midyear 2024
For the first half of 2024, the stock market was a microcosm of the shifts in the music industry’s balance of power. Streaming stocks soared as investors rewarded companies that grew their paid-subscriber bases; radio stocks plummeted as companies struggled through a soft advertising market.
Spotify was the best-performing stock in the 20-company Billboard Global Music Index (BGMI) for the measurement period, Jan. 2-June 28, 2024. Shares of the Swedish company, which trades on the New York Stock Exchange, jumped 67.4% to $314.45 on June 28 and reached as high as $331.08 on June 5 — its highest mark since February 2021, the month that the shares closed at their all-time high of $387.44. Subscribers grew to 239 million at the end of March, up 14% from the prior-year period.
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A year-and-a-half ago, Spotify ended 2022 at $70.05, down 66% for the year. The remarkable turnaround stemmed from a change in business strategy. In its formative years, Spotify funded its rapid growth at the expense of profits. Investors tacitly approved of this strategy. But after a pandemic-fueled boom in streaming stocks, investors tired on growth-obsessed companies and demanded sustainable margins and better bottom lines. (Netflix sank 51% in 2022 and has since recovered, too.) So Spotify moved to become “relentlessly resourceful,” as CEO Daniel Ek put it, laying off nearly a quarter of its workforce and cutting many of its high-cost exclusive podcasts, including its deal with Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s Archewell Audio. It also raised prices globally — twice in the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia — to further boost margins.
The six streaming companies on the BGMI posted an average gain of 21.8%, which bested the 18.3% average increase of all stocks on the index. China’s Tencent Music Entertainment rose 55.8% as first-quarter paid subscribers grew 20.2% year over year to 113.5 million, helping offset a sharply declining social entertainment business. LiveOne improved 12.1% as the company finished its fiscal year (ended March 31) with a 30% increase in paid subscribers and a 19% revenue gain. Anghami, based in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, managed a 2.9% gain and got a lift when video streaming platform OSN+ acquired a 55.5% stake in April. Paris-based Deezer was the exception, dropping 19.2%.
Only companies in takeover acquisitions came close to the streaming leaders’ performances. Listed on the London Stock Exchange, investment trust Hipgnosis Songs Fund rose 42.2% to 1.024 pounds ($1.30) as a result of Blackstone’s offer — which was backed by HSF’s board and accepted by shareholders on July 8 — to buy the company’s shares at 1.05 pounds ($1.31) apiece, a 49.2% premium over the pre-offer price. Likewise, Believe climbed 40.0% to 14.70 pounds ($15.79) after a consortium led by CEO Denis Ladegaillerie raised its stake to 95% through a tender offer at 15 pounds ($16.11), a 21% premium price before the takeover bid was announced.
At the other end of the spectrum, radio companies — iHeartMedia, Cumulus Media and SiriusXM — lost an average of 56.4%. Cumulus dropped 61.7% as first-quarter revenue fell nearly 3%. iHeartMedia dropped 59.2% and lost 36% on May 10 alone after the company’s forecast for second-quarter revenue was below analysts’ expectations. SiriusXM slipped 48.3% after it lost 445,000 self-pay satellite radio subscribers in 2023 and had slow uptake of its revamped, lower-priced streaming app launched in November. Lower average revenue per user and an “uncertain” advertising market means the company expects full-year revenue to drop more than 2% this year.
All four live music-ticketing companies posted gains at the midyear mark and had an average gain of 8.8%. Live Nation probably would have done better than its 0.2% increase had the U.S. Department of Justice not filed an antitrust lawsuit on May 23 that seeks to break up the company’s promotion and ticketing businesses. Germany’s CTS Eventim, which acquired Vivendi’s festival and ticketing businesses in June, climbed 24.4% thanks to a 22% jump in 2023 revenue and expectations for “a moderate rise” in 2024. MSG Entertainment and sister company Sphere Entertainment gained 7.5% and 3.1%, respectively.
Record labels and music publishers dropped an average of 4.4% if HSF and Believe are excluded (and gained 8.6% including them). Reservoir Media gained 10.8%, Universal Music Group rose 7.6%, and K-pop companies SM Entertainment and HYBE fell 12.7% and 13.3%, respectively. Warner Music Group lost 14.4%.
This story appeared in the July 20, 2024, issue of Billboard.
At the midway point of 2024, the recorded music business is in fine form. Streaming is growing, physical purchases remain strong and download purchases are so few that any declines are barely noticeable amidst streaming’s success.
