midyear
Halfway through 2024, it’s once again Taylor Swift’s world, and we’re all just living in it. At the midway point of the year, her Tortured Poets Department album is the biggest release of 2024 so far by a huge margin, having spent nine of the 13 weeks of the second quarter atop the Billboard 200. That helped her label, Republic Records, best the entire Warner Music Group in current market share for the year through June 27, contributing to Republic’s 15.72% mark — by far the best among individual labels.
However, Swift is far from the only factor. Republic’s market share also includes Mercury Records, Big Loud Records and Island Records (as well as indie distributor Imperial and Cash Money), and each of those labels is also on fire in the first half: Mercury’s Post Malone has collaborated with Swift, Beyoncé, Blake Shelton and Big Loud’s Morgan Wallen on big singles (the latter of which, “I Had Some Help,” spent six weeks at No. 1 on the Hot 100), while Island’s Sabrina Carpenter has dominated the singles charts of late and the same label’s Chappell Roan has emerged as one of the artist stories of the year. Each of the three labels, if broken out on their own, would have made the top 15 of the midyear current market share chart, while Island in particular logged a midyear mark (1.29%) that was more than double its share at the same point last year, and represents its highest midpoint stake since 2018.
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That surge from Republic, which is up more than 3% from the 12.42% current share it posted midway through 2023, helped boost the Universal Music Group’s industry-leading current market share up to 36.37% at the halfway mark, up from the 34.48% it had the same period last year. In turn, Sony Music Entertainment’s current share came in at 26.07%, down from 27.54% halfway through 2023; while the Warner Music Group’s 15.68% dipped from the 17.26% it enjoyed midway through last year. The indie sector, by distribution ownership, grew more than a percentage point to 21.88%, up from 20.72%. By label ownership, the indie community remained the biggest sector of the business, with a 39.12% current share and a 37.35% overall share, both of which are slightly down year over year but relatively static.
Among individual labels, beyond Republic, Interscope Geffen A&M (whose market share also includes Verve Label Group) also had a strong quarter. The label came in at 9.51% in current share, also up a large margin from the 8.08% it posted halfway through 2023, with Billie Eilish’s Hit Me Hard And Soft leading the way. Taking into account the realignment of UMG’s label structure under the Interscope Capitol Labels Group on the West Coast, within which Capitol now reports up to ICLG chief John Janick, and Republic Recording Company on the East Coast, which includes Def Jam among the additional labels that report in to Monte Lipman, ICLG’s current market share would come in at 13.54% halfway through the year, with Republic Recording Company at 16.36%.
Outside those two labels, Warner Records — which includes Warner Latin, catalog label Rhino and some share from Warner Nashville — has continued its hot streak from the first quarter, as singles by Benson Boone (“Beautiful Things”), Teddy Swims (“Lose Control”) and Zach Bryan (last year’s “I Remember Everything” with Kacey Musgraves) remain among the biggest songs of 2024. Notably, Warner’s 6.30% current share — which keeps it in third place among labels — comes even before the impact of Bryan’s latest album, The Great American Bar Scene, given that it was released after the half-year tracking period. That’s easily Warner’s best midyear mark in years and an improvement over 2023’s 5.62%, when it ranked fifth.
Coming in fourth is Atlantic, at a 5.24% current share, which is both down significantly from the 7.34% it posted halfway through 2023 and up slightly from the 5.14% current share it had in the first quarter, as Jack Harlow’s former No. 1 “Lovin On Me” remains among the top songs of the year. (Atlantic’s share includes the 300 Elektra Music Group.) Fifth place, with a 4.59% current share, belongs to RCA Records, representing a dip in share from last year’s 4.98% midyear mark but a rise in position, as it came in seventh at this point last year.
In sixth, Columbia’s current share has improved, up to 4.35% from 3.71% in Q1, as Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter and Hozier’s No. 1 single “Too Sweet” factors in, though it’s still down from the 5.16% it held midway through last year. (Columbia’s share includes some labels from indie distributor RED.) Capitol Music Group, meanwhile — which includes Virgin Music, Motown/Quality Control, Capitol Christian, Blue Note and Astralwerks in its share — has dropped into seventh place with a 4.03% current share, down from its 6.00% 2023 mark and the 4.71% it posted in the first quarter of 2024.
A trio of Sony labels round out the top 10, though in a different order than they did in the same period of 2023. In eighth, Epic Records has capitalized on a slew of big hip-hop albums in the first half of the year from 21 Savage, Future and Metro Boomin to boost its current share to 2.78%, up significantly from the 1.82% share it held last year when it sat in 10th. Also pushing higher is Sony Latin, which came in ninth at 2.17%, up from 1.99% last year. It comes in ahead of Sony Nashville, which dropped from a 2.55% share halfway through 2023 to a 1.96% share at the midpoint of 2024.
