Australian acts are increasingly smashing it on global on-demand audio streams.
Already Gold Coast DJ FISHER is said to have moved a total 50 billion across all streaming services, Troye Sivan has clocked 26 billion, Sia 21 billion, The Kid LAROI 10 billion and Tame Impala 8.7 billion.
However there’s been a significant shift in 2014, where streaming widened for mid-tier and indie acts. This includes Australian acts, of course, whose resulting international profile has seen some pull off sold-out dates around the world.
The findings were announced in The Midyear Music Report, published last week by US research company Luminate.
This middle tier – the ones between unknowns and superstars with a streaming tally between 1 million and 10 million – is growing. This year 29,253 artists joined. It was a 5.1 growth from the first half of 2023.
The number of names with 10 million to 50 million streams grew by 5.4 per cent to 5,222.
Also significant is that most of the acts in this middle tier have independent distribution.
Among those in the 1 million – 10 million streams range, 62.1 per cent were indie acts – catching up to acts on major labels who made up 62.3 per cent. The latter were on Warner, Sony and Universal, and their indie divisions as ADA, The Orchard and Virgin. They were up 0.6 per cent.
Haley Jones, Luminate’s Head of Independents, remarked in a webinar to launch the report, “They’re almost equal and they show there’s a lot of opportunities for indies.”
NAMES
Luminate names mid-tier acts as 98 Degrees, Sabrina Carpenter, Portugal. The Man, Jack Harris, Seven Mary Three, Skylar Blatt, Lil Eazzyy, Will Dempsey and Hunter Hayes.
As for Australian acts, Spotify’s latest Australian Music Global Impact List gives an indication. The list also reveals the royalties these tracks generated, calculated at $3 per 1000 streams.
Topping the list was enigmatic Melbourne (via Townsville) experimental beats producer Lithe. Born Kyle Setch, the onetime drummer slammed with Fall Back. It generated 122.7 million and, said Spotify, made $368,178 for him. Lithe’s Like We Wrote also made the list, with 10.1 million streams, adding $30,386 to his bank account.
Lebanese-Australian house, pop and garage producer Tobiahs’ exhilarating Lifetime had 39,417,762 streams making $118,253.
Its success was not unexpected. Tobiahs dropped the track in January after it went viral after its live debut at a hometown Melbourne show clocked up 9 million views across TikTok and Instagram, and reached the ears of mega-influencers Pete Tong, Diplo and Tiesto who started to play the unreleased edit.
Another newcomer on the Global Impact list was the equally secretive ARXMANE who started releasing music last year and swiftly gained 4.4 million monthly listeners on Spotify. The MONTAGEM INVASÃO ticked over close to 30 million streams, paying out $89,940.
Guitar-pop duo Royel Otis from Sydney, who consolidated their rapid rise with a cover of Murder On The Dance Floor, made $118,191 from 39,397,331 spins for the track.
Others in the 30-strong list included Sia, Kylie Minogue, The Kid LAROI, Tame Impala, Dom Dolla, Keith Urban, Empire of the Sun, Luude & Elliphant, FISHER and 5 Seconds of Summer.
This increase in independent activity in streaming was reflected in Spotify’s own annual Loud & Clear report. It stated: “In 2023, indies generated nearly $4.5 billion on Spotify. This marks the first year ever that indies accounted for about half of what the entire industry generated on Spotify, which totalled $9 billion+.
“For the first time ever, the catalogues of DIY artists and artists signed to independent record labels represented about half of all revenues generated on Spotify in 2023.
“Totalling nearly $4.5 billion, this represents a 4x increase since 2017. This is the highest amount Indies have ever generated from a single retailer in one year.”
The growth of the mid-tier has not escaped the eye of the majors. Earlier this year, Warner Music Group CEO Robert Kyncl said the company would look at greater A&R and marketing for global acts and songwriters “based on where artists and songwriters come from and where their streams are going”.
The global vibe created by streaming is obvious with Kylie Minogue. With 3 billion totals on Spotify, her biggest streams are in London, Sydney, Melbourne, Mexico City and Santiago. Of the 2 billion streams for Brisbane-born Nashville-based band Sheppard, in the Top 5 are fans from Tokyo and the Philippines.
On average, an Australian artist who generates a million streams gets $2,500. It is accepted one billion on Spotify is worth $4.37 million.
When Tones & I’s Dance Monkey hit 3 billion on Spotify, it clicked over about $13.1 million. The track hit 10 billion streams on all streaming services last year, so do the maths. Not bad for a song written in 30 minutes in a dark closet.