Billboard has already reported the major takeaways from Luminate’s midyear report — you can read a main article here and a follow-up article with more observations here — but a document filled with so much data, augmented by market research, merits another story. Below you can find five additional insights from the report (which you can download a copy of here).
Putting Digital Into Perspective
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Digital’s share of the market rose slightly to 95.3% of equivalent album units (EAUs), up from 95.2% at midyear 2023, 92.3% at midyear 2022 and 91.2% at midyear 2021. If that seems higher than some other figures you’ve spotted at Billboard, don’t worry. Because Luminate tracks only sales and purchases, comparing its data to other available data is like comparing apples and oranges. Public companies that report recorded music revenues have a lower digital share than Luminate’s consumption-based numbers. At Universal Music Group, digital’s global share was 69.8% in 2023, while at Warner Music Group it was 67.0%. Those companies’ digital shares are lower than what’s found in the Luminate report for a couple reasons. First, both companies get more than 10% of their recorded music revenue from physical sales globally (16% for UMG, 11% for WMG). Second, music companies group record labels with merchandise, various licensing revenues and expanded rights revenues — things not tracked by Luminate
Luminate’s digital share is also higher than the RIAA’s widely observed industry numbers, which had digital at 86.4% of recorded music revenue in the U.S. in 2023. But the RIAA tracks a few things that Luminate doesn’t. That includes SoundExchange collections (encompassing satellite radio and cable music services such as Music Choice and Stingray), which last year accounted for 5.8% of total revenue; and synchronization royalties, which accounted for 2.4%.
Long Live the Album
Not many years ago, the album was declared dead and some people predicted single-track releases would become standard. Sure, the album has been forever unbundled, and artists tend to release individual tracks ahead of an album’s release. Yet the format continues to thrive. At the midway point of 2022, four albums had more than 1 million equivalent album units. Last year, five albums had surpassed that threshold by June 30. And this year, seven albums topped 1 million EAUs.
As Billboard’s Dan Rys noted earlier this week, this year’s top album, Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department, did especially well, boasting 2.6 times as many EAUs as the No. 2 album, Morgan Wallen’s One Thing at a Time. To be fair, though, One Thing at a Time has had incredibly longevity: It was the No. 1 album in the first half of 2023, and its 3.31 million EAUs in that period were only 29% less than TTPD’s 4.67 million units in the first half of 2024.
Notably, sales are a major part of the consumption pie for some of the top albums. In the case of TTPD, more than half (53%) of total EAUs came from purchases. Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter, the No. 4 album, got 23.3% of EAUs from purchases.
Catalog Didn’t Kill Current Music
Catalog’s share of total EAUs was 72.8% — exactly equal to the prior-year period. This ends a run of increasing catalog market share that led to much — and some might say unnecessary — handwringing over the popularity of current music being released by record labels. By comparison, catalog’s share was 72.4% at midyear 2022 and 69.4% at midyear 2021. (Luminate classifies catalog music as being more than 18 months old.) Not all catalog music could be considered “old,” of course. Swift’s 2019 album Lover, which was No. 10 overall and No. 5 in album sales at the midyear mark this year, falls into the catalog category. So does her 2020 album Folklore, which ranked No. 8 in album sales. SZA’s SOS, released in December 2022, reached catalog status in June even though it was the No. 5 album on the midyear 2024 chart with 1.06 million EAUs. These are examples of “shallow” catalog that have achieved a degree of longevity, not “deep” catalog such as reissues and golden oldies.
Latin Music Has a Chart Disadvantage
Latin music streaming is 32% ad-supported, far below the 19.6% average for all genres and less than half the 12.9% of country music. That matters for both chart position and industry revenues, as premium streams produce greater per-stream royalties than ad-supported streams. In addition, premium streams are weighted more heavily when determining chart position. To compare albums and tracks that are consumed in a variety of formats — physical albums, downloads and streams — Luminate converts streams into EAUs, and ad-supported streams convert to EAUs at a lower rate than premium streams do. It makes sense: Ad-supported streams produce lower per-stream royalties than premium streams. Given Latin music’s relatively high percentage of ad-supported streams, that’s bad news for the genre, whose streams convert to EAUs at about 1,500 streams per EAU — much higher than country and pop, which have the lowest genre conversion rate at about 1,360 streams per EAU. Latin’s high proportion of ad-supported streaming also matters because it tends to under-index in terms of sales: No other genre has lower digital track sales, digital album sales and physical album sales as a percentage of EAUs.
