meta-scriptBooming business: Streaming boosts 2016 sales growth by double digits | TechWatch | GRAMMY.com
Booming business: Streaming boosts 2016 sales growth by double digits | TechWatch

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Booming business: Streaming boosts 2016 sales growth by double digits | TechWatch

Advocacy/May 15, 2017 - 01:36 pm

Rounding up recent tech news that impacts livelihoods in the creative community ...

RIAA: music business grows by double digits in 2016
On March 30 the RIAA released its 2016 statistics on music shipments and revenue, showing an 11.4 percent growth over 2015, amounting to $7.7 billion in revenue. Streaming and paid subscriptions grew by 68.5 percent, accounting for the majority of U.S. music business revenue for the first time. While celebrating the good news, Chairman/CEO Cary Sherman said, "The unfortunate reality is that we have achieved this modest success in spite of our current music licensing and copyright laws, not because of them." Details of this marketplace distortion are presented at ValueTheMusic.org, an awareness-raising website launched by the RIAA, The Recording Academy and 14 other leading music organizations, including NMPA and SoundExchange. With the 2017 GRAMMYs on the Hill Awards days away, and the March 30 bipartisan reintroduction of the Fair Play Fair Pay Act, the time is ripe to unshackle the American music industry from burdensome, out-of-date overregulation.

University of Toronto forms $150 million Artificial Intelligence research hub
The formation of the Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence was announced on March 28, based at the University of Toronto with $150 million in funding. As part of a pan-Canadian AI push, Vector will work with other national centers and hopes to balance U.S. firms' AI dominance with publicly-accessible training and research. AI algorithms are already responsible for the many of the music recommendations that subscribers receive on streaming services, and their role in mediating online activity is expected to grow in the coming years.

Congress strikes down FCC privacy rules
In a March 23 Senate vote followed by a March 28 House vote, Congress passed a resolution of disapproval by way of the Congressional Review Act, rejecting the Federal Communications Commission's October 2016 privacy regulations. These rules never took effect and will now be eliminated. Using FCC jurisdiction over broadband providers to restrict how personal data could be used, the defunct regs required an opt-in before broadband providers could share or sell data. The ability to opt-out from data sharing was previously a standing requirement and now comes back into force. On March 28 the White House and FCC Chair Ajit Pai expressed support for Congress' action, which followed Pai's dissenting opinion when the privacy regulations were originally passed.

Later this week: 2017 GRAMMYs on the Hill Awards to honor Keith Urban

Dan + Shay On Bringing 'Good Things' With New Album, Tour Plans & Why Lizzo Is Their Dream Collaborator

Dan + Shay at 2020 GRAMMYs

Photo: Rachel Luna/FilmMagic/Getty Images

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Dan + Shay On Bringing 'Good Things' With New Album, Tour Plans & Why Lizzo Is Their Dream Collaborator

Superstar country duo Dan + Shay discuss how their worldwide success and pop collaborators impacted their fourth album 'Good Things'

GRAMMYs/Aug 26, 2021 - 11:39 pm

This time last year, Dan Smyers and Shay Mooney—better known as Dan + Shay—were holed up in Smyer's unfinished home studio, where mattresses leaned up against the walls and Mooney held up pillows to track vocals for what would become their fourth studio album, Good Things. A year later, the LP became the first country album to ever be certified gold by the RIAA the week it was released, following its Aug. 13 arrival.

That juxtaposition is an anecdotal portrayal of the country stars' story: A hard-working duo composed of a brilliant vocalist (Mooney) and mastermind producer (Smyers), whose DIY approach has made them one of the genre's biggest acts of the moment. Though they've been signed to Warner Music Nashville since the beginning of their career in 2012, Dan + Shay have built a loyal fan base by managing their own social accounts, connecting with fans by actively responding to comments and sharing satirical takes on their songs.

Combining those efforts with infectious melodies and heartfelt lyrics, the pair became a household name in 2018 with their nostalgic ballad "Tequila," which was followed by wedding song "Speechless"—both of which won Dan + Shay a GRAMMY for Best Country Duo Group Performance (in 2019 and 2020, respectively). And in 2019, they struck gold—ahem, quadruple platinum—again with the romantic, Justin Bieber-assisted smash "10,000 Hours," yet another GRAMMY winner for the duo.

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Riding high on those hits, Dan + Shay kicked off their headlining arena tour just before COVID-19 struck stateside in March 2020. With the world hitting pause, there was a silver lining for the country stars: plenty of time to record a new album. The 12-track Good Things is a mix of Dan + Shay's uplifting pop-leaning tunes and trademark emotive ballads. Mooney insists that whether happy or sad, every song encompasses the album's title.