Another big climber at the year’s midway point is Alamo, which is up to 1.78% so far this year, good for 11th and a jump from the 0.96% current share it held this time last year. (Alamo also last year launched indie distributor Santa Anna, which inked a deal with Drake’s OVO Sound label in January.) Universal’s Nashville (1.35%) and Latin (1.12%) follow in 12th and 13th, respectively, while BMG (0.93%) and Concord (0.75%) — the latter of which scored a big hit with the Pulse Music-released “Million Dollar Baby” by Tommy Richman — round out the top 15 among current market share.
In overall market share — which combines current releases (within the past 18 months) with catalog — UMG increased its lead at the top, to 38.52% over last year’s 37.98%, while Sony (27.21%) and WMG (18.22%) both dipped slightly, and the indie community by distribution ownership inched upward, to 16.05% from last year’s 15.93%.
Among the individual labels, the race is much tighter at the top in overall share, with Republic’s 10.61% beating out Interscope’s 9.88%, though both saw their share increase year over year. (The score for the UMG umbrella groups in terms of overall share: ICLG at 15.78% and Republic Recording Company at 12.45%.) Below them, Atlantic jumps to third with a 7.61% mark, leapfrogging Warner Records’ 6.74%, while the deep catalogs of Capitol (in fifth) and Columbia (in sixth) allowed their shares rise to a virtual tie at 5.90%, with Capitol edging out Columbia by five ten-thousandths of a point. RCA (5.05%), Epic (2.75%), Sony Nashville (2.02%) and UMG Nashville (1.86%) round out the top 10.
By catalog share, both UMG (39.25%) and Sony (27.60%) grew year over year, while Warner (19.07%) and the indies (14.08% by distribution ownership) both dipped slightly. Among the individual labels, Interscope takes the top slot, coming in at 10.00% even, ahead of Republic’s 8.88%, with both up slightly over their prior-year marks. Republic barely rises above Atlantic, which drops to No. 3 with an 8.41% share, while Warner Records (6.88%), Capitol Music Group (6.53%) and Columbia Records (6.42%) are closely bunched together behind, with Warner jumping past Capitol year over year. RCA comes in a solid seventh with a 5.21% share, while Epic (2.75%), Def Jam Recordings (2.25%) and Sony Nashville (2.04%) complete the top 10.
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.
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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.
As previously reported, Harry Styles came out on top on Billboard Boxscore’s 2023 midyear Top Tours chart. But it wasn’t an easy win. Across the six-month tracking period, the No. 1 spot flipped six times, coming down to a margin of less than $500,000, or 0.3%. Take a look below at how the midyear 2023 Top Tours ranking took shape, from Nov. 1, 2022, through April 30, 2023.
For the first day of November, Elton John led via his Nov. 1 show at Las Vegas’ Allegiant Stadium, earning $7.8 million, according to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore. But, temporarily, he gave way to Coldplay, in the middle of a 10-show run at Buenos Aires’ Estadio Unico Ciudad de La Plata.
It took two Argentinian shows for Coldplay to take over. But before that epic run could end, Sir Elton was back on top, continuing his mammoth stadium run in North America, including three sold-out shows at Los Angeles’ Dodger Stadium on Nov. 17 and 19-20.
John held the top spot into December, until being displaced by 2022’s overall champ, Bad Bunny. The Puerto Rican superstar wrapped World’s Hottest Tour, reaching a high of $67.9 million since the beginning of the ’23 tracking period. But just like that, Daddy Yankee, another Puerto Rican icon promoted by Cardenas Marketing Network, took over for the end of the calendar year, with $72.5 million.
Elton was back in January, playing shows in Oceania that not only gave him a third stint at No. 1, but cemented the Farewell Yellow Brick Road Tour as the highest-grossing tour of all time.
But then came Harry. After many months, midyears and year-end rankings in the top five, Mr. Styles claimed the pole position, juiced up by shows in Australia and Asia in February and March. Ultimately, he earned $138.6 million between November and April.
And despite Elton’s last-minute run at the O2 Arena (and one show on April 27 at Munich’s Olympiahalle), Styles stayed strong. John inched towards the top but ultimately fell short by less than half of a percentage point.
While those men traded off on top, Ed Sheeran, Trans-Siberian Orchestra, Dua Lipa, Kevin Hart, Luke Combs, SZA and many more came in as some of the top touring acts of the midyear tracking period. Check back later this year for a year-end update with some of the summer’s biggest stadium runs.
Billboard Boxscore’s Midyear reports are in, and once again, the box-office ticket sales data voluntarily submitted by promoters and venues shows continued growth in the top tier of tours.
This year’s numbers are a strong signal of strength in the post-pandemic concert business. Still, a more in-depth look shows that the business may also have to adjust the way it looks at the touring calendar.
