Taylor Swift, Beyonce, Billie Eilish Lead Mid-Year Luminate Album Sales

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Taylor Swift, Beyoncé and Billie Eilish had their most successful years so far in terms of US album sales, according to Luminate’s Midyear Music Report for 2024.

The report, which examines year-to-date trends based on several data points, found that musicians benefited not only from streaming but also from physical sales, particularly of multiple versions of a project — „variations,” which typically include bonus tracks. or artwork variations. On average the top 10 US physical albums had an average of seven different LP types, 13 CDs and two cassettes.

„The Tortured Poets Department” is the top-selling single in the U.S. with 4.66 million total album-equivalent units, followed by Morgan Wallen’s „One Thing at a Time,” Noah Kahan’s „Stick Season,” Beyoncé’s „Cowboy Carter” and SZA’s „SOS.” Total In terms of sales, „Poets” leads the pack, followed by „Hit Me Heart,” „Cowboy Carter,” Swift’s „1989 (Taylor’s Version)” and Swift’s „Lover.”

Benson Boone undoubtedly has the biggest song of the year with „Beautiful Things,” which has received 1.434 billion on-demand audio streams worldwide. „Beautiful Things” also topped various singles-focused charts, including US Top Digital Song Consumption and US Top Songs: Streaming on Demand for both audio and audio plus video.

On a macro level, global on-demand audio streams rose 15.1 percent over the same period last year, while US on-demand audio streams rose 8.1 percent and US physical album sales rose 3.8 percent in the first half of last year.

Hip-hop and R&B have the highest share of total volume by format and genre in the US, with a 24.6 percent share, followed by rock, pop, country and Latin. Meanwhile, Latin music is the fastest-growing genre in the U.S., growing .51 percentage points over the same period last year. Overall, Latino grew 15.1 percent in on-demand audio streaming.

Elsewhere, Latino has the largest share of listeners (35%) in the current period, defined as music released in the last 18 months. R&B and hip-hop lead the list streams with 26.7 percent (18-60 months old), and rock gets the deepest list streams (60+ months) with 70.5 percent.

Luminate notes that 43 of the 46 artists with more than one billion US on-demand streams had major distribution on their most-streamed track, while indie artists accounted for 62.1 percent of all artists who accumulated between one and 10 million streams. Live music saw a surge, with 64 percent of music-related spending among U.S. consumers going to live music events. Gen Z spent the most at concerts (23 percent more than the average American music listener).

It’s also worth noting that between the second quarter of 2023 and the second quarter of 2024, the use of YouTube shorts among US music listeners increased, making it a strong contender against TikTok as the most used short-form video platform.