Hip-Hop/R&B the big winner over Rock as US music consumers swarm to streaming services in record numbers

Figures from research companies Nielsen Music and BuzzAngle Music show that the US music market is growing at a cracking pace, with music fans swarming to streaming services in record numbers – and making Hip- Hop/R&B the biggest selling genre.

Seven of the ten best selling albums in 2017 were R&B/Hip-Hop, powered by a 72% increase in on-demand audio streaming and a 25% rise in album sales of 157.1 million units.

R&B/Hip-Hop goes into 2018 with 24.5% of consumption in the United States, up from 22%.

Rock, which was the largest selling genre in 2016 with a 23.9% share (or 135.2 million), slips down to second spot with a 20.8% share after sales of 132.3 million.

Pop is now the third largest genre with 12.7% (80.8 million) while Country is fourth with 7.7% (49 million).

Latin, the buzz sound, had the biggest growth of all genres, up 29.9%, to fifth place and 37.3 million sales.

Not only has the US market shown a third consecutive year of growth, but the growth is becoming quicker.

On-demand streams passed 618.1 billion in 2017, up 43% from the year before, and well and truly eclipsing the decline of physical and download formats.

The streams were made up of 400.4 billion audio streams (up 58.7%) and 217.7% video streams (up 20.9%).

What was pleasing to the business was that 80% of streaming came from subscription sites.

Digital-album and CD sales both dropped 19.6%, to 66.2 million and 88.2 million copies, respectively. Track sales were down 23.4% to 554.8 million.

Vinyl continued to grow, up 9% through 2017 to 14.3 million.

The biggest selling vinyl albums were by The Beatles, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and Abbey Road, and the Guardians of the Galaxy soundtrack.

Cassettes too are finding a market, doubling in sales last year but still a tiny share with 100,000 units.

Fast facts:

* Last year, American music consumers bought 636.7 million equivalent album units, up 12.5% from the 566.1 million in 2016.

* The U.S. industry had its first billion-stream song in a single, with Luis Fonsi & Daddy Yankee’s ‘Despacito’ (featuring Justin Bieber) reaching 1.3 billion.

* Only two albums sold over a million: Taylor Swift’s Reputation (1.9 million) and Ed Sheeran’s Divide (1.1 million).

* The two were also the top selling digital albums, with 868,000 copies and 592,000 copies.

* Drake was the most-consumed artist overall of 2017, led by 5.9 billion on-demand audio streams of his songs.

* In 2017, Universal Music Group led with a 36.7% share, followed by Sony Music Entertainment at 27%, with Billboard estimating that Warner Music was at 20.5% and indies totalling 15.8%.