The numbers for music in Canada for 2024 are in. What can we learn?

Luminate is the watcher of each euphony depletion successful Canada and the U.S. and has conscionable issued its year-end study for Canada aft sorting done its 500 verified sources and analyzing much than 20 trillion (yes, trillion) information points.

On average, 99,000 caller songs are uploaded to streaming euphony platforms each time (down from an mean of 103,500 successful 2023), which works retired to astir 1 cardinal per month. The existent beingness of disposable integer songs (and each streamers stock the aforesaid catalogue) is 202 million, an summation of 18 cardinal (about 10 per cent) from past year. Of that fig conscionable 8.2 per cent were provided by large labels, meaning that 92 per cent came from indie musicians.

Think astir that for a second. More than 200 cardinal songs disposable to anyone with an net transportation for escaped — oregon astatine slightest thing adjacent to it. In the aged days of mega grounds stores, you’d beryllium fortunate to find 100,000 titles successful stock. For anyone complaining that a streaming subscription costs excessively overmuch and isn’t bully value, springiness your caput a shake.

Diving deeper, though, we commencement to spot immoderate glaring issues. Nearly fractional of those 202 cardinal songs (93.2 million) received 10 plays oregon fewer. Approximately 175.5 cardinal (87 per cent of the full songs successful the library) were played 1,000 times oregon fewer. This is absorbing due to the fact that Spotify, the biggest streamer, refuses to wage retired immoderate royalties for immoderate opus that gets less than a 1000 plays. Granted, a 1000 plays isn’t worthy overmuch — the worldwide mean suggests that this would effect successful US$2.38 — but those crumbs adhd up erstwhile dispersed implicit 175.5 million. How overmuch is Spotify redeeming by ignoring the artists astatine the bottom?

How galore songs got zero plays? We don’t know, but credible estimates enactment that fig astatine 50 million, oregon a 4th of the total. (For fun, motion connected to a tract called Forgotify and you’ll get a watercourse of songs ne'er earlier heard by anyone.)

Another happening to consider: How galore of those 202 cardinal songs are AI creations? Spotify is presently being slammed for offering “ghost artists,” cheaply made euphony that’s squeezing retired due musicians. If you’ve ever utilized Spotify for immoderate inheritance chill music, chances are you’ve unwittingly been exposed to this benignant of music. How overmuch does Spotify wage retired to the radical creating this material? It’s each work-for-hire piecework. Someone is contracted to make X songs successful a definite benignant and is paid a fee. After that, Spotify doesn’t wage retired thing for this shade euphony — each successful the sanction of redeeming money.

Back to the numbers. In 2024, streaming numbers shook retired similar this:

• 100,000 to 1 cardinal streams: 2.1 cardinal songs
• one cardinal to 10 million: 427,700
• 10 cardinal to 100 million: 60,000
• 100 cardinal to 1 billion: 4,800
• one billion-plus: 33

Canadians streamed 145.1 cardinal songs successful 2024, up 9.5 per cent from a twelvemonth earlier. We bought much vinyl, CDs and cassettes than successful 2023 (4.8 per cent more) but erstwhile we harvester carnal and integer medium sales, everything was down astir 1 per cent, indicating that we’re not buying integer music, we’re conscionable streaming it. We’re besides much funny successful streaming catalogue songs (i.e. tracks much than 2 years old) than thing current, with a ratio of 74 per cent aged to 26 per cent new.

The study lone broke down listening via streaming by genre for the U.S., which I person a feeling is antithetic from however we devour things successful Canada. Nevertheless, here’s however listening by genre successful America shakes out:

1. R&B/Hip-hop: 320 billion-ish streams. However, this genre’s wide stock is down 2.3 points from 2023.
2. Rock: 230 billion-ish streams. Most of the listening was to “deep catalogue” songs (i.e. much than 5 years old). Only astir 12 per cent of listening was to existent stone tracks.
3. Pop: 175 billion-ish streams.
4. Latin: 110 billion-ish streams.
5. Dance/Electronic: 50 billion-ish streams.

Pop had a large twelvemonth erstwhile it came to growth, moving past stone (No. 2) and Latin (No. 3), mostly due to the fact that of successes by Taylor Swift (12.8 cardinal streams connected her own), Billie Eilish and Sabrina Carpenter. No stone enactment made the apical 10 erstwhile it came to the astir fashionable streaming artists. The biggest stone acts were Noah Kahan, Hozier, Linkin Park, The Beatles and Fleetwood Mac.

Trending Now

When it came to listening to overseas music, Canadians went to the U.S. first, followed by the U.K. and Australia. The U.S. imported its euphony from Canada, Australia and New Zealand, a stat that indispensable interest euphony folks successful the U.K. As a broadside note, Canadian euphony was the third-most fashionable import successful Australia.

The astir prolific songwriters successful the satellite successful 2024 were Taylor Swift (30 songs successful the planetary apical 1,000 streaming songs), Max Martin (22) and The Weeknd (18). Canada finished 3rd down the U.S. and the U.K. erstwhile it travel to apical songwriters globally.

There’s been a batch of speech of serving superfans implicit the past 12 months. These are an artist’s astir fanatical supporters. In 2024, the mean superfan spent US$113 a period connected unrecorded euphony events, 66 per cent much than a regular fan. They besides spent US$39 connected carnal purchases a month, compared with the mean euphony instrumentality walk of US$19.

Let’s decorativeness up with a fewer likelihood ‘n’ ends.

• One per cent of each CDs and 1 per cent of each LPs are purchased astatine the merch array astatine a venue.
• 39 per cent of each LPs are purchased astatine indie grounds stores.
• 29 per cent of each carnal income are done done indie grounds stores.
• Hip-hop fans are the astir apt to acquisition thing done an artist’s online storefront.
• The apical euphony documentary was The Greatest Night successful Pop, the communicative of the signaling of We Are the World, which streamed connected Netflix. People spent a full of 1.27 cardinal minutes watching that thing. Second was the I Am: Celine Dion connected Amazon with 507.1 million.
• Gen Z spent the astir connected festivals portion millennials were the biggest spenders connected concerts.
• The most-streamed songs successful 2024 were Beautiful Things by Benson Boone (2.577 billion), Espresso from Sabrina Carpenter (2.459 billion) and Billie Eilish’s Birds of a Feather (2.301 billion).
• Canada’s apical medium successful presumption of combined income and streams was Tay-Tay’s The Tortured Poets Department followed by Stick Season from Noah Kahan and Morgan Wallen’s One Thing astatine a Time.
• The fig 1 opus successful each of Canada was A Bar Song (Tipsy) by Shaboozey (143.8 cardinal streams).

It’s inactive aboriginal and there’s much number-crunching to beryllium done. When much information comes in, I committedness to stock it with you.