midyear 2023
Spotify was the biggest contributor to the 13% increase posted by the 21 stocks tracked by the Billboard Global Music Index for the first half of 2023.
Fueled by cost-cutting and corporate reorganization, shares of Spotify gained 103.4% through June 30. While that wasnât the largest on a percentage basis for stocks on the index, Spotifyâs size â it has the second-largest market capitalization of stocks that Billboard tracks â meant the companyâs improvement was the single largest factor in the indexâs gain.
The Global Music Index is a float-adjusted index of 21 music stocks. Each companyâs market capitalization â the value of outstanding shares â is adjusted to remove the shares of insiders, corporate owners and long-term investors. The remaining market value reflects the shares available to be bought and sold on the open market. The index does not weight stocks to balance the influence of larger and smaller companies. (MSG Entertainment is not included in the index because it wasnât an active stock for the entire six-month measurement period.)
Only half of the indexâs six streaming stocks posted gains through June 30: Los Angeles-based platform LiveOne â with a relatively small market cap of $151 million â shot up 173%, and Chinaâs Cloud Music improved 7.1%. On the losing end, Tencent Music Entertainment, also based in China, fell 10.9%; Franceâs Deezer dropped 17.8%; and Anghami, based in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, lost 26.6%.
Outside of music, other streaming companies’ stocks also performed well in the first half of 2023 after losing ground in 2022. Netflix and Roku gained 49.4% and 60.5%, respectively, while Warner Bros. Discovery and Walt Disney Company â broader entertainment companies with streaming platforms and, lately, much C-suite drama â improved 32.3% and 2.8%, respectively.
Strong demand for in-person experiences following the pandemic helped live-music companies recover from share-price losses in 2022. Live Nation shares improved 30.6% to $91.11, and the company had the second-largest gain in adjusted market capitalization. Sphere Entertainment, CEO James Dolan’s gambit to change the live-entertainment business, gained 31.9% after adjusting for the spinoff of MSG Entertainment in April. Germany’s CTS Eventim, stung by criticism over fee transparency by a German public TV show in June, dropped 2.9%. Live Nation’s market cap overpowered CTS Eventim’s loss, and all of the live-music companies collectively accounted for 32% of the index’s growth.
The index’s 13% gain was less than closely watched indexes such as the S&PÂ 500 (up 15.9%) and the Nasdaq composite (31.7%). Both indexes are dominated by gains from tech titans such as Nvidia (up 189.5%), Meta (138.5%), Apple (49.3%), Microsoft (42%) and Alphabet (36.3%). Of that group, only Meta has a market cap under $1Â trillion. The Billboard Global Music Index easily beat the 7.2% gain of the Russell 2000, an index of small-cap U.S. stocks with a median market cap of about $1Â billion.
While Spotify’s share price of $160.55 is well below its all-time high of $387.44 reached in February 2021, it shows that investors regained some belief in the company’s long-term prospects. Spotify benefited from the same pandemic boost that carried Netflix to a record-high market cap. At the same time, investors were also enthusiastic about the potential for its podcasting business to evolve the music platform into an audio entertainment hub and improve margins constrained by label licensing deals.
Diving into podcasting required large cash outlays for acquisitions, staff and content deals with Joe Rogan, former President Barack and Michelle Obama, and Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, among others. By March 2022, investors had become impatient for margins to improve, and Spotify’s share price dipped to $118.20. As a wave of belt-tightening swept corporations worldwide, Spotify made drastic changes: It laid off 6% of its workforce in January and cut another 2% in June entirely from its podcast division. It restructured its podcasting leadership, canceled shows and consolidated its various podcast brands â The Ringer, Gimlet and Parcast â under the Spotify Studios umbrella.
Layoffs and reorganization have been especially common in the radio business. SiriusXM laid off 8% of its workforce in March and reorganized its podcast business. After the company announced it would shutter its stand-alone podcast app, Stitcher, its share price increased 18.5% in the last week of June. Its stock was down 22.4% at the year’s midway point, hurt by soft forecasts for self-pay subscribers and the weak advertising market that led to three radio companies in the index falling an average of 32.3%. IHeartMedia (down 40.6%) and Cumulus Media (34%) have also cut costs and laid off staff.
Two South Korean companies Ââ both a mix of label and management company â accounted for two of the biggest gains outside of Spotify and Live Nation. HYBE, home to BTS, improved 62.2%, and SM Entertainment, the company behind NCTÂ 127, gained 39.2%. SM’s share price benefited from a takeover battle. HYBE lost out to Kakao Corp. and Kakao Entertainment, which now collectively own 40% of SM, but its stock has more than reclaimed the losses suffered in June 2022, when BTS announced its hiatus.
Outside of South Korea, label and music publishing stocks had mixed results at midyear. Universal Music Group, the index’s largest company by market cap, and Warner Music Group declined 9.6% and 25.5%, respectively.
At the midyear mark of 2023, thereâs one over-arching theme: so far, itâs the year of Morgan Wallen. The artistâs 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 âLast Nightâ 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 â those derived from albums released within the past 18 months â 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 thatâs 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 â 10.3 million of it, compared to 900,000 units of growth from current releases. Itâs 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.
