In the first half of 2023, an average of 112,000 new tracks were added daily to digital service providers such as Spotify and Apple Music, Luminate revealed in its 2023 midyear report Wednesday (July 12). That’s an increase of 19.9% from the 93,400 new tracks uploaded daily to digital platforms in the first half of 2022.
At the current rate, digital services will add around 41 million tracks this year, about 7 million more than the 34.1 million tracks added in 2022 and more than double the 16.4 million tracks added in 2018.
The flood of tracks did not bring a commensurate increase in listening, however. While the number of tracks uploaded to digital platforms grew 19.9%, audio on-demand streaming rose only 13.5%. That disconnect between supply and on-demand streams is not unusual. In 2022, on-demand streams increased 12.2% while average daily new tracks grew 12%. But in 2021, on-demand streams grew 9.9% while average daily new tracks grew 18%.
Low barriers to recording and distributing digital music give unknown artists a chance to compete against established, big-budget releases. Major labels — some of whom, like Universal Music Group, have endorsed a system that rewards their music with better royalty payouts — accounted for just 3.3% of new tracks added to digital platforms through June 30. Streaming services are filled with music not just from independent labels — who may be distributed by companies owned by the majors — but also independent musicians, bedroom producers using inexpensive digital audio workstations and a variety of “functional music,” a term used for generic music that often fills streaming playlists aimed at helping people sleep, relax or study.
The possibility that 112,000 new tracks per day will seem low in a few years is causing consternation in some quarters of the music business. A new generation of AI tools will further reduce the barriers to creating music. Just as generative AI programs such as Midjourney and DALL-E-2 create images based on text prompts, AI will instantly create songs without the need for musical expertise or technical ability. “We see a huge market with many billions of original unique songs, similar to photos,” Alex Mitchell, CEO of AI music platform Boomy, told Billboard earlier this year. Such a scenario had previously prompted Universal Music Group CEO Lucian Grainge to warn against “a vast and unnavigable number of tracks” of “lower-quality functional content” created to game algorithms and “divert royalties.”
While independently released music and AI content chips away at major labels’ market shares, the majors continue to produce hits that stand out in an increasingly crowded field. The most popular albums and tracks fared well in the first half of 2023. The top 10 albums took a 2.49% share of equivalent album units (EAUs), up from 2.18% in the first half of 2022. That improvement can be chalked up to Morgan Wallen, whose album One Thing at a Time had 3.31 million EAUs — 67% greater than the No. 2 album, SZA’s SOS. Excluding the No. 1 albums from each half-year period, the remaining top 10 albums’ share of 1.88% in the first half of 2023 was almost equal to the 1.85% in the prior-year period.
Led by Wallen’s “Last Night” and SZA’s “Kill Bill,” the most popular tracks also increased their share of total streams. The top 10 tracks at the midway point of 2023 owned a 0.63% share of on-demand audio streams, well above their 0.5% share in the prior-year period.
