As MBW reported yesterday, the full variety of on-demand audio streams within the US final 12 months grew handsomely – up 12.1% to 1.1 trillion.

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

Digging additional into Luminate’s numbers, although, confirms {that a} long-running development within the fashionable music enterprise turned much more pronounced in 2022: The Prime 10 greatest hits within the US every year have gotten much less fashionable.

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

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

The truth that the Prime 10 greatest audio streaming hits within the US final 12 months generated fewer cumulative streams than the equal 12 months – alongside the truth that the full 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 accordance with MBW’s calculations, the US’s Prime 10 audio streaming hits, mixed, had been cumulatively chargeable for lower than 0.5% of all on-demand audio performs within the US yearly.

Or to place it one other manner – as we’ve got within the headline to this story – fewer than one in each 200 performs on audio streaming companies within the US final 12 months was of one in all 2022’s Prime 10 tracks.

In reality, roughly shut to 1 in each 250 performs within the US final 12 months was of a Prime 10 observe.

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

The most important audio streaming hit within the US in 2022, in accordance with Luminate, was Harry Types’ As It Was (launched by way of Columbia Records), with 609.7 million performs within the 12 months.

That efficiency was barely decrease than the annual stream rely 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 accordance with Luminate knowledge: Lil Nas X’s Outdated City Street in 2019 (see under).

In accordance with Luminate’s year-end report, the Prime 10 hottest tracks on audio streaming on-demand companies within the US in 2022 had 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 Speak About Bruno
9. Steve Lacy, Unhealthy Behavior
10. Zach Bryan, One thing within the Orange

As talked about, the Prime 10 hits of 2022 on audio streaming codecs had been chargeable for 0.425% of all audio streams within the US final 12 months, in accordance 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 Prime 10 tracks held in 2019 (0.83%) and round a 3rd of the scale of the market share the Prime 10 claimed in 2017 (1.23%).

You most likely don’t want MBW to inform you what’s driving this downward development 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 slim subject 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 defined this trend 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 Prime 5 superstars generated 15% of its recorded music revenues; by FY 2022, says WMG, that share determine had fallen to 5%.

Music Enterprise Worldwide