As we reach the halfway point of 2024, several key music trends have emerged: an increase in global music streams, a surge in Latin music’s popularity in the United States, and a rise in the release of physical album variants.
Rising Global Streams
According to Luminate’s 2024 Midyear Report, the global music industry has surpassed 1 trillion streams in record time, achieving this milestone 10 days earlier than in 2023. This marks a 15.1% increase in global streams, totaling 2.29 trillion on-demand audio streams compared to 1.99 trillion at this time last year.
The Growth of Latin Music
In the United States, Latin music has become the fastest-growing streaming genre, with a 15.1% increase from the previous year. Notably, 35% of all Latin music streams in the U.S. are for albums released in the last 18 months, in contrast to rock music, where 70.5% of streams are for releases that are at least five years old.
Although no Latin artists are featured in the top 10 albums or songs of the year to date, artists like Bad Bunny, Peso Pluma, Fuerza Regida, Karol G, Rauw Alejandro, Aventura, and Carín León are among the top 200 most streamed artists in the U.S. during the first half of 2024.
Jaime Marconette, Luminate’s vice president of music insights and industry relations, highlights that Latin music was one of the top three fastest-growing genres in the U.S. last year. This year’s data reflects a continuation of that trend, driven largely by the rise of regional Mexican music, which has garnered over 13 billion U.S. on-demand audio streams.
While Bad Bunny remains the leading Latin music artist in the U.S., regional Mexican artists such as Peso Pluma, Fuerza Regida, and Junior H have also achieved over 100 million U.S. on-demand audio streams in the first half of 2024.
Physical Albums Remain Popular
The popularity of physical album variants—multiple releases of the same album with different bonus tracks or designs—has continued to grow since 2020. In 2024, physical album sales in the U.S. increased by 3.8%, reaching 24.7 million compared to 23.8 million at the same time last year.
Top-selling artists like Taylor Swift, Billie Eilish, Beyoncé, and K-pop groups Tomorrow x Together, Ateez, and TWICE have released numerous physical variants of their albums. On average, the top 10 bestselling albums of 2024 have 22 variants, including seven different vinyl releases, 13 CDs, and two cassettes.
For albums ranked between 101 and 500, there are about five variants per release, and for those ranked between 501 and 1,000, there are an average of four physical variants.
Marconette notes that the trend of releasing multiple physical variants has been consistent in recent years. However, there is growing concern within the artist and fan communities about the environmental impact of producing numerous physical products. There is a clear demand for recycled materials and other sustainability initiatives in this area.
