Luminate’s industry volume numbers and its midyear song streaming rankings. (UGC streams are not factored into any of Billboard’s weekly charts.)
For the sake of clarity, equivalent album units do not include listening to music on broadcast radio or digital radio broadcasts. All numbers cited in this story are rounded, and for the U.S. only. Programmed streams are not included in any of the data in this story.
Luminate (formerly MRC Data, Nielsen Music and SoundScan) began tracking music consumption in 1991. Luminate’s sales, streaming and airplay data is used to compile Billboard’s weekly charts.
Of One Thing at a Time’s 3.312 million equivalent album units earned at midyear, SEA units comprise 3.024 million (equaling 4.023 billion on-demand official streams of the set’s 36 songs), album sales comprise 242,000 and TEA units comprise 46,000.
The top five most popular albums at the midyear point in the U.S. are One Thing at a Time, SZA’s December 2022 release SOS (1.982 million equivalent album units), Taylor Swift’s October 2022 release Midnights (1.876 million), Wallen’s January 2021 release Dangerous: The Double Album (1.172 million) and Metro Boomin’s December 2022 release Heroes & Villains (1.038 million). In 2022, Midnights and Dangerous were the Nos. 2 and 3 most popular albums of the year in Luminate’s year-end report.
2023’s Midyear Top 10 Albums in U.S. (by Equivalent Album Units)1. Morgan Wallen, One Thing at a Time (3.312 million)2. SZA, SOS (1.982 million)3. Taylor Swift, Midnights (1.876 million)4. Morgan Wallen, Dangerous: The Double Album (1.173 million)5. Metro Boomin’, Heroes & Villains (1.038 million)6. Bad Bunny, Un Verano Sin Ti (967,000)7. Drake & 21 Savage, Her Loss (898,000)8. Zach Bryan, American Heartbreak (769,000)9. Karol G, Mañana Séra Bonito (716,000)10. Taylor Swift, Lover (711,000)Source: Luminate, for the tracking period Dec. 30, 2022, through June 29, 2023. UGC (user-generated content) streams are not included in this chart, but are included in Luminate’s on-demand streaming charts (below). Luminate’s equivalent album unit totals include SEA and TEA for an album’s songs registered before an album’s release, but only during the tracking period.
Total Album Consumption Increases 13.4% at Midyear: Year-to-date, total equivalent album units stand at 538.9 million – up 13.4% compared to the first half of 2022 (475.4 million in the tracking period of Dec. 31, 2021, through June 30, 2022).
Album Sales Up! Total album sales across all formats (physical CDs, vinyl, cassettes, etc., along with digital album downloads) increased by 7.9% in the first half of 2023 as compared to the same point in 2022. At the 2023 midyear point, 50.6 million albums were sold – up from the 49.6 million sold in the first half of 2022. The top-selling album of 2023 so far is Swift’s Midnights, with 607,000 copies sold
In total, there were 41.6 million physical albums sold (up 13.3% compared to 36.7 million at midyear 2022) and 9.234 million digital albums sold (down 11.2 percent compared to 10.4 million at midyear 2022).
CD album sales grew by 3.8% in the first half of 2023 (17.5 million vs. 16.9 million at midyear 2022), while vinyl album sales jumped by 21.7% (23.6 million vs. 19.4 million at midyear 2022). Even cassette tape album sales perked up. The mostly dormant format sold 212,000 in the first half of 2023 – up 5.8% compared to the 200,500 sold in the first half of 2022.
The top-selling album across all physical formats (CD, vinyl, cassette, etc.) at the midyear point is Swift’s Midnights, with 430,000 sold. It’s also the top-selling digital album (177,000) and vinyl LP (251,000). The biggest-selling CD album in the first half of 2023 was TOMORROW X TOGETHER’s The Name Chapter: TEMPTATION with 395,000 copies sold.
Taylor Swift was the top-selling artist by total album sales in the first half of 2023, with 1.45 million albums sold across her entire catalog across all formats. Swift was also the top-selling in total physical album sales (1.19 million), vinyl album sales (808,000) and digital album sales (256,000). Stray Kids was the top-selling act in CD album sales (509,000).