Big Populations, Small Revenue
Developing markets have huge populations but relatively little revenue. India, which has a population of 1.4 billion and 659 million smartphone users, has the lowest proportion of premium streams in the 49 countries tracked by Luminate: Just 9.7% of all on-demand audio and video streams in the country are premium streams, which means 92.3% of all streams come from ad-supported streaming. With a population of 275 million, Indonesia is the fourth most-populated country worldwide, but in terms of music streaming, the country has the second-lowest proportion of premium streams at 15.5%. Globally, the average premium share is 57.5% and is highest in European countries, including Norway (93.5%), Iceland (92.9%), Sweden (89.6%), Netherlands (87.6%) and Denmark (87.1%).
In several different ways, the modern era of the U.S. recorded music business can date its origins to the year 2015. That was the year that Apple Music and TIDAL debuted in the United States; the year that streaming finally matured, taking up the baton as the dominant revenue stream among all formats in the country; and the year that, after more than a decade of decline, the business finally began to see its first shoots of growth, kicking off an upward trend that has still, 10 years later, not abated.
This week, Luminate released its annual midyear report on the U.S. business, providing a relatively convenient bookend to the first 10 years of what can reasonably be referred to as the official streaming era. The midyear charts threw up a few surprises (the enduring success of Benson Boone’s “Beautiful Things” led to it becoming the most-streamed song of 2024 so far) and some more obvious conclusions (Taylor Swift, of course, dominated the album charts with The Tortured Poets Department).
But it also revealed several milestones and achievements that have not happened in the past 10 years of the Luminate (and, prior to it, MRC Data and Nielsen) reports. So with the caveat that it’s still just the midway mark, and release dates and other factors weigh more heavily in smaller sample sizes, here are five stats that demonstrate that the first half of 2024 has been the most unusual year of the past decade.
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The Sheer Scale of Taylor’s Dominance
Swift’s Tortured Poets Department easily outstripped every other album at the midyear mark, having spent 12 of the 26 weeks of the year so far atop the Billboard 200. But at the midyear mark, its dominance could also be referred to as historic compared to the past 10 years. At 4.66 million equivalent album units, TTPD has outstripped the No. 2 album, Morgan Wallen’s One Thing At a Time, by more than double — and nearly triple — the latter’s 1.776 million, with a total that’s 2.62 times higher than Wallen’s album (which, to be fair, was released in March 2023).
That’s the first time in the past decade that the No. 1 album’s first-half total doubled, much less more than doubled, the No. 2 album. The differential between the two, 2.884 million units, is over 1.5 million more than the disparity between any other top two albums over the time period, with 2023 being the only other year the disparity topped 1 million units. (Last year, Wallen’s One Thing At a Time came in at 3.312 million units, 1.33 million more than SZA’s SOS.) The closest race of the past 10 years? That’d be in 2017 when Kendrick Lamar’s DAMN. edged out Ed Sheeran’s divide by just 23,000 units at the midway mark.
The No. 1 Song Didn’t Reach No. 1 on the Hot 100
Boone’s “Beautiful Things” was an early breakout story this year, as the singer seemed to explode out of nowhere with the biggest hit of his career so far. The song got off to a flying start, debuting at No. 15 on the Billboard Hot 100 in January — and then spent all but two weeks in the top 10 of the chart, landing at No. 1 for the most-streamed song of the year so far on Luminate’s mid-year tally.
The only quirk? “Beautiful Things” peaked at No. 2 on the Hot 100, never quite reaching No. 1. Given that, it may seem odd that it finished No. 1 in streams at the midyear point, though that can be explained by its sustained dominance in the top 10 and its early-year debut, which gave it the full six months to rack up all those streams. What is odd, however, is that it’s the only song in the past decade that landed at No. 1 at the midyear mark and also never reached the top of the Hot 100. In fact, every other year since 2015, the top song halfway through the year had spent at least five weeks in the top slot — ranging from the Encanto cast’s “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” in 2022 (five weeks) to Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars’ “Uptown Funk!” in 2015, which hit 14 weeks. (Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road,” No. 1 at the halfway mark in 2019, ultimately spent 19 weeks at No. 1, though it was only halfway through that run at the midyear point.)
