The High 10 hits within the US final yr accounted for fewer than 1 in each 200 streams

As MBW reported yesterday, the overall variety of on-demand audio streams within the US final yr grew handsomely – up 12.1% to 1.1 trillion.

In keeping with figures revealed in Luminate’s end-of-year report, this quantity of streams additionally noticed a year-on-year acceleration in development from 2021 (complete streams have been up by 121.8bn YoY in 2022, larger than the 111.0bn rise we noticed in 2021 – see beneath).

Digging additional into Luminate’s numbers, although, confirms {that a} long-running pattern within the trendy music enterprise grew to become much more pronounced in 2022: The High 10 greatest hits within the US annually have gotten much less widespread.

MBW’s evaluation of Luminate’s newest figures reveals that the High 10 audio streaming hits within the US in 2022 cumulatively racked up 4.723 billion performs on on-demand providers (Spotify, YouTube Music, Apple Music, Amazon Music and so on.) in 2022.

That was down on the 5.274 billion streams the equal High 10 shared in 2021, the 5.967 billion the equal High 10 shared in 2020, the 6.218 billion the equal High 10 shared in 2019… and even the 4.91 billion the High 10 shared 5 years prior in 2017.

The truth that the High 10 greatest audio streaming hits within the US final yr generated fewer cumulative streams than the equal yr – alongside the truth that the overall variety of audio streaming performs grew available in the market – can solely imply one factor: The mixed market share of the US’s greatest ten hits fell once more.

In keeping with MBW’s calculations, the US’s High 10 audio streaming hits, mixed, have been cumulatively answerable for lower than 0.5% of all on-demand audio performs within the US yearly.

Or to place it one other manner – as now we have within the headline to this story – fewer than one in each 200 performs on audio streaming providers within the US final yr was of one among 2022’s High 10 tracks.

The truth is, roughly shut to 1 in each 250 performs within the US final yr was of a High 10 observe.

Again in 2017, simply 5 years prior, greater than one in each 100 audio streams (1.23%) was of a High 10 observe.

The largest audio streaming hit within the US in 2022, in keeping with Luminate, was Harry Types’ As It Was (launched by way of Columbia Data), with 609.7 million performs within the yr.

That efficiency was barely decrease than the annual stream depend of 2021’s greatest audio streaming hit (Dua Lipa, Levitating – 627m ).

Neither As It Was nor Levitating may match the calendar-year reputation of 2020’s greatest US audio streaming hit (Roddy Ricch’s The Field – 920.4m performs) or 2018’s greatest hit (Drake, God’s Plan – 917.9m).

Just one hit has surpassed the 1 billion on-demand annual audio performs mark within the US lately, in keeping with Luminate knowledge: Lil Nas X’s Previous City Highway in 2019 (see beneath).

In keeping with Luminate’s year-end report, the High 10 hottest tracks on audio streaming on-demand providers within the US in 2022 have been:

1. Harry Types, As It Was
2. Glass Animals, Warmth Waves
3. Future feat. Drake & Tems, Wait For U
4. Unhealthy Bunny & Chencho Corleone, Me Porto Bonito
5. Kodak Black, Tremendous Gremlin
6. Unhealthy Bunny, Tito Me Pregunto
7. Jack Harlow, First Class
8. Encanto Forged, We Don’t Discuss About Bruno
9. Steve Lacy, Unhealthy Behavior
10. Zach Bryan, One thing within the Orange

As talked about, the High 10 hits of 2022 on audio streaming codecs have been answerable for 0.425% of all audio streams within the US final yr, in keeping with our evaluation of Luminate’s figures.

That market share (0.425%) was itself round half the scale of the market share that the equal High 10 tracks held in 2019 (0.83%) and round a 3rd of the scale of the market share the High 10 claimed in 2017 (1.23%).

You in all probability don’t want MBW to let you know what’s driving this downward pattern for ‘megahits’ within the States, however we’ll remind you anyway. It’s largely a mix of the next three elements:

1. An increase in catalog listening vs. ‘frontline’ music listening;
2. An increase in listening of ‘non-superstar’ artists plus artists from exterior the US – probably accelerated by the lessening energy of mainstream media ‘gatekeepers’ to push a slender discipline of stars; and
3. An increase within the sheer quantity of music being launched, and listened to.

In MBW’s ‘5 Numbers That Will Come To Outline 2023’ article final week,  we outlined this pattern because the rising “atomization” of listening – and due to this fact the distribution of streaming royalty revenues – in the US.

Inside that article, we referenced a confirmed stat from Warner Music Group: Within the agency’s FY 2012, its High 5 superstars generated 15% of its recorded music revenues; by FY 2022, says WMG, that share determine had fallen to 5%.

Music Enterprise Worldwide