R&B and Hip-Hop Artists Face Album Sales Crisis Despite Streaming Success

[Street Knowledge]

R&B/Hip-Hop’s Streaming Dominance​

R&B/Hip-Hop leads the on-demand audio streams by billions. (From: Luminate)
If streaming were a kingdom, R&B/Hip-Hop would be sitting pretty on the throne.

The genre accounts for an impressive 25.9% of total on-demand streams and 25.8% of on-demand audio streams in the U.S. And, it’s also the most-streamed genre for videos, with 26.5% of on-demand video streams.

These numbers show that R&B/Hip-Hop hits the mark for what people want to hear online.

However, this streaming success is not without its challenges. While R&B/Hip-Hop is still on top, other types of music are growing faster and could eat into its market share.

For example, Latin music’s share of U.S. On-Demand Audio Streaming grew by 0.51 percentage points in the first half of 2024 compared to last year. This makes the genre’s overall growth of 15.1% in On-Demand Audio streaming.

In fact, hip-hop isn’t even one of the five fastest-growing genres for streaming in the U.S.

The 5 fastest-growing U.S. Core Genres. (From: Luminate)
If Latin music and other genres keep growing this fast, they could slowly chip away at R&B/Hip-Hop’s lead.

The Album Sales Conundrum​

Despite its streaming supremacy, R&B/Hip-Hop seems to be struggling when it comes to album sales.

We’re talking a mere 10.5% of total album sales and 10.7% of physical album sales. And, even in the digital album sales arena, it’s only grabbing 9.7% of the pie.

The U.S. Share of Total Volume by Format of the top 5 Genres. (From: Luminate)
These numbers look even worse when you compare them to Rock Music.

Rock makes up only 16.8% of total on-demand streams. But, it dominates album sales with 36.4% of total album sales and 37.8% of physical album sales.

But, it’s not just rock stealing the show.

Pop Music is also beating R&B/Hip-Hop in physical album sales with a 21.1% share, even though it has a lower streaming share (12.2%). Similarly, World Music is punching above its weight in physical album sales (7.9%) compared to its streaming share (2.1%).

The differences between the genre’s streaming vs album sales seem to have a trend. That is, except for Country music. This genre is maintaining a balanced performance with 8.7% of on-demand audio streams and 8.5% of physical album sales.

R&B and Hip-Hop Artists Face Album Sales Crisis Despite Streaming Success

All that glitters in the streaming world isn't gold in record stores.

www.headphonesty.com

 

[Ziggiy]

It seems like every 2-3 years there’s some article trumpeting the demise of Hip Hop.

Then the big dogs drop and all is well again.


Newsflash. Streaming is big business for Hip Hop/R&B because streaming is now the most popular method of music consumption and Hip Hop IS the most popular genre of music. Album sales are down because why pay $7-9.99 per album when I can pay $14 a month and stream all I want? Or pay $0 and listen on YouTube? The only artists with strong “pure” album sales are either legacy acts or those who drop 56787 different bundles for their stans to purchase in the name of “collector’s” items. Even with the recent uptick in Vinyl sales and popularity there are so few pressing factories that smaller artists have to wait months after the album hits streaming to have vinyl available for sale.