Streaming remains music’s dominant driver with acts from all over the world hitting the top of the charts with milestone numbers — and in record speed. In fact, global music on-demand audio streams are growing at a faster pace than ever, with the latest study by research firm Luminate showing they’ve already crossed the one trillion mark in 2023.
That target was hit on March 31, setting a new record for the earliest that number had ever been reached in a single year.
Leading the top global songs list is Miley Cyrus‘ smash hit “Flowers” which has been named the most streamed song of 2023 so far with 1.16 billion global audio streams. This comes as no surprise as the single, from Cyrus’ new album “Endless Summer Vacation,” debuted at No. 1 on the Hot 100 dated Jan. 28 and spent its first six weeks ruling the chart.
Trailing behind “Flowers” is SZA’s “Kill Bill” with a seismic 885 million on-demand global audio streams. The single was the highest-charting hit (No. 2) from the R&B singer’s “SOS” album — her first No. 1 set — which debuted with 20 songs on the Hot 100. The Weeknd’s “Die For You,” which recently received a new remix starring his “Love Me Harder” duet partner Ariana Grande, is the third most-streamed song globally with 629 million.
Meanwhile, two collaborations close the top five: Bizzarap and Shakira’s “BZRP Music Sessions #53” tallies 627 million, while Rema and Selena Gomez’s “Calm Down“ has 601 million audio streams in 2023 so far.
As for the report card on the state of the industry, the data falls in line with yearly streaming trends that show a heightened year-over-year increase that’s made streaming a revenue machine. Streaming accounted for 84% of U.S. revenue in the Recording Industry Assn. of America’s (RIAA) last mid-year report.
This news also follows Luminate’s 2022 Year-End Report data that showed global on-demand audio streams had increased by 22.6%, compared to the 26.3% swell observed in the year prior. And when just observing American music consumers, 2022 was the first year that streams hit 1 trillion in a benchmark reached in late November, with the year-end total reaching 1.1 trillion.
That report also saw the official coronation of Bad Bunny’s “Un Verano Sin Ti” as the year’s most-consumed album in America, marking the first time ever that honor went to a collection recorded in a language other than English. The album was issued digitally and debuted with 273,000 equivalent units in May of 2022, with 95.8% of that coming from streams and the remaining 4.2% from digital album sales.
See more of Luminate’s 2022 Year-End Report here.