"I think a lot of the best things in our lives come from the darkest places, whether that be a breakup, or whatever it is," Mooney says. "We hope that through this crazy year that we've had, we'll come out on the other side of this with a lot of good things, even though we've all been through a lot. That's how we grow as people, we learn things, and we move on."

GRAMMY.com caught up with Smyers and Mooney on the heels of the album's release to discuss their worldwide impact, tour re-igniting, and the chart-topping superstars they hope to collaborate with next.

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You declared in a tweet that Good Things is your best album yet. What makes this feel like your best?

Smyers: We felt like our self-titled album was kind of the moment where things really connected on a different level. We had "Tequila" and "Speechless," and we've been trying to build on where they took our career. We feel like we owe it to everybody who have gotten us where we are—our fans, our team, everyone around us—to keep pushing ourselves, raising the bar.

I guess it made us put some unnecessary pressure on ourselves. Every time we were in the writing room, it's like, "Alright, I got this idea," "Well, is it as good as 'Tequila'?"

The blessing in disguise is we had a year and a half off of the road. We tried to make the most of an unfortunate situation. We camped out in [my home studio] and dug in. We pulled songs that we wrote three years ago, and songs that we wrote six months ago. We tried to pick the best material that we possibly could, and I feel like we really tapped in.

We tried everything. "What if we did it two BPMs faster?" "What if we did it in this key?" "What if we stripped it back?" By the time we wrapped up the project, it was like, "This is the best foot we can possibly put forward."

We put ourselves out there with that tweet, so there was a lot of pressure when the album came out, because our fans went into it thinking that. But we feel confident about it. We're so proud of every song front to back. 

The first single from Good Things, "10,000 Hours," seemed to follow up the success of "Tequila" and "Speechless" in a huge way.

Smyers: Yeah, that song exposed our music to a whole new fan base. It was crazy to have that song be such a big hit and not really even get to play it live. We've finally got back on the road and are able to feel the energy, impact, and weight of that song.

Mooney: We haven't gotten to meet BTS, but we did have one of the guys [Jungkook] cover "10,000 Hours" which was so cool. Seeing those things proves how music is so universal, and shows the power of music that a country song written in Nashville could be then sung all over the world. It's a very unifying feeling, especially in the times that we're going through right now.

Read: Blackbear Talks New EP ‘Misery Lake,’ Dream Collab With BTS, Making Music For His Mental Health & Fatherhood

Do you feel like the response to that kind of set the tone for the rest of the album?

Smyers: Sonically, that kind of was the step in the direction that the rest of the album went. The overall aesthetics of the song—it was all about the vocals, and that was kind of the feature of the production. I feel like we really leaned into that for the rest of the album. There are so many vocals on this album, it's insane. I mean, hundreds, thousands of layers. And it feels cohesive. That song was written and recorded a long time ago, and we listened to it in sequence with the album, and it makes sense with everything else on there.

Along with Justin Bieber, you also co-wrote with Julia Michaels, Shawn Mendes and Tayla Parx on this project. You've always had a pop sensibility, but did working with pop artists have an impact on your process?

Mooney: Every experience that you have as an artist definitely impacts your craft, in a good way. We always try to be sponges in the way that we create. We've had a lot of people in the pop world be fans of what we've been doing since our first record—not just "10,000 Hours," "Tequila" or "Speechless." We got to meet Ed Sheeran very early on. It was such a cool thing to be able to watch how they work and be able to implement some of those styles into what we do. It definitely opened the door for a lot of different possible collaborations in the future.

I think it's good for the genre. It expands those walls a little bit, and sets the bar higher for everybody. The people who have come before us, like the Taylor Swifts, who have really pushed the boundaries, it's been good for everybody and made a way for people like us and the Sam Hunts of the world. It's just a really fun thing to be a part of.

Are there any other pop acts you're hoping you can collaborate with next?

Smyers: An Ariana Grande thing would be really cool. I nerd out on her social media when she posts videos in the studio, stacking harmonies. Her vocal technique and control is just unreal.

I feel like us and Lizzo could do something really cool. I remember hearing "Truth Hurts" for the first time. I was on a treadmill in Vegas at the ACMs, and it stopped me in my tracks. When that piano came in and she came in at the top, I had to get off the treadmill and text everyone I know. I'm just so blown away by her talent, her conviction, her authenticity. It would be a really fun one.

