Buzzangle Music 2019 Report: Streams Top A Trillion For First Time

BuzzAngle Music Report

On-demand streams broke the one trillion mark in 2019 (for the first time ever) with 1,010,000,000 streams, an increase of 25% over 2018, according to the 2019 BUZZANGLE MUSIC U.S. REPORT. The previous high was set in 2018 with 809.5 billion streams. The full report can be downloaded here.

Audio on-demand streams also set a new record high again with 705 billion streams, up 32% over 2018’s 534.6 billion audio streams.

On-demand streams in 2019 accounted for 85% of all music consumption in the U.S., that’s a 7.6 point jump from 2018 (77%).

Overall streaming activity in the U.S. broke the 1.1 trillion mark; that includes on-demand and programmed streams.

Overall album consumption was up 13.5% with 795.9 million album consumption unit sales compared to 2018.(album sales + song sales/10 + on-demand streams/1500).

Overall song consumption (song sales plus on-demand streams/150) in 2019 jumped to a new high of seven billion, up 21% over 2018.

POST MALONE dethrones DRAKE and takes two of the three largest awards for the year: Artist of the Year (4.4 million album consumption units) and Album of the Year for "HOLLYWOOD’s Bleeding" (2.7 million album consumption units).

POST MALONE was the most streamed artist in 2019 with 6.7 billion on-demand streams in 2019. DRAKE comes in second with 6.3 billion streams followed by BILLIE EILISH with five billion streams.

"HOLLYWOOD’s Bleeding" was the biggest-selling album project in 2019 with 2.0 million sales.

LIL NAS X's “Old Town Road” was the most consumed song in 2019 with more than 7.8 million song project sales. POST MALONE and SWAE LEE’s song “Sunflower” followed with more than 5.6 million song project sales.

DRAKE was the most streamed artist over the past five years with more than 28 billion on-demand streams. POST MALONE was #2 with 15.9 billion on-demand streams followed by EMINEM with 12.5 billion.
 
Industry Trends - Streaming Activity

POST MALONE was the most streamed artist in 2019 with 6.7 billion on-demand streams in 2019. DRAKE comes in second with 6.3 billion streams followed by BILLIE EILISH with five billion.

"HOLLYWOOD’s Bleeding" was the most streamed album in 2019 with more than 3.9 billion streams from songs off the album.

Two songs in 2019 broke the 1 billion on-demand streaming thresholds. LIL NAS X's “Old Town Road” was streamed more than 1.8 billion times (sets a new annual record) and POST MALONE & SWAE LEE's  “Sunflower” had 1.2 billion streams.

In 2018, DRAKE's “God’s Plan” was the biggest on-demand streamed song with 1.5 billion streams.

LIL NAS X's “Old Town Road” was also the most streamed song for audio and video on-demand streams in 2019; 963.1 million and 813.6 million respectively; as well as for song sales (1.4 million)

BILLIE EILISH  is the most streamed female artist in 2019 with 5 billion streams with ARIANA GRANDE right on her heels with 4.98 billion on-demand streams.

In 2019, there were 31 songs that were streamed more than 500 million times compared to 21 songs in 2018. (16 in 2017, six in 2016 and two in 2015)

In 2019, there were 897 songs that were streamed more than 100 million times; which is significantly higher than the 525 songs in 2018. (383 songs in 2017, 226 songs in 2016 and 111 songs in 2015)

The top 1,000 streamed songs in 2019 accounted for 183.5 billion streams; an increase of 33% from 2018 (138.4 billion in 2018, 122.2 billion in 2017, 91.8 billion in 2016.
 
Industry Trends - Album Sales

Overall album sales in 2019 were down 23% after being down 18% in 2018. Digital album sales in 2019 saw the largest decline; down 26.6% compared to 2018.

Album Sales accounted for 12% of all music consumed in the United States in 2019; down from 17% in 2018.

2019 was another double digit growth year for vinyl album sales; LP album sales were up 10.5% in 2019.

Vinyl album sales accounted for 19.2% of all physical album sales, up 5.4 points over 2018 (13.7%). That jump is the biggest annual jump in the past 5 years.

In 2019, 47% of all physical album sales happened online via an e-commerce store.

There were a total of 14 albums that had 1 million or more album project sales compared to 10 albums in 2018.

In 2019, only one album broke the 1 million pure album sales mark; Lover by Taylor Swift (1.1 million).

The biggest selling vinyl album in 2019 was BILLIE EILISH's "When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?" with more than 113,000 sales.

In 2019, THE BEATLES was the artist with the most vinyl sales with more than 244,000 vinyl album sales.
 
Industry Trends - Song Sales

Song sales in 2019 were down for the fifth consecutive year and reached an all-time low of 295.7 million; which is down 26% over song sales in 2018.

There was only one song that had more than 1 million song sales in 2019; “Old Town Road” (1.4 million).

In 2018 there was not a single song that broke one million sales.

In 2017, there were only 14 songs that sold more than one million song downloads compared to 36 in 2016 and 60 songs in 2015.

The top 1,000 song sales accounted for 66 million sales, down 28% over 2018 song sales of 92.3 million. (170.9 million sales in 2017). The top 1,000 song sales in 2019 once again accounted for

22% of all song sales for the year.

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