When Tones & I made an appearance at Parliament House in Canberra last month (June 24) before parliamentarians and music industry executives at an event organised by Spotify, she was more than just a tad grateful.
“Since I joined the industry, Spotify has really almost been a part of my core team,” she said. “I remember being on Spotify’s Front Left playlist when I was just coming up. It’s such a great platform for small artists to showcase their music and [connect] with people that otherwise may never hear their songs.”
TEN OTHER LUMINATE TAKEAWAYS
1. The global music industry has surpassed 2.29 trillion streams this year. According to the report, global demand was up 15.5 per cent compared to the first half of 2023.
In the webinar, Luminate’s VP of Music Insights & Industry Relations Jaime Marconette, said, “2023 was a spectacular year for streaming. There was a little bit of a slow down in the amount of growth (this year) but still growing.”
2. The biggest growth in the US by genre by volume was hip hop & RB, rock and pop. But the ones to get a bigger share of the pie were Latin, Christian and gospel.
3. The number of streams from paid subscribers is rising, relative to streams from free users. Luminate didn’t indicate if paid subscribers tend to stream more, or if the amount of those paying has increased.
But the highest rise in subscribers streaming were country music fans. The lowest were those who were into Latin music.
4. K-Pop fans are the most excited about new releases, with 70 per cent streaming in the first week. Slowest are country music fans: less than 50 per cent activate in the first week.
5. 50 per cent of users wanting to switch services will make their decision on who has live streaming of events.
For 49 per cent it’s how much non-music content it has (like videos, TV and games). For 48 per cent the decision rests on exclusive artist content, going up to 22 per cent for hip hop followers.
6. For 40 per cent of electronic / dance music fans, “access to global music & artists” is very important.
7. Of American consumers, 160 per cent of hyper pop fans are likely to listen to vinyl than average music consumer, 12 per cent discovered music through Twitch, and for 58 per cent an artist’s opinion matters to them.
Charli xcx is the best known of this new style, and Luminate noted most of her fans are white females.
8. Over at lofi hip hop land, a massive (80 per cent) listen to vinyl, 17 per cent discover music through Twitch (over 3x more likely than the average U.S. music listener) and 69 per cent want to be the first to discover an artist.
9. In the first half of 2024, acts from Mexico, Brazil and France had the largest growth in share.
The most amount of premium subscriber streaming (audio and video) came from Norway (93.5 per cent), Iceland (92.9 per cent) Sweden (89.6 per cent), the Netherlands (87.6 per cent) and Denmark (87.1 per cent).
10. In America, 64 per cent of monthly music spend goes on live music. 23 per cent of the 18—25 age group fork out more on concerts than other consumers.
SPOTIFY ECONOMICS
According to Loud & Clear, royalties generated by Australian artists from Spotify in 2023 reached nearly AUD$275 million. That was almost 10 per cent since 2022.
Spotify emphasised: “Approximately half of these royalties were generated by independent artists.”
More than 80 per cent of all royalties generated by Australian artists on Spotify came from outside Australia. The new export markets were Brazil, Mexico and Germany.
The company said, “Globally on Spotify, Australian artists were discovered by first-time listeners more than 2.7 billion times last year, and more than 4,000 local artists were added to our editorial playlists.”
At the Spotify gathering at Canberra’s Parliament House, its Australasian Managing Director Mikaela Lancaster told the gathering, “Every day at Spotify we have the privilege of shining a light on the incredible talent in this country, so we are thrilled to put a spotlight on these artists and talk about Australian music discovery through Loud & Clear.
“Today on Spotify, listeners are discovering more music than ever before—and Australian artists are right up there on the global stage. Make no mistake, Australia is a music export powerhouse. We also recognize the work of Music Australia as part of the government’s National Cultural Policy in this space and engaging with industry.”
Federal Arts Minister Tony Burke, in response, thanked Spotify for its promotion of Australian musicians but made the point there was still work to be done.
“I do want to say I hope that we can work together. The algorithm still tends to take us offshore and it’s something that I really want us to work on.
“I did a little test and put Dance Monkey into my own music, which is overwhelmingly Australian. It took eight songs before I got to the next Australian song, which was Tones and I.
“Ten more before I got to the next Australian song, which was Tones & I. Five later, I got The Kid LAROI, but it was his duet with Justin Bieber. And three after that I got Vance Joy.”