2023’s Midyear Top 10 Selling Albums in U.S. (Physical & Digital Album Sales Combined)1. Taylor Swift, Midnights (607,000)2. TOMORROW X TOGETHER, The Name Chapter: TEMPTATION (399,000)3. Stray Kids, 5-STAR (327,000)4. TWICE, Ready to Be (286,000)5. Morgan Wallen, One Thing at a Time (242,000)6. SEVENTEEN, SEVENTEEN 10th Mini Album: FML (236,000)7. Metallica, 72 Seasons (215,000)8. Agust D, D-Day (200,000)9. Jimin, FACE (152,000)10. Melanie Martinez, Portals (194,000)Source: Luminate, for the tracking period Dec. 30, 2022, through June 29, 2023.
Taylor Swift, Midnights (251,000)
Lana Del Rey, Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd. (132,000)
Taylor Swift, Folklore (107,000)
Tyler, The Creator, Igor (104,000)
Fleetwood Mac, Rumours (103,000)
Boygenius, The Record (100,000)
Melanie Martinez, Portals (93,000)
Michael Jackson, Thriller (85,000)
Pink Floyd, The Dark Side of the Moon (85,000)
Lana Del Rey, Born to Die (84,000)
On-Demand Streaming Up 15%, ‘Flowers’ Most-Streamed Song: “Flowers,” Cyrus’ Hot 100-topping single, was the most-streamed song in the first half of 2023 in the U.S., with 750.7 million on-demand streams (inclusive of UGC). SZA’s “Kill Bill” (701.2 million) and Wallen’s “Last Night” (642.8 million) round out the top three.
Total on-demand streams (audio and video combined) at midyear grew 15% in the U.S. as compared to the same point a year ago (713.5 billion vs. 620.2 billion). On-demand audio streams rose 13.5% (616.5 billion vs. 543.2 billion) while on-demand video streams grew 26% (97 billion vs. 77 billion).
UGC streams are included in Luminate’s industry streaming on-demand volume numbers (above) and its midyear streaming song charts (below). UGC streams are not factored into any of Billboard’s weekly charts.
In general, all songs in the below charts combine the assorted remixes of a song into one overall total. Thus, PinkPantheress’ “Boy’s a Liar” includes activity for its remix with Ice Spice, “Boy’s a Liar, Pt. 2,” The Weeknd’s “Die for You” includes activity for its remix with Ariana Grande,” and so forth.2023’s Midyear Top 10 Most Streamed Songs in U.S. (On-Demand Audio & Video Combined)1. Miley Cyrus, “Flowers” (750.7 million)2. SZA, “Kill Bill” (701.2 million)3. Morgan Wallen, “Last Night” (642.8 million)4. PinkPantheress, “Boy’s a Liar” (580.7 million)5. Lady Gaga, “Bloody Mary” (531.7 million)6. Rema & Selena Gomez, “Calm Down” (486.3 million)7. Twisted featuring Oliver Tree, “Worth Nothing” (462.7 million)8. J. Cole featuring Amber Coffman & The Cults, “She Knows” (455.6 million)9. Fifty Fifty, “Cupid” (427.7 million)10. Lil Uzi Vert, “Just Wanna Rock” (416.1 million)Source: Luminate, for the tracking period Dec. 30, 2022, through June 29, 2023. Includes UGC streams.
2023’s Midyear Top 10 Most Streamed Songs in U.S. (On-Demand Audio)1. Morgan Wallen, “Last Night” (588.7 million)2. SZA, “Kill Bill” (567.6 million)3. Miley Cyrus, “Flowers” (464.6 million)4. PinkPantheress, “Boy’s a Liar” (370.4 million)5. The Weeknd, “Die for You” (349.8 million)6. Zach Bryan, “Something in the Orange” (331.2 million)7. Metro Boomin, The Weeknd & 21 Savage, “Creepin’” (308.3 million)8. Eslabon Armado x Peso Pluma, “Ella Baila Sola” (307.4 million)9. Morgan Wallen, “You Proof” (303.3 million)10. Taylor Swift, “Anti-Hero” (302.8 million)Source: Luminate, for the tracking period Dec. 30, 2022, through June 29, 2023. Includes UGC streams.
Digital Song Sales Drop 13%: Digital song sales fell 13% in the first six months of 2023, dipping to 69.57 million, as compared to 79.98 million sold in the first half of 2022. The top-selling digital song at the midyear point is Cyrus’ “Flowers” with 380,000 sold. Six songs sold more than 100,000 downloads in the first half of 2023. At midyear 2022, there were eight songs that sold in excess of 100,000.
