Music streams hit 5 trillion in 2025. Christian, rock and Latin lead growth in the US

NEW YORK (AP) — The global music industry hit 5.1 trillion streams in 2025. It's a new single-year record, up 9.6% from 2024, which held the previous record.

That's according to a 2025 Year-End Report from Luminate, an industry data and analytics company that provides insight into changing behaviors across music listenership.

In the U.S., on-demand audio streams hit 1.4 trillion, a 4.6% increase from last year.

But attention is on older music. Less than half all U.S. on-demand audio streams — 43% — were from tracks released in the last five years (2021 - 2025).

One exception? Taylor Swift's “The Life of a Showgirl” and Morgan Wallen's “I'm the Problem,” both of which surpassed 5 million album equivalent units in a single year. That's a combination of sales and streaming combined.

Christian/gospel music, rock and Latin see the most growth stat

eside

Luminate's 2025 Mid-Year Report revealed that though streams of new music — music released in the last 18 months — were slightly down from the same time last year in the U.S., new Christian/gospel music defied the trend, said Jaime Marconette, Luminate’s vice president of music insights and industry relations, led by acts like Forrest Frank, Brandon Lake and Elevation Worship.

In the year-end report, it is clear that Christian/gospel music has continued to grow stateside: up 18.5% in on-demand audio volume change compared to 2024.

Other genres that saw an uptick? Rock grew 6.4% and Latin grew 5.2%.

“Rock is the largest growth genre this year, meaning it grew its share of the streaming pie the most,” said Marconette in a statement. “Though rock streaming in general leans catalog (tracks older than 18 months), the genre posted the second highest total of new current streams this year.”

For Latin music's growth, Bad Bunny is responsible. His on-demand audio streams totaled 5.3 billion — 4.38% of all Latin on-demand audio streams.

“The Latin genre continues to be one of the highest growth-genres in the U.S.,” adds Marconette. “Bad Bunny was a key driver of the growth this year with his new album “Debí Tirar Más Fotos” generating 2.97 billion U.S. on-demand audio streams in 2025.”

High-profile AI artists emerge

The introduction of high-profile artificial intelligence artists became a leading music story in 2025. Those include Xania Monet and the rock band The Velvet Sundown.

Monet went on to become the first AI act to debut on a Billboard radio chart, reaching No. 3 on the organization’s Hot Gospel Songs and No. 20 on the Hot R&B Songs.

There have been quite a few AI country artists as well, including Aventhis, Cain Walker and Breaking Rust. The latter had a song called “Walk My Walk” hit No. 1 on Billboard’s country digital song sales chart in November. The vocal phrasing, melodic shape and stylistic DNA came from the Grammy-nominated country artist Blanco Brown, an artist who has worked with Britney Spears, Childish Gambino and Rihanna.

These artists serve as examples of generative AI continuing to upend the music industry, giving anyone the ability to instantly create seemingly new songs by typing prompts into a chat window, often using models trained on real artists’ voices and styles without their knowledge.

And according to Luminate, they're having real success. Monet earned 125 million global on-demand audio streams last year. Breaking Rust brought in roughly 72.8 million streams followed by Walker with 48.1 million, Enlly Blue with 34.8 and Juno Skye with 15.5 million.

Who's atop the

global top 10

The top songs, globally, as determined by on-demand audio streams are the following:

1. Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars, “Die With a Smile” — 2.858 billion

2. HUNTR/X (Ejae, Audrey Nuna, Rei Ami) from “Kpop Demon Hunters,” “Golden” — 2.430 billion

3. Alex Warren, “Ordinary” — 2.403 billion

4. Rosé and Bruno Mars’ “APT.” — 2.236 billion

5. Billie Eilish, “Birds of a Feather” — 2.133 billion

6. Bad Bunny, “DtMF” — 1.701 billion

7. Kendrick Lamar and SZA, “Luther” — 1.672 billion

8. Benson Boone, “Beautiful Things” —1.630 billion

9. sombr, “Back to Friends” — 1.587 billion

10. Gracie Abrams, “That's So True” — 1.544 billion

Seven of the top 10 tracks were released in 2024. The exceptions are “Golden,” “Ordinary” and “DtMF.”

Rap and R&B are forever ... again

Just like last year and the year before it, when it comes to overall music streaming in the U.S., R&B and hip-hop still lead, once again accounting for more than one in every four streams stateside.

In 2025, rap and R&B accounted for 349.9 billion on-demand audio streams, up from 341.63 billion last year.

It is followed by rock with 260.5 billion (up from 234.22 billion last year) and pop with 167.2 billion (up from 165.49 billion).

Rounding out the top five is country with 122.5 billion (up from 117.58 billion) and Latin with 120.9 billion (up from 113.02 billion.)