2025 Music Industry Trends: Insights from Luminate's Year-End Report
The global music industry achieved a new milestone in 2025, reaching 5.1 trillion streams, marking a 9.6% increase from the previous year. Luminate, a data and analytics company, provided insights into changing music listenership behaviors through its 2025 Year-End Report. In the U.S., on-demand audio streams totaled 1.4 trillion, showing a 4.6% growth from the previous year. Interestingly, older music garnered significant attention, with only 43% of U.S. on-demand audio streams coming from tracks released in the last five years.
Despite a slight decline in streams of new music in the U.S., new Christian/gospel music experienced growth, led by artists like Forrest Frank, Brandon Lake, and Elevation Worship. Christian/gospel music saw an 18.5% increase in on-demand audio volume change compared to 2024. Additionally, rock and Latin music genres also saw growth, with rock being the largest growth genre and Latin music experiencing a significant uptick in streams.
Bad Bunny played a pivotal role in the growth of Latin music, with his on-demand audio streams totaling 5.3 billion, representing 4.38% of all Latin on-demand audio streams. The introduction of high-profile artificial intelligence artists, such as Xania Monet and The Velvet Sundown, became a prominent music industry trend in 2025. Monet made history as the first AI act to debut on Billboard radio charts, achieving high rankings on various charts.
Generative AI artists like Aventhis, Cain Walker, and Breaking Rust have also made waves in the music industry, with Breaking Rust's song "Walk My Walk" reaching No. 1 on Billboard's country digital song sales chart. These AI artists are reshaping the music landscape by creating new songs instantly based on real artists' voices and styles. The top songs globally, based on on-demand audio streams, include tracks from Lady Gaga, Bruno Mars, HUNTR/X, Alex Warren, Rosé, Billie Eilish, Bad Bunny, Kendrick Lamar, Benson Boone, sombr, and Gracie Abrams.
In the U.S., R&B and hip-hop genres continue to dominate music streaming, accounting for more than one in every four streams. In 2025, rap and R&B streams totaled 349.9 billion, followed by rock with 260.5 billion, pop with 167.2 billion, country with 122.5 billion, and Latin with 120.9 billion. The music industry's landscape is evolving rapidly, with new trends and genres shaping the way music is consumed and enjoyed by audiences worldwide.