2023’s Midyear Top 10 Selling Digital Songs in U.S.1. Miley Cyrus, “Flowers” (380,000)2. Jimin, “Like Crazy” (289,000)3. Morgan Wallen, “Last Night” (217,000)4. Luke Combs, “Fast Car” (126,000)5. Beyoncé, “Cuff It” (119,000)6. Rema & Selena Gomez, “Calm Down” (110,000)7. Taylor Swift, “Anti-Hero” (97,000)8. Lainey Wilson, “Heart Like a Truck” (89,000)9. Ice Spice, “Princess Diana” (87,000)10. Jelly Roll, “Need a Favor” (86,000)Source: Luminate, for the tracking period Dec. 30, 2022, through June 29, 2023.
‘Heat Waves’ Hottest on Radio: The most-heard song on U.S. radio in the first half of 2023 was Cyrus’ “Flowers,” with a cumulative 2.409 billion audience impressions across all formats monitored by Luminate. The single was released in early January and became one of the biggest radio hits in the modern era. It spent 18 weeks at No. 1 on Billboard’s all-format Radio Songs chart, tying Goo Goo Dolls’ “Iris” for the second-most weeks at No. 1 since the chart began in 1990. The song with the most weeks at No. 1 on Radio Songs is The Weeknd’s enduring “Blinding Lights,” which ruled for 26 weeks in 2020.
2023’s Midyear Top 10 Radio Songs in U.S. (Based on Audience Impressions)1. Miley Cyrus, “Flowers” (2.409 billion)2. Metro Boomin, The Weeknd & 21 Savage, “Creepin’” (2.359 billion)3. SZA, “Kill Bill” (1.909 billion)4. The Weeknd, “Die for You” (1.877 billion)5. Taylor Swift, “Anti-Hero” (1.730 billion)6. David Guetta & Bebe Rexha, “I’m Good (Blue)” (1.691 billion)7. Rema & Selena Gomez, “Calm Down” (1.580 billion)8. Harry Styles, “As It Was” (1.362 billion)9. Sam Smith & Kim Petras, “Unholy” (1.275 billion)10. Chris Brown, “Under the Influence” (1.142 billion)Source: Luminate, for the tracking period Dec. 30, 2022, through June 29, 2023.
Luminate has been the music industry’s data authority for over three decades. As the company readies the launch of a more sophisticated platform, its leaders discuss the past, present and future of the operation — and how they’ve kept pace with the evolving business. PAST – Starting with the launch of SoundScan in 1991, Luminate “has continued to […]
Luminate is launching a new platform that will house the company’s global data capabilities across music, film, TV and more, the company announced Monday (May 15).
An improvement from the company’s current legacy data platform, Music Connect, the new platform includes the industry-leading music sales, streaming and airplay data that has powered the Billboard charts for over three decades. The design was built to complement the rapidly evolving entertainment industry and allows users to explore a more comprehensive view of music consumption by artist and project at both global and individual country levels. It also provides customers with the ability to extract more in-depth insights.
The news was broken Monday morning at the annual Music Biz conference in Nashville by Luminate CEO Rob Jonas.
“As conversations of uncertainty surrounding AI and other technological advancements begin to inundate the entertainment industry, there’s never been a more pressing time for transparency and objectivity in how data is used across music, film, TV, streaming video content and more,” said Jonas. “Luminate’s new platform is built upon three decades of expertise – the information and content we collate and analyze every day forms a rich data asset on which prediction and recommendation will become commonplace for our customers and partners. We are focused on centralized, unbiased information to help keep creators informed, honest, and united by a singular reference point.”
The platform’s improved benefits and features include a more customizable user interface, allowing for various sorting, filtering and grouping functionality; an improved search, with dedicated page and separation per categories (artist/song/album) for quicker access; and the ability for users to share dashboards with team members by copying and pasting a URL for easier collaboration.
Additionally, the platform boasts upgraded data infrastructure, using a multi-cloud architecture incorporating Amazon Web Services and Snowflake, making it faster and more flexible than any of its predecessors. It is designed to ingest thousands of data sources and present them as valuable insights and trends about consumer engagement and behavior, with data exchange and API support available for customers who require data ingestion into their own systems and platforms.
