{"id":236452,"date":"2025-07-16T21:37:32","date_gmt":"2025-07-16T20:37:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/?p=236452"},"modified":"2025-07-16T21:47:44","modified_gmt":"2025-07-16T20:47:44","slug":"if-your-music-strategy-is-quick-hits-on-the-us-charts-in-2025-good-luck","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/if-your-music-strategy-is-quick-hits-on-the-us-charts-in-2025-good-luck\/","title":{"rendered":"If your music strategy is ‘quick hits’ on the US charts in 2025… good luck."},"content":{"rendered":"MBW Reacts is a series of analytical commentaries from Music Business Worldwide<\/a> written in response to major recent entertainment events or news stories. Only MBW+ subscribers<\/span><\/a> have unlimited access to these articles.<\/em>\n
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The latest music consumption stats are out from industry-standard market monitor, Luminate<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

They tell a story of a rapidly changing industry<\/strong> \u2013 and how the United States<\/strong>, while still comfortably the world’s largest market, is becoming increasingly less dominant global player.<\/p>\n

In fact, now MBW<\/em> has cast our eye over the full Luminate Midyear Report<\/strong> (download it here<\/a>), we’d suggest one thing in particular sings out:<\/p>\n

Any music company that remains fixated on making ‘here today, gone tomorrow’ hits for the US chart… may want to question the long-term benefit of this strategy.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Here are the conclusions from the Luminate report<\/strong> that led us to this summation.<\/p>\n

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Conclusion 1:<\/span> The US market will soon make up less than a quarter of global streams<\/strong><\/h6>\n

We already knew that the US market<\/strong> was starting to lose its status as the runaway king of streaming.<\/p>\n

The IFPI’s latest Global Music Report<\/strong><\/a>, issued earlier this year, told us so: it revealed that the US, combined with Canada, saw its annual share of global trade revenues fall to 40.3%<\/strong> in 2024 \u2013 down from 41.6%<\/strong> just two years prior.<\/p>\n

This, however, didn’t tell us what’s happening to music consumption<\/em>.<\/p>\n

With the USA’s<\/strong> per-stream royalties significantly higher than those in other parts of the world, the\u00a0trade revenues metric<\/strong><\/span>\u00a0arguably downplays how dramatic the shift in actual worldwide fan behavior<\/em>\u00a0has become.<\/p>\n

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“We are observing the continued expansion of global streaming, significantly driven by ex-U.S. markets.”<\/p>\n

Rob Jonas, Luminate<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

According to Luminate’s new report<\/a>, total on-demand audio streams in the first half of 2025 in the USA stood at 696.6 million<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

That was up 4.6% YoY<\/strong><\/span>.<\/p>\n

Yet, audio streams outside<\/em> the US jumped by a much bigger margin \u2014 <\/span>up by 12.6% YoY <\/strong><\/span>to 1.8 trillion<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Luminate CEO, Rob Jonas<\/strong>, said: “We are observing the continued expansion of global streaming, significantly driven by ex-U.S. markets.”<\/p>\n

He ain’t kidding.<\/p>\n

Below, based on MBW’s review<\/strong> of historical data, you can see how the USA’s global market share of total audio streams<\/strong> has substantially fallen \u2013 down from 43.4%<\/strong> in 2019 to just 27.9%<\/strong> in H1 2025.<\/p>\n

The USA’s market share of global audio streaming volume is on course to fall beneath a quarter<\/strong> (25%<\/strong>) in the next year or two.<\/p>\n

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Conclusion 2:<\/span> The continuing death of the megahit (!)<\/strong><\/h6>\n

The above explains how the USA<\/strong>\u00a0is losing global market share.<\/p>\n

But what about the market share<\/strong> of the most popular music within<\/em> the USA?<\/p>\n

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Long-term readers of MBW will remember that back in 2021, we ran a headline that caused some ripples across the business: ‘Are we witnessing the death of the streaming megahit?’<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Based on mid-year data, it showed how the USA’s Top 10 biggest tracks<\/strong> of the period were claiming a much smaller overall market share than they once did.<\/p>\n

The reason: listener behavior was becoming spread across many more tracks, from many more artists<\/strong>, than was once the case.<\/p>\n

The latest Luminate data<\/strong> shows this trend hasn’t reversed.<\/p>\n

The biggest track in the USA in the first half of the year was Luther<\/em> by Kendrick Lamar and SZA<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

It racked up 530.4 million<\/strong> audio streams in the Jan-June period, says Luminate.<\/p>\n

A hefty volume of plays, for sure \u2013 but a smaller total amount than the biggest hits of H1 2023<\/strong> (Morgan Wallen), H1 2020<\/strong> (Roddy Ricch), H1 2019<\/strong> (Lil Nas X), and H1 2018<\/strong> (Drake).<\/p>\n

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Meanwhile, according to Luminate, the USA’s Top 10 biggest audio streaming tracks combined<\/em> in H1 2025 racked up 3.62 billion<\/strong> plays<\/span>.<\/p>\n

According to MBW’s calculations, that was actually down, in volume terms, on the equivalent figures from H1 2024 (3.76 billion<\/strong>) and H1 2023 (3.89 billion<\/strong>) \u2013 see below.<\/p>\n

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Luminate’s H1 2025 list of the Top 10 biggest audio streaming tracks in the USA. (Source: Luminate)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Here’s the critical stat in this section: the USA’s Top 10 tracks in H1 2025 claimed a half-a-percent share<\/strong> of the market’s total audio streams (0.52%<\/strong>).<\/p>\n

Go back just a few years, and the equivalent stat was as high as 1.6%<\/strong> (see below).<\/p>\n

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Conclusion 3:<\/span> In with the Old, out with the New….<\/h6>\n

So we’ve demonstrated (see: Conclusion 1) that the USA is losing market share of global<\/em> streams<\/strong>, and that (see: Conclusion 2), the biggest chart tracks within the USA are losing market share of national<\/em> streams<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

But what about that warning over ‘here today, gone tomorrow’<\/strong>\u00a0tracks on the US chart?<\/p>\n

This requires nuance.<\/p>\n

When a record company or artist has a track like Luther<\/em> by Kendrick Lamar<\/strong> (or indeed Not Like Us<\/em> or TV Off<\/em>, which both also made H1 2025’s Top 10), they can be confident, what with the quality and cultural cachet of the artist, that they are creating ‘evergreen catalog tracks’<\/strong> which will be streamed long into the future.<\/p>\n

But if a label or artist is creating novelty<\/em> tracks that will get listened to in 2025<\/strong>, but not in, say, 2029, 2039<\/strong>, or 2049<\/strong>?<\/p>\n

That’s becoming a much harder game.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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According to Luminate’s new report<\/a>, tracks younger than 18 months old (‘current’ releases) were streamed 168.5 billion<\/strong> times in the first half of 2025.<\/p>\n

That was down in volume terms<\/em> by 3.3% YoY<\/strong><\/span> vs. the same period of 2024, when ‘current’ tracks racked up 174.3 billion<\/strong> streams.<\/p>\n

To reiterate: ‘current’ music in the USA is seeing its total plays decline<\/em>, even as the market’s overall streams grow<\/em>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Whipping out MBW’s calculator for a second, the above stats seem to indicate:<\/p>\n