Itâs a testament to the enduring value that exists in classic rock recordings â and a reason those catalogs continue to be valued, bought and sold at such high figures â 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. Rockâs catalog share of 23.31% is behind R&B/hip-hopâs 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.
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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 itâs 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 genresâ 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 â 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 Vertâs 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 marketâs 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% â the same mark it had at the midway point of last year. Still, itâs 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 â and not necessarily just because of gains in other genres. R&B/hip-hopâs 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% â more than two percentage points. Overall album sales growth â huge for rock (45.85%) and pop (30.99%) â was just 2.53%, though growth at all in that metric is still positive. Even more concerning are its current numbers, which weâll get to in a second. So, with R&B/hip-hopâs 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 theyâre undeniable on several metrics. In terms of overall percentage growth year over year, World Music â which encompasses ex-U.S. genres like K-Pop and Afrobeats â 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 â R&B/Hip-Hop, Rock and Pop, in that order â 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 yearâs 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. Rockâs 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). Itâs a reflection of how the first half of the year has gone in terms of impactful releases in the market.
World Musicâs Growth Isnât 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. Itâs not huge, but by percentage, itâs far and away the fastest-growing genre (up 42.5% year over year) in the industry; by raw consumption unit growth, itâs sixth-highest, having increased by 4.4 million units over its midyear 2022 mark. And itâs 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 thatâs 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%. Theyâre still small in terms of actual consumption numbers â K-popâs numbers compare most directly to those of childrenâs music for the first half of the year, for example â 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: itâs 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). Thatâs 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 â some of whom, like Universal Music Group, have endorsed a system that rewards their music with better royalty payouts â 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 â who may be distributed by companies owned by the majors â but also independent musicians, bedroom producers using inexpensive digital audio workstations and a variety of âfunctional music,â 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. âWe see a huge market with many billions of original unique songs, similar to photos,â 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 âa vast and unnavigable number of tracksâ of âlower-quality functional contentâ created to game algorithms and âdivert royalties.â
While independently released music and AI content chips away at major labelsâ 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 â 67% greater than the No. 2 album, SZAâs SOS. Excluding the No. 1 albums from each half-year period, the remaining top 10 albumsâ share of 1.88% in the first half of 2023 was almost equal to the 1.85% in the prior-year period.
Led by Wallenâs âLast Nightâ and SZAâs âKill Bill,â 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, whatâs 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 â Morgan Wallenâs One Thing At a Time (Big Loud/Mercury/Republic) and SZAâs S.O.S. (TDE/RCA) â 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 â which encompasses Island, Big Loud, Mercury, Cash Money and indie distributor Imperial â 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&Mâs 7.75% (Interscope also encompasses Verve Label Group). At the end of the first half of the year, Republicâs current share stands at 12.46% â a remarkable level of consistency that shows the staying power of Republicâs 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.
Republicâs 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 â chiefly Wallenâs album, but also Taylor Swiftâs Midnights (one week) and Stray Kidsâ 5 Star (one week) â 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 Vertâs new album Pink Tape.
Both Republicâs consistency and Interscopeâs 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 Q1âs 16.81% and 2022âs 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 â which includes Motown/Quality Control, Blue Note, Astralwerks, Capitol Christian and indie distributor Virgin Music â 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 â though down significantly from the 6.65% it had at midyear 2022 â 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 â while a strong indicator of recent performance for any label â 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 labelsâ 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 yearâs 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 Wallenâs monster album One Thing at a Time was the most popular album, while Miley Cyrusâ smash single âFlowersâ 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. âFlowersâ 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.
âOne Thingâ is Tops: For the tracking period of Dec. 30, 2022, through June 29, 2023, Wallenâs One Thing at a Time was the most popular album in the U.S. The country starâs 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 â the most weeks at No. 1 for any album since Adeleâs 21 racked up 24 nonconsecutive weeks in 2011-12.
Concurrently, the One Thing at a Time single âLast Nightâ 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). âLast Nightâ spent 13 nonconsecutive weeks at No. 1 on the weekly all-genre Billboard Hot 100 chart from March through July â the singer-songwriterâs 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 Cyrusâ âFlowers,â with 750.7 million clicks in the first six months of the year. âFlowersâ led the Hot 100 eight nonconsecutive weeks from January through early April. It marked Cyrusâ second chart-topper, following 2013âs âWrecking Ball.â
Equivalent album units â for album titles and chart rankings cited below (but not industry volume numbers) â 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 âMidyear Top 10 Albums in U.S.â chart do not include user-generated content (UGC) streams. UGC streams are included in Luminateâs industry volume numbers and its midyear song streaming rankings. (UGC streams are not factored into any of Billboardâs 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. Luminateâs sales, streaming and airplay data is used to compile Billboardâs weekly charts.
Of One Thing at a Timeâs 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 setâs 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, SZAâs December 2022 release SOS (1.982 million equivalent album units), Taylor Swiftâs October 2022 release Midnights (1.876 million), Wallenâs January 2021 release Dangerous: The Double Album (1.172 million) and Metro Boominâs 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 Luminateâs year-end report.