Midyear No. 1 Songs by On-Demand Streams (Weeks at No. 1)2023: Miley Cyrus, “Flowers” (8 weeks)2022: Encanto Cast, “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” (5 weeks)2021: Olivia Rodrigo, “Drivers License” (8 weeks)2020: Roddy Ricch, “The Box” (11 weeks)2019: Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road” (19 weeks)2018: Drake, “God’s Plan” (11 weeks)2017: Ed Sheeran, “Shape Of You” (12 weeks)2016: Rihanna feat. Drake, “Work” (9 weeks)2015: Mark Ronson feat. Bruno Mars, “Uptown Funk!” (14 weeks)
Warner Records Lands Top 3 Songs
About those top-streamed songs? Boone’s was No. 1, followed by Zach Bryan feat. Kacey Musgraves with “I Remember Everything” and Teddy Swims’ “Lose Control” at Nos. 2 and 3. All of those songs were released by Warner Records, giving the label a trifecta. No other label has had the top three songs at the midyear mark in the past decade, giving Warner sole possession of the feat in this era.
A few labels have come close, however: in 2022, Atlantic Records had the top song (“We Don’t Talk About Bruno”), the No. 4 song (Kodak Black’s “Super Gremlin”) and had one of its stars, Jack Harlow, on the No. 2 song (Lil Nas X and Harlow’s “Industry Baby”, which was released on X’s label Columbia). In 2018, Republic Records had three of the top four, with one of its artists, Drake, on the No. 3 song: Blocboy JB feat. Drake, “Look Alive.” However, “Look Alive” came out on Drake’s label OVO Sound, which was distributed by Warner at the time. In 2016, Def Jam had Nos. 2 and 3 (Desiigner’s “Panda” and Justin Bieber’s “Sorry,” respectively) and a distribution deal with Roc Nation, which put out the No. 1 song, Rihanna’s “Work” featuring Drake — though Def Jam didn’t technically release it.
Republic Records Lands Top 3 Albums
Not to be outdone, the top of the midyear albums chart also threw up a trifecta for a label: Republic Records, which released Swift and Wallen’s albums (the latter in partnership with Big Loud), as well as the No. 3 album, Noah Kahan’s Stick Season (in partnership with Mercury). Somewhat surprisingly, given Republic’s recent dominance in the market share standings as well as the overall dominance of Wallen and Swift in recent years, this is the first time Republic has taken the top three slots at the midyear mark — and, over the past decade, the only time any label has held down the top three at this point in the year.
The only time another label came close was, unsurprisingly, Republic. In 2023, the label had four of the top five albums of the year at the midway mark, but it was thwarted from claiming the top three by SZA’s SOS, which was released by Top Dawg/RCA.
Just Five Albums in the Top 10 Came Out Within the Past 12 Months
The top 10 albums chart by equivalent units served up plenty of familiar titles this year: Swift, Wallen, Kahan, SZA and Bryan, as well as albums from Beyoncé (Cowboy Carter, No. 4) and Future & Metro Boomin (We Don’t Trust You, No. 6). But incredibly, only five of the top 10 were released within the past 12 months: Swift’s TTPD, Beyoncé’s Carter and Future & Metro’s Trust, all of which came out in 2024. Bryan’s self-titled album, which finished at No. 8, was released last August, while Swift’s No. 9-ranking 1989 (Taylor’s Version), a re-recording of an album that came out in 2014, was released last October. That’s the fewest number of titles in the top 10 of any midyear consumption chart in the past 10 years to have been released within the prior 12 months (dating back to the midyear mark of the year before), with no other year going back to 2015 serving up fewer than six.
In fact, that number has been steadily dropping for a half-decade now: Since 2019, when nine of the top 10 were released within the prior 12 months, there have been nine (2020), seven (2021), seven (2022) and six (2023) in the top 10. (In 2017, all 10 fit the criteria.) The streaming era has done many things for the music business, but one thing it has done more than any other is to expose people’s listening habits rather than buying habits. And the consumption numbers of current (releases within the past 18 months) vs. catalog (releases older than 18 months) have borne out the by-now long-established trend that catalog rules consumption: This year, Luminate calculated that catalog listening accounted for 72.8% of listening share, a figure that remained the same as it was at the midway point in 2023.
But the sheer staying power of some of these top 10 albums is what’s most impressive. Wallen’s One Thing At a Time is over a year old by now; but his 2021 album, Dangerous: The Double Album, is still at No. 7. SZA’s SOS, No. 2 at the midyear mark last year, came in at No. 5. Kahan’s Stick Season originally came out in October 2022. 1989 (Taylor’s Version) is a collection of songs that, in their original form, date back a decade. And at No. 10, Swift’s Lover is approaching its fifth anniversary in August.
Will the charts remain so static in the future? Is it a product of the maturation of the streaming age? Or is it just that these albums are simply so dominant that they elbowed out all others? It’s something to keep an eye on.