Mooney: We played a music festival with her after that song became massive, and Dan and I snuck out to front of house and we were raging. Absolutely raging to that song. And then she can just play the flute, and you're like, "Where did that even come from?" She's unbelievably talented. That's a very solid one. I would like to see a Dan + Shay/Lizzo [track].

Smyers: We're manifesting that. Putting it out there.

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One thing that surprised me about Good Things is that half of the record is songs about breakups or relationships that aren't good for you, like "Irresponsible." As two happily married men, what inspires those kinds of songs, and how do you channel those emotions when writing them?

Mooney: It's funny, my wife and I, and I know that [Dan's wife] Abby does too, we love sad songs. When I think back on some of the toughest times in my life, the songs that really got me through were always really sad songs. There's something about that grieving process that is really beautiful.

The songs and the content don't necessarily represent where we are in our current lives, but that's the beauty of being an artist — being able to step into that role, and kind of be that storyteller for other people. It was interesting, though, putting together this project being in a happy place singing super depressing songs. [Laughs.]

Is there a song or two from this album that feel the most Dan + Shay to you?

Smyers: I would say a quintessential Dan + Shay song on this album would be "Give Into You"—the dark, brooding, emotional, nostalgic piano ballad kind of thing. That's something we've done since our first album, and what we always gravitate towards. If you left it up to us, we would have every song be a dark piano ballad. [Laughs.]

On the other side of the spectrum, I would say "One Direction." It's reminiscent of why people fell in love with Dan + Shay—a story, narrative lyric that's super heartfelt and emotional, but walls of harmonies in the chorus.

Mooney: Another would be the song "You." I feel like if you could sum up Dan + Shay, we've had so many wedding songs. We've already been seeing a lot of people using "You" as their wedding song. We got to play it live the other day, and it has a special groove to it that kind of gets you in the vibe. It's definitely gonna be a big wedding song for us.

Dan + Shay: The Wedding Song Guys.

Mooney: It's hilarious, people have used "Tequila" for their wedding. Don't ask me where that fits in. There was a girl who said she was using "Tequila" as her first dance. This is not a lie, this happened recently. I was like, "Have you heard the song?"

Like you mentioned, you've had a chance to start playing shows again. You were one of the acts who started their tour before the pandemic. Are there any major changes you've made as a result of the downtime you've had to think about the show?

Smyers: We feel really good about the tour that we put together last year. It was the most work we've ever put into anything. We did get to do three shows, which was amazing. I feel like, had we done months and months of preparation and rehearsals and then not gotten to do it, we would have been wondering, "Yo, is this any good?" We got three in, and everything really worked, so we were like, "Cool, we know we can do this."

Now comes the question of [if] all the songs that we played in the set a year and a half ago were in there for a reason. They were either fan favorites, they were good live, we had cool content, or they made sense transitionally. But now we've got a whole new album of material.

Selfishly, we want to play the whole new album and add that much time to the set—which we honestly might. We don't want to cut anything, really. The new songs, for some reason, just sound and feel better live than anything we've done before. So I think we will play a good majority of the new music and we'll find ways to integrate them into the flow of the set.

Shay, are you ever nervous about hitting your power notes on stage?

Mooney: It is a nerve-wracking thing, especially these first couple shows back. But I've been doing a lot of singing — singing to my kids, and we've been in the studio — so I wasn't nervous about that. What I was nervous about is the in-between moments. I haven't been on a stage in so long, so I think I'm probably more nervous about what I'm doing with my hands and how I'm moving. I've got the singing part down. Those high notes, I know that they're gonna be there. And if they're not, then I'll just fake like my mic broke.

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You can just bust out the moves from your "Lying" and "Steal My Love" videos.

Mooney: No lie, I think that helps so much with these upcoming shows. I was like, "Dude, we're dancers." I mean, we're horrible dancers, but it still kind of helps with your swagger on stage, because that was something that I felt like I completely lost. Maybe I still look very dumb, but at least I'm doing it with confidence.

Can you guys believe it hasn't even been 10 years since you've known each other, let alone accomplished everything you have already?

Mooney: It's honestly crazy. I think about it all the time. In some ways, it feels like it was yesterday, and in a lot of ways, it feels like it's been 30 years doing this. It's incredible to have those moments and milestones together. We always say, doing this together has been so special because the lows are not near as low, and the highs are even higher.

This last year has especially made us even more appreciative of all the things we've gotten to do. And we've had the time to actually look back, reflect, and be thankful for those things that we never quite got the chance to take the moment to be like, "This is incredible." We are very blessed and thankful guys right now.