2023âs 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 Boominâ, 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 SĂ©ra 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 Luminateâs on-demand streaming charts (below). Luminateâs equivalent album unit totals include SEA and TEA for an albumâs songs registered before an albumâs 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 â 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 â up from the 49.6 million sold in the first half of 2022. The top-selling album of 2023 so far is Swiftâs 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 â 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 Swiftâs Midnights, with 430,000 sold. Itâs 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 TOGETHERâs 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).
2023âs 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 Thereâs 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%, âFlowersâ Most-Streamed Song: âFlowers,â Cyrusâ 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). SZAâs âKill Billâ (701.2 million) and Wallenâs âLast Nightâ (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 Luminateâs industry streaming on-demand volume numbers (above) and its midyear streaming song charts (below). UGC streams are not factored into any of Billboardâs weekly charts.
In general, all songs in the below charts combine the assorted remixes of a song into one overall total. Thus, PinkPantheressâ âBoyâs a Liarâ includes activity for its remix with Ice Spice, âBoyâs a Liar, Pt. 2,â The Weekndâs âDie for Youâ includes activity for its remix with Ariana Grande,â and so forth.2023âs Midyear Top 10 Most Streamed Songs in U.S. (On-Demand Audio & Video Combined)1. Miley Cyrus, âFlowersâ (750.7 million)2. SZA, âKill Billâ (701.2 million)3. Morgan Wallen, âLast Nightâ (642.8 million)4. PinkPantheress, âBoyâs a Liarâ (580.7 million)5. Lady Gaga, âBloody Maryâ (531.7 million)6. Rema & Selena Gomez, âCalm Downâ (486.3 million)7. Twisted featuring Oliver Tree, âWorth Nothingâ (462.7 million)8. J. Cole featuring Amber Coffman & The Cults, âShe Knowsâ (455.6 million)9. Fifty Fifty, âCupidâ (427.7 million)10. Lil Uzi Vert, âJust Wanna Rockâ (416.1 million)Source: Luminate, for the tracking period Dec. 30, 2022, through June 29, 2023. Includes UGC streams.
2023âs Midyear Top 10 Most Streamed Songs in U.S. (On-Demand Audio)1. Morgan Wallen, âLast Nightâ (588.7 million)2. SZA, âKill Billâ (567.6 million)3. Miley Cyrus, âFlowersâ (464.6 million)4. PinkPantheress, âBoyâs a Liarâ (370.4 million)5. The Weeknd, âDie for Youâ (349.8 million)6. Zach Bryan, âSomething in the Orangeâ (331.2 million)7. Metro Boomin, The Weeknd & 21 Savage, âCreepinââ (308.3 million)8. Eslabon Armado x Peso Pluma, âElla Baila Solaâ (307.4 million)9. Morgan Wallen, âYou Proofâ (303.3 million)10. Taylor Swift, âAnti-Heroâ (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 Cyrusâ âFlowersâ 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.
2023âs Midyear Top 10 Selling Digital Songs in U.S.1. Miley Cyrus, âFlowersâ (380,000)2. Jimin, âLike Crazyâ (289,000)3. Morgan Wallen, âLast Nightâ (217,000)4. Luke Combs, âFast Carâ (126,000)5. BeyoncĂ©, âCuff Itâ (119,000)6. Rema & Selena Gomez, âCalm Downâ (110,000)7. Taylor Swift, âAnti-Heroâ (97,000)8. Lainey Wilson, âHeart Like a Truckâ (89,000)9. Ice Spice, âPrincess Dianaâ (87,000)10. Jelly Roll, âNeed a Favorâ (86,000)Source: Luminate, for the tracking period Dec. 30, 2022, through June 29, 2023.
âHeat Wavesâ Hottest on Radio: The most-heard song on U.S. radio in the first half of 2023 was Cyrusâ âFlowers,â 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 Billboardâs all-format Radio Songs chart, tying Goo Goo Dollsâ âIrisâ 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 Weekndâs enduring âBlinding Lights,â which ruled for 26 weeks in 2020.
2023âs Midyear Top 10 Radio Songs in U.S. (Based on Audience Impressions)1. Miley Cyrus, âFlowersâ (2.409 billion)2. Metro Boomin, The Weeknd & 21 Savage, âCreepinââ (2.359 billion)3. SZA, âKill Billâ (1.909 billion)4. The Weeknd, âDie for Youâ (1.877 billion)5. Taylor Swift, âAnti-Heroâ (1.730 billion)6. David Guetta & Bebe Rexha, âIâm Good (Blue)â (1.691 billion)7. Rema & Selena Gomez, âCalm Downâ (1.580 billion)8. Harry Styles, âAs It Wasâ (1.362 billion)9. Sam Smith & Kim Petras, âUnholyâ (1.275 billion)10. Chris Brown, âUnder the Influenceâ (1.142 billion)Source: Luminate, for the tracking period Dec. 30, 2022, through June 29, 2023.
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