In the first half of 2024 in the United States, Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department was the most popular album, while Benson Boone’s “Beautiful Things” was the most-streamed song (by on-demand audio streams), respectively, according to data tracking firm Luminate.
Read more about midyear metrics in the 2024 Luminate Midyear Music Report.
‘Poets’ Perched on Top: For the tracking period of Dec. 29, 2023, through June 27, 2024, Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department was the most popular album in the U.S. The pop superstar’s studio set was released on April 19 via Republic Records and earned 4.66 million equivalent album units in the first half of 2024. (See full top 10 chart, below.) Poets spent its first 12 weeks atop the weekly Billboard 200 chart – the first album by a woman to spend its first 12 weeks at No. 1.
Poets is also the top-selling album, by traditional album sales, at the midyear point, with 2.47 million sold. The set is the top-selling album on CD (1.07 million), vinyl (988,000) and digital download (395,000) of 2024’s first six months.
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The most-streamed song by on-demand audio streams (inclusive of user-generated content [UGC] streams) was Boone’s breakout hit “Beautiful Things,” with 448.7 million clicks in the first six months of the year. “Beautiful Things,” released via Night Street/Warner Records, marked Boone’s first top 40-charting hit on the weekly Billboard Hot 100 chart, and peaked at No. 2 on the tally in March.
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 in this story, 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 The Tortured Poets Department’s 4.66 million equivalent album units earned at midyear, album sales comprise 2.47 million, SEA units comprise 2.16 million (equaling 2.82 billion on-demand official audio and video streams of the 31 songs on the deluxe edition of the album) and TEA units comprise 23,000.
The top five most popular albums at the midyear point in the U.S. are The Tortured Poets Department, Morgan Wallen’s March 2023 release One Thing at a Time (1.78 million), Noah Kahan’s October 2022 release Stick Season (1.22 million), Beyoncé’s March release Cowboy Carter (1.10 million) and SZA’s December 2022 release SOS (1.06 million). In 2023, One Thing at a Time and SOS were the Nos. 1 and 3 most popular albums of the year in Luminate’s year-end report.
2024’s Midyear Top 10 Albums in U.S. (by Equivalent Album Units)1. Taylor Swift, The Tortured Poets Department (4.660 million)2. Morgan Wallen, One Thing at a Time (1.776 million)3. Noah Kahan, Stick Season (1.224 million)4. Beyoncé, Cowboy Carter (1.105 million)5. SZA, SOS (1.064 million)6. Future & Metro Boomin, We Don’t Trust You (1.046 million)7. Morgan Wallen, Dangerous: The Double Album (1.010 million)8. Zach Bryan, Zach Bryan (984,000)9. Taylor Swift, 1989 (Taylor’s Version) (953,000)10. Taylor Swift, Lover (948,000)Source: Luminate, for the tracking period Dec. 29, 2023, through June 27, 2024. 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.
2024’s Midyear Top 10 Selling Albums in U.S. (Physical & Digital Album Sales Combined)1. Taylor Swift, The Tortured Poets Department (2.474 million)2. Billie Eilish, Hit Me Hard and Soft (306,000)3. Beyoncé, Cowboy Carter (257,000)4. Taylor Swift, 1989 (Taylor’s Version) (250,000)5. Taylor Swift, Lover (208,000)6. TOMORROW X TOGETHER, Minisode 3: TOMORROW (193,000)7. ATEEZ, Golden Hour: Part.1 (191,000)8. Taylor Swift, Folklore (174,000)9. TWICE, With YOU-th (174,000)10. Taylor Swift, Midnights (171,000)Source: Luminate, for the tracking period Dec. 29, 2023, through June 27, 2024.
2024’s Midyear Top 10 Selling Vinyl Albums1. Taylor Swift, The Tortured Poets Department (988,000)2. Billie Eilish, Hit Me Hard and Soft (160,000)3. Taylor Swift, 1989 (Taylor’s Version) (117,000)4. Taylor Swift, Folklore (108,000)5. Taylor Swift, Lover (106,000)6. Taylor Swift, Midnights (100,000)7. Beyoncé, Cowboy Carter (94,000)8. Taylor Swift, Evermore (88,000)9. Noah Kahan, Stick Season (87,000)10. Olivia Rodrigo, Guts (74,000)Source: Luminate, for the tracking period Dec. 29, 2023, through June 27, 2024.
