Hip-Hop Fans Stream, Rockers Buy

The groundwork for what was about to become hip-hop was first laid by DJ Kool Herc on August 11, 1973, at a house party. 50 years on, the genre is still as popular as ever, as is evidenced by our chart based on data from Luminate. According to the entertainment industry data company's most recent U.S. Year-End Music Report, R&B and hip-hop had market shares of 28.7 percent and 28 percent in audio and video streaming, respectively, in 2022. In terms of album sales, they're beaten by a genre that's been around for a couple of decades longer.

Luminate data shows that 45.4 percent of the market share in physical album sales belongs to rock music, although the definition of what and what doesn't constitute rock is murky at best. Country music, a style many foreigners traditionally associate with United States culture, mostly has market shares in the single digits. The exception is digital song sales, where tracks by artists like Morgan Wallen or Carrie Underwood make up 12.4 percent of the total market volume.

Overall, the U.S. music market has been shrinking in volume in 2022 in most segments. While vinyl LP sales are up, digital and physical album and track sales are down, the latter by 25 percent, compared to 2021. Streaming, of course, is the big winner in this regard. On-demand song streams, for example, increased in volume by 22.6 percent to a total of 3.4 trillion. Worldwide revenue from recorded music grew to $26.2 billion in 2022, according to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), $17.5 billion of which were generated in the streaming segment.