Meet Sam Williams, A Country Music Scion Whose Debut Album 'Glasshouse Children' Transcends His Surname

From Small Stages To The GRAMMY Stage: How Four Venue Professionals Became Presenters At The 2021 GRAMMY Awards Show

The Apollo Theater

Photo: Roy Rochlin/Getty Images

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From Small Stages To The GRAMMY Stage: How Four Venue Professionals Became Presenters At The 2021 GRAMMY Awards Show

Operators and staff at the Station Inn, the Troubadour, the Apollo Theater and Hotel Café appeared during the 2021 GRAMMY Awards show to petition viewers for help—and promise an epic party for them if they do

GRAMMYs/Mar 24, 2021 - 07:43 pm

The Recording Academy reimagined everything about the 2021 GRAMMY Awards show on a more intimate scale, and the choice of presenters was no different. When it came time to announce the Best Country Album winner, the person who appeared on screen wasn't a slick Nashville superstar, but a soft-spoken, older man who's unrecognizable to a global audience but beloved in the Music City. His name was J.T. Gray, and he grinned ear-to-ear on national TV.

In a segment recorded a month prior, Gray showed the camera crew around the Station Inn, the 145-person-capacity bluegrass venue he'd owned since 1981. Despite the room receiving almost no income for a year due to the live music industry shutdown caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, Gray was rosy about the future. "Getting to reopen the Station Inn, that's going to be a celebration like never before," he promised. "It's going to be a big party." He then announced the winner, Miranda Lambert, to the world. Gray was naturally quiet and reserved, a closed book. Not after that shoot, though.

"He was just beside himself the whole time," Jeff Brown, the Station Inn's marketing director, tells GRAMMY.com. "He just never believed it was happening. He just didn't believe that his little venue was being recognized on that kind of scale, that those many people in a place with the GRAMMYs and the Recording Academy's recognition actually paid attention. He just couldn't believe it." On Sunday, March 14, Gray astonishedly watched himself on CBS. The following Saturday, he passed away after a struggle with compounding health problems.

Gray might not get to attend the "big party" when things open up. But 9 million people heard his message.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">The Troubadour offers our deepest condolences to JT Grey’s family, friends, and those at <a href="https://twitter.com/stationinn1974?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@stationinn1974</a>. JT created a special home for bluegrass, country music, and more in Nashville, TN. He leaves behind a beautiful legacy and will be missed by many.<a href="https://t.co/rGwZGuDoXK">https://t.co/rGwZGuDoXK</a></p>&mdash; Troubadour (@theTroubadour) <a href="https://twitter.com/theTroubadour/status/1374515380622794753?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 24, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

For a year, venues worldwide have been hanging on by a thread: struggling to pay their rent, waiting in vain for federal aid, and given no clear finish line as to when they can reopen. That's why, with the Recording Academy's blessing, Executive Producer Ben Winston asked Gray, as well as representatives from the Troubadour and Hotel Café in Los Angeles and the Apollo Theater in New York City, to present at the 63rd GRAMMY Awards and talk about their economic struggles during the pandemic. Together, they sounded a shared refrain to the world: We matter to our communities, and we need help.

The venues that spoke their piece during the 63rd GRAMMY Awards were members of the National Independent Venue Association (NIVA). An assemblage of independent venue owners and promoters from around the country, NIVA formed directly in response to the 2020 lockdown. "We figured we'd better find a way to come together and lobby for federal assistance," Audrey Schaefer, a board member and the Communications Director for NIVA, tells GRAMMY.com. "Because otherwise, we're all going under."

The Steel Wheels at Station Inn in 2015. Photo: Erika Goldring/Getty Images for Americana Music via Getty Images

Last year, NIVA, along with the Recording Academy and other music organizations, lobbied Congress via the Save Our Stages Act and succeeded. On Dec. 27, the decree became the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant and passed along with the COVID relief package. "In that grant fund is $16 billion," Schaefer says. "For an organization that didn't exist before … nobody gave us any hopes of being able to secure that kind of funding. But we did. We got the law passed."

However, venues have not yet seen that money. "We understand that the applications will start at the beginning of April," she adds with relief in her voice.

In the meantime, Scheafer mulled over how best to convey to the world the existential crises venues face. "I was thinking that the GRAMMYs couldn't possibly be at the Beverly Hilton like it normally is—in a big ballroom—because we can't be together," she says. "I thought, 'What if the GRAMMYs were to have the award show, and instead of having all the performances under one roof, they were to have them in independent venues?'"