The platform also incorporates more comprehensive artist metadata, including country of origin, language(s) and label information. Additionally, users can drill down to the ISRC or EAN/UPC level, as well as break out the data by different criteria; they also have the ability to separate all activities from Charts Equivalent by providing a dedicated “charts view.” The platform also includes international market-level data via new global filters — an improvement from Music Connect, which largely represents North America — giving users the ability to drill down to key international data from specific countries.
Lastly, the new platform incorporates support for new forms of consumption, including short-form video and gaming environments.
In the coming quarters, Luminate will integrate its other data offerings into the new platform, including music audience research, film metadata, TV metadata and streaming video analytics. New data provider partners will also be announced in the coming weeks.
“Luminate’s new platform was designed in collaboration with some of our most valued partners across the entertainment industry,” said Luminate chief product officer Arnaud Retureau. “Their feedback was invaluable to our efforts in providing a user experience that is beneficial to the entire music community, especially in creating a central reference point pertaining to baseline consumption metrics and expert insights. We’re looking forward to continuing to engage with that feedback to maintain the most effective and useful product possible.”
Luminate’s team is currently on the ground at Music Biz, where they’re scheduled to participate in featured speaking sessions and curated music data programming and will be offering demos of the new platform for industry professionals. You can learn more about their presence at the conference here.
Luminate rebranded in March 2022 and was previously known as Nielsen Music and P-MRC Data.
In a year when a lot of country music’s top product was a repeat, Zach Bryan provided a slightly new sonic shade.
His lonesome “Something in the Orange” racked up 432.1 million on-demand audio and video streams to become the most streamed country song of 2022, according to year-end figures provided by Luminate. Likewise, his album American Heartbreak, released May 20, landed at No. 2 among the Top Country Albums, accruing over 1 million total equivalent album units.
American Heartbreak, Luke Combs’ Growin’ Up (No. 7) and Bailey Zimmerman’s Leave the Light On (No. 10) were the only new titles among the top 10 most popular country albums for 2022, ruled by Morgan Wallen’s 2021 release Dangerous: The Double Album for the second year in a row.
In fact, five of the seven albums that repeated among this year’s top 10 finished in the exact same chart position they occupied one year ago: Dangerous, Taylor Swift’s Red (Taylor’s Version) (No. 3), Combs’ This One’s for You (No. 5), Wallen’s If I Know Me (No. 6) and Chris Stapleton’s Traveller (No. 8).
Four of last year’s 10 most streamed country songs were also holdovers from 2021’s top 10, though only one resided in the exact same position: Stapleton’s “Tennessee Whiskey” at No. 4. The other three returnees among the top streamers: Wallen’s “Wasted On You” and “Whiskey Glasses,” plus Walker Hayes’ “Fancy Like.”
While the successful titles remained a tad static, the modes of consumption continued to change, with streaming up and music ownership dropping over 20%.
Country’s total on-demand streams, audio and video combined — including user-generated content (UGC) — rose 9.8% to 92.5 billion streams, an increase that trailed the overall industry, which rose 12.4% to 1.27 trillion streams. (Album titles and album chart rankings by equivalent album units do not include UGC streams, but UGC is included in Luminate’s industry volume numbers. UGC streams are not factored into any of Billboard’s weekly charts.)
Country’s total equivalent album units increased by 4.8% to 75.7 million units, compared with the overall industry, which expanded 9.2% to 974.9 million units.
In 2021, album sales grew in the industry, but prerecorded audio purchases slid again in 2022, continuing a trend in the streaming era. Country album sales were down 25%, checking in at 7.1 million. The industry’s album sales dropped 8.2% to 100.1 million. Track sales took a dramatic nosedive — country volume fell 21.1% to 18.8 million units. The overall industry’s track sales deteriorated even more, tumbling 25.1% to 152 million.
Swift’s Red (Taylor’s Version) claimed the No. 1 position among Top-Selling Country Albums for 2022, repeating her ranking from one year ago behind 228,000 purchases. Cody Johnson’s “ ’Til You Can’t” took Top-Selling Country Digital Song after moving 145,000 units, edging out Hayes’ No. 2 entry, “AA,” by a mere 1,000 purchases.
Additional reporting by Keith Caulfield.
Subscribe to Billboard Country Update, the industry’s must-have source for news, charts, analysis and features. Sign up for free delivery every Monday.