What are the most popular musical genres in America? Here’s a breakdown from Nielsen Music, which compiled every sale across CDs, vinyl, digital downloads, and streaming to calculate which types of music are most popular. Here’s what they found:
I. Overall: CDs + vinyl + downloads + streaming
US, 2015. Source: Nielsen Music.
II. Albums: CDs + vinyl.
US, 2015. Source: Nielsen Music.
III. The Methodology.
All of these genre categorizations were determined by Nielsen, and counted by format accordingly. In terms of delivery format, Nielsen counts each CD album and vinyl album, then aggregates all downloads and streams in to ‘Equivalent Albums’ to make ‘Track Equivalent Albums’ and ‘Streaming Equivalent Albums’. Specifically, a ‘Track Equivalent Album’ counts ten songs from an album as an album unit, with the same methodology applied to streamed tracks. The results can create some distortions because it isn’t counting every single track, though it does created an arguable method for comparing digital formats to CD-based and vinyl-based purchases.
And, for more fun with musical genres, check out just how well different genres sell on different genres.
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