Total Album Consumption Increases 7.4% at Midyear: Year-to-date, total equivalent album units grew by 7.4% (to 527.3 million) as compared to the same time frame in 2023 (491.1 million in the span of Dec. 30, 2022, through June 29, 2023). However, Luminate notes in its midyear report that due to changes in methodology and provider reporting, a trend break occurred in the first half of 2024, and they are unable to provide an accurate representation of year-over-year changes with regards to independent retail physical sales. In turn, for the above total equivalent album unit comparison, sales from independent retail stores are excluded from both the midyear 2024 and 2023 numbers above as there is no comparable historical data to provide an accurate year-over-year trend. Indie store album sales are included in the top 10 album rankings in this story. (In January 2024, Luminate retired a weighted data modeling method that previously measured physical sales in the indie retail sector. In April, Luminate launched a partnership with data provider StreetPulse to collect music sales from independent retailers.)
On-Demand Audio Streaming Up 8%, ‘Beautiful Things’ Most-Streamed Song: Boone’s “Beautiful Things” was the most-streamed song by on-demand audio streams in the first half of 2024 in the U.S. (see list, below), with 448.7 million streams (inclusive of UGC). Zach Bryan’s “I Remember Everything,” featuring Kacey Musgraves (437.3 million) and Teddy Swims’ “Lose Control” (409.7 million) round out the top three.
Total on-demand audio streams at midyear grew 8% in the U.S. as compare to the same point a year ago (665.8 billion versus 616.5 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.
2024’s Midyear Top 10 Most Streamed Songs in U.S. (On-Demand Audio)1. Benson Boone, “Beautiful Things” (448.7 million)2. Zach Bryan featuring Kacey Musgraves, “I Remember Everything” (437.3 million)3. Teddy Swims, “Lose Control” (409.7 million)4. Tommy Richman, “Million Dollar Baby” (374.9 million)5. Future, Metro Boomin & Kendrick Lamar, “Like That” (374.9 million)6. Kendrick Lamar, “Not Like Us” (362.1 million)7. Noah Kahan, “Stick Season” (342.9 million)8. Jack Harlow, “Lovin On Me” (340.8 million)9. Shaboozey, “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” (333.1 million)10. Hozier, “Too Sweet” (333.1 million)Source: Luminate, for the tracking period Dec. 29, 2023, through June 27, 2024. Includes UGC streams.
Digital Song Sales Fall 11%: Digital song sales declined 10.9% in the first six months of 2024, falling to 61.96 million, as compared to 69.57 million sold in the first half of 2023. The top-selling digital song at the midyear point is Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” with 219,000 sold.2023’s Midyear Top 10 Selling Digital Songs in U.S.1. Shaboozey, “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” (219,000)2. Benson Boone, “Beautiful Things” (200,000)3. Teddy Swims, “Lose Control” (195,000)4. Beyoncé, “Texas Hold ‘Em” (178,000)5. Post Malone featuring Morgan Wallen, “I Had Some Help” (156,000)6. Megan Thee Stallion, “Hiss” (107,000)7. Jack Harlow, “Lovin On Me” (95,000)8. Tom MacDonald & Ben Shapiro, “Facts” (93,000)9. Eminem, “Houdini” (88,000)10. Hozier, “Too Sweet” (85,000)Source: Luminate, for the tracking period Dec. 29, 2023, through June 27, 2024.
Harlow Hot at Radio: The most-heard song on U.S. radio in the first half of 2024 was Harlow’s “Lovin On Me,” with a cumulative 1.743 million audience impressions across all formats monitored by Luminate. “Flowers,” with a cumulative 2.409 billion audience impressions across all formats monitored by Luminate. The track led Billboard’s weekly Radio Songs airplay chart for 12 consecutive weeks (from Jan. 27, 2024 through April 13, 2024).
2024’s Midyear Top 10 Radio Songs in U.S. (Based on Audience Impressions)1. Jack Harlow, “Lovin On Me” (1.743 billion)2. Teddy Swims, “Lose Control” (1.692 billion)3. Doja Cat, “Agora Hills” (1.544 billion)4. Taylor Swift, “Cruel Summer” (1.402 billion)5. Tate McRae, “Greedy” (1.388 billion)6. Luke Combs, “Fast Car” (1.248 billion)7. Tyla, “Water” (1.210 billion)8. Benson Boone, “Beautiful Things” (1.142 billion)9. Sabrina Carpenter, “Feather” (1.123 billion)10. SZA, “Snooze” (1.111 billion)Source: Luminate, for the tracking period Dec. 29, 2023, through June 27, 2024.
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.
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