For much of the history of the concert business, touring schedules were planned around the calendar year: Outdoor tours launched in spring hit their high mark in summer and wrapped up in autumn, coming off the road just as winter began. But the growth of the indoor arena business — and growing importance of international markets — has upended the traditional touring calendar, in turn affecting how information from reporting tools such as the midyear Boxscore reports is used.
“The idea of touring year-round was once revolutionary,” says Gregg Perloff with Another Planet Entertainment, which produces concerts in the San Francisco Bay Area. “In California, the moderate climate allowed for year-round touring, but few acts wanted to be the ones who experimented with performing during the winter months. But as the business became more global, that shift started happening without any people noticing, and today, the schedule for how major acts tour is totally different than it was in the past.”
In the Spring of Things
This year’s data shows that many tours now begin in late March or early April, and that the fall months of October and November, when tours once wound down, are now more of a midpoint.
The height of concert season now takes place well past the middle of the summer and continues into the beginning of the new year — and often wraps up in seasonally warm climates. Take for example the midyear Top Tours title holder, Harry Styles, who began the European leg of his Love on Tour trek in late June 2022, and will end his run in July 2023. Coldplay, which launched its Music of the Spheres world tour in late March 2022, will end the bulk of its touring in July of this year. (The band will then play four fall dates, including makeup performances in San Diego, Australia and Malaysia.)
By late May/early June, it often starts to become clear which headline concert tours stand out as big earners, which major-market venues won the big shows of the summer and who will be headlining the big festivals that run through Labor Day weekend. But that’s a challenge for calendar-based reporting metrics such as Billboard Boxscore, whose midyear tracking period covers shows from Nov. 1, 2022, to April 30, 2023. While November is typically a strong month for the concert business, touring grinds to a halt around mid December and often doesn’t resume in a major way until mid March.
Still, while the top 10 of the Top Tours chart is $94 million stronger than 2022’s midyear recap, it’s not because the 2023 season started earlier, but because the 2022 season ran longer.
New Year, Same Success Stories
The 2023 Top Tours chart essentially functions as an addendum to the 2022 year-end chart at the halfway point, with all of the top 10 midyear tours from 2023 also appearing on the 2022 year-end chart, including seven within the year-end top 10. The crossover is simple to explain: The tours continued after Billboard’s Nov. 1 cutoff date.
Bad Bunny’s record-breaking $373 million haul from 2022 actually extends past the $400 million mark after factoring in the last two months of the year. Elton John adds $60 million to his $338 million year-end total when his shows at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles are accounted for, according to the midyear report.
Nearly all of the concerts featured on the midyear charts took place in venues in the western United States, Mexico, South America or Australia.
Only one entry on the top 10 Boxscores chart was located in a cold-climate city: John’s run of shows in London, which took place during the fairly warm month of April.
That’s not to say the East Coast and Western Europe is dead in the winter. Eleven of the top 20 performing venues in the categories of 10,001-15,000 capacity and 15,001 or more capacity are located in cold-climate cites such as London; Hamburg, Germany; New York; and Washington, D.C. The number drops to five out of 10 for theaters and four out of 10 for clubs.
Some of the year’s biggest tours — including those by Taylor Swift, Beyoncé and Madonna — will likely make a sizable dent in 2023’s year-end charts with blockbuster summer grosses as stadiums in America open up for the next several months. (Beyoncé’s and Madonna’s tours began after the tracking period for the midyear report ended; Swift is yet to report numbers during that span.) Once reported, those figures will provide a strong indication of how 2023 looks — and early sales reports have concert business executives feeling optimistic.
Mexico Drives International Growth
Even with half of 2023 remaining, data from the midyear Boxscore report may indicate what lies in store for the rest of the year. One example is Phish reporting that it earned $22 million from its February engagement at the Moon Palace Golf & Spa Resort in Cancun, Mexico. The impressive eight-figure return proves that the perennial jam-rock band can still generate huge sales. It also shows that demand for live entertainment is still strong there, both for concerts targeting U.S. tourists and those aimed at residents of Mexico.
Two other concerts, both held in Mexico City — Daddy Yankee at the Foro Sol and Corona Capital at Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez — each generated over $20 million apiece, making Mexico the highest grossing country on Billboard’s Top 10 Boxscores chart. That data shows that despite a continued rise in cartel violence since 2019, according to the U.S. Department of State, the Mexican concert market remains strong nearly a year after Live Nation purchased Mexican promoter OCESA. That information can be extremely helpful to concert bookers and promoters as they plot touring plans — potentially far more important than what part of the touring cycle Billboard Boxscore covers. Still, the inexorable shift toward year-round touring is making itself felt in a way that’s hard to ignore.
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