The numbers for music in Canada for 2024 are in. What can we learn?

Luminate is the watcher of all music consumption in Canada and the U.S. and has just issued its year-end report for Canada after sorting through its 500 verified sources and analyzing more than 20 trillion (yes, trillion) data points.

On average, 99,000 new songs are uploaded to streaming music platforms every day (down from an average of 103,500 in 2023), which works out to approximately one million per month. The current universe of available digital songs (and all streamers share the same catalogue) is 202 million, an increase of 18 million (about 10 per cent) from last year. Of that number just 8.2 per cent were provided by major labels, meaning that 92 per cent came from indie musicians.

Think about that for a second. More than 200 million songs available to anyone with an internet connection for free — or at least something close to it. In the old days of mega record stores, you’d be lucky to find 100,000 titles in stock. For anyone complaining that a streaming subscription costs too much and isn’t good value, give your head a shake.

Diving deeper, though, we start to see some glaring issues. Nearly half of those 202 million songs (93.2 million) received 10 plays or fewer. Approximately 175.5 million (87 per cent of the total songs in the library) were played 1,000 times or fewer. This is interesting because Spotify, the biggest streamer, refuses to pay out any royalties for any song that gets fewer than a thousand plays. Granted, a thousand plays isn’t worth much — the worldwide average suggests that this would result in US$2.38 — but those crumbs add up when spread over 175.5 million. How much is Spotify saving by ignoring the artists at the bottom?

How many songs got zero plays? We don’t know, but credible estimates put that number at 50 million, or a quarter of the total. (For fun, sign on to a site called Forgotify and you’ll get a stream of songs never before heard by anyone.)

Another thing to consider: How many of those 202 million songs are AI creations? Spotify is currently being slammed for offering “ghost artists,” cheaply made music that’s squeezing out proper musicians. If you’ve ever used Spotify for some background chill music, chances are you’ve unwittingly been exposed to this kind of music. How much does Spotify pay out to the people creating this material? It’s all work-for-hire piecework. Someone is contracted to create X songs in a certain style and is paid a fee. After that, Spotify doesn’t pay out anything for this ghost music — all in the name of saving money.

Back to the numbers. In 2024, streaming numbers shook out like this:

• 100,000 to one million streams: 2.1 million songs
• one million to 10 million: 427,700
• 10 million to 100 million: 60,000
• 100 million to one billion: 4,800
• one billion-plus: 33

Canadians streamed 145.1 billion songs in 2024, up 9.5 per cent from a year earlier. We bought more vinyl, CDs and cassettes than in 2023 (4.8 per cent more) but when we combine physical and digital album sales, everything was down about one per cent, indicating that we’re not buying digital music, we’re just streaming it. We’re also more interested in streaming catalogue songs (i.e. tracks more than two years old) than something current, with a ratio of 74 per cent old to 26 per cent new.

The report only broke down listening via streaming by genre for the U.S., which I have a feeling is different from how we consume things in Canada. Nevertheless, here’s how listening by genre in America shakes out:

1. R&B/Hip-hop: 320 billion-ish streams. However, this genre’s overall share is down 2.3 points from 2023.
2. Rock: 230 billion-ish streams. Most of the listening was to “deep catalogue” songs (i.e. more than five years old). Only about 12 per cent of listening was to current rock tracks.
3. Pop: 175 billion-ish streams.
4. Latin: 110 billion-ish streams.
5. Dance/Electronic: 50 billion-ish streams.

Pop had a big year when it came to growth, moving past rock (No. 2) and Latin (No. 3), largely because of successes by Taylor Swift (12.8 billion streams on her own), Billie Eilish and Sabrina Carpenter. No rock act made the top 10 when it came to the most popular streaming artists. The biggest rock acts were Noah Kahan, Hozier, Linkin Park, The Beatles and Fleetwood Mac.

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When it came to listening to foreign music, Canadians went to the U.S. first, followed by the U.K. and Australia. The U.S. imported its music from Canada, Australia and New Zealand, a stat that must concern music folks in the U.K. As a side note, Canadian music was the third-most popular import in Australia.

The most prolific songwriters in the world in 2024 were Taylor Swift (30 songs in the global top 1,000 streaming songs), Max Martin (22) and The Weeknd (18). Canada finished third behind the U.S. and the U.K. when it come to top songwriters globally.

There’s been a lot of talk of serving superfans over the last 12 months. These are an artist’s most fanatical supporters. In 2024, the average superfan spent US$113 a month on live music events, 66 per cent more than a regular fan. They also spent US$39 on physical purchases a month, compared with the average music fan spend of US$19.

Let’s finish up with a few odds ‘n’ ends.

• One per cent of all CDs and one per cent of all LPs are purchased at the merch table at a venue.
• 39 per cent of all LPs are purchased at indie record stores.
• 29 per cent of all physical sales are done through indie record stores.
• Hip-hop fans are the most likely to purchase something through an artist’s online storefront.
• The top music documentary was The Greatest Night in Pop, the story of the recording of We Are the World, which streamed on Netflix. People spent a total of 1.27 billion minutes watching that thing. Second was the I Am: Celine Dion on Amazon with 507.1 million.
• Gen Z spent the most on festivals while millennials were the biggest spenders on concerts.
• The most-streamed songs in 2024 were Beautiful Things by Benson Boone (2.577 billion), Espresso from Sabrina Carpenter (2.459 billion) and Billie Eilish’s Birds of a Feather (2.301 billion).
• Canada’s top album in terms of combined sales and streams was Tay-Tay’s The Tortured Poets Department followed by Stick Season from Noah Kahan and Morgan Wallen’s One Thing at a Time.
• The number one song in all of Canada was A Bar Song (Tipsy) by Shaboozey (143.8 million streams).

It’s still early and there’s more number-crunching to be done. When more data comes in, I promise to share it with you.