US music fans listened to 1T streams since January as artists struggle to survive

Last Saturday, November 26th, the US passed 1 trillion music streams since January 1st, 2022, making it the first time that milestone had been reached in a single year. That means that U.S. music listeners spent roughly 960,000 years streaming music so far in 2022.

However impressive, the 1 trillion streams mark is of little comfort to the 99.6% of the 11 – 12 million artists struggling to survive the new streaming economy.

Along with the 1T announcement, Billboard chart data provider Luminate shared some more stats.

TOP 5 MOST STREAMED SONGS IN THE U.S. FOR 2022 (audio only, as of 11/24/22)

• Harry Styles – “As It Was” (558M on-demand U.S audio streams in 2022)
• Glass Animals – “Heat Waves” (493M on-demand U.S audio streams in 2022)
• Future – “Wait For U” (460M on-demand U.S audio streams in 2022)
• Kodak Black – “Super Gremlin” (443M on-demand U.S audio streams in 2022)
• Bad Bunny & Chencho Corleone – “Me Porto Bonito “ (425M on-demand U.S audio streams in 2022)

BY THE NUMBERS: FACTS ABOUT MUSIC & STREAMING IN 2022

• During its release week (Oct 21 – 27, 2022), songs from Taylor Swift’s Midnights accounted for 1 out of 42 streams in all of the U.S.
• Latin music had its highest streaming week ever in the U.S. during the week of May 12, 2022, with 1.8 Billion streams. It marked the first time that Latin music out streamed Country music in the U.S. in a single week. This was largely due to the release of Bad Bunny’s now Grammy-nominated album Un Verano sin Ti.
• Streams for Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill” were up +20,995% in the U.S. during the week of May 27, 2022, after it appeared in a new episode of Netflix’s Stranger Things.
• During the first half of 2022, music audio streaming was up +24.7% around the world (across global territories)

MORE: Streaming services are NOT underpaying artists, concludes a new study

Bruce Houghton is the Founder and Editor of Hypebot and MusicThinkTank, a Senior Advisor at Bandsintown, President of the Skyline Artists Agency, and a professor for the Berklee College Of Music.