To try and give this idea legs, Schaefer reached out to Daryl Friedman, Chief Advocacy Officer of the Recording Academy's Advocacy division. "He said, 'Listen, Audrey, I think that's a great idea, but they have a million great ideas. So, let me take it to them and we'll see what happens,'" she recalls. Schaefer persistently followed up. "I kept asking Daryl, 'What do you think? What are you hearing?'"

But unbeknown to her, the Recording Academy and the production team were already independently planning to highlight independent venues and their employees as an advocacy initiative and add a personal moment to the broadcast. "And then I found out that, oh my gosh, they do want to do it," she adds with awe.

Billie Eilish at the Troubadour in 2019. Photo: Neilson Barnard/Getty Images for SiriusXM

Granted, the Recording Academy didn't agree to host performances at independent venues. But Schaefer calls the idea they decided to go with "so much better." Instead, venue professionals would take viewers on a tour of their workplaces, illustrating their value to their communities and why they desperately need help. Participants included the Station Inn's Gray; Rachelle Erratchu, the night manager at the Troubadour; Billy Mitchell, the tour guide and overall house cat at the Apollo Theater in Harlem; and Candice Fox, a bartender at the Hotel Café in Hollywood.

For Erratchu, the problem extends further than keeping the lights on at the Troubadour; the entire live music ecosystem is in trouble. "We need everybody else to survive so that we can survive," she tells GRAMMY.com. "If we don't exist and all the other venues across the country don't exist, the tour circuit as we know it and have relied on it for decades won't exist anymore."

For Billy Mitchell, the Historical Tour Manager and overall global representative of the Apollo Theater who has earned the title of "Mr. Apollo," his job isn't a means to an end; he lives and breathes it. Mitchell's time at the Apollo began in 1965 when he ran errands for James Brown and his band. During the telecast, Mitchell relates a funny story of how the Godfather of Soul sent him all the way home to the Bronx to get his report card, threatening to put his job on ice if he didn't get better grades.

COVID forced the Apollo to temporarily furlough some its staff. To be forced to stop, it was heartbreaking, to be honest with you," Mitchell tells GRAMMY.com. "I give tours to people from all over the world, and they're unable to visit because of COVID restrictions and things like that." While the not-for-profit has offered digital programming in the meantime, most of it has been free as not to burden fans. Thankfully, at press time, all staff members have returned full-time.

Billy Mitchell at the Apollo Theater in 2009. Photo: Jemal Countess/WireImage via Getty Images​

The Apollo has been lucky, in a sense; corporate and private donations have kept it afloat. Still, they're not out of the woods yet. "Donations are needed so that when we do reopen, we can pump out those great shows and bring back our staff," Mitchell says. "We want to bring back our staff as soon as possible." 

In the clip played during the 2021 GRAMMY Awards show, Mitchell addressed viewers from the empty audience. "We miss our audience and we can't wait until our doors open up again," he says. "We just can't wait."

Candice Fox, a bartender at Hollywood's Hotel Café, believes there will be an outpouring of activity at her workplace once it's safe again. "I like to believe people are going to want to make up for lost time," she tells GRAMMY.com. "I know that people are itching to perform. People are so excited to experience that exchange of energy again. So, I think it's going to explode."

In line with Erratchu's thoughts on the overall music ecosystem, Fox notes that Katy Perry cut her teeth at the 65-capacity room on Cahuenga Boulevard. "She wasn't the big pop star she is now; she was just a girl with a guitar," she says. "So many artists' careers and the GRAMMYs couldn't exist without small, independent venues like the Hotel Café because you've got to start somewhere." In her clip, Fox ruminates on the regulars she's missed for a year, pouring a Boddingtons and mixing an Old Fashioned to an array of empty stools.

Sister Sparrow and the Dirty Birds at Hotel Café in 2015. Photo: Christopher Polk/Getty Images​   

At the end of every venue vignette, each venue representative announced the winner of their assigned categories: Best Country Album for Gray (Miranda Lambert's Wildcard), Best Pop Solo Performance for Erratchu (Harry Styles' "Watermelon Sugar"), Best Rap Song for Billy Mitchell (Beyoncé's and Megan Thee Stallion's "Savage Remix") and Album Of The Year for Fox (Taylor Swift's folklore). All four were thrilled to appear and encourage viewers to support their workplaces—whether by donating directly, paying for a livestream or purchasing a T-shirt. 

That way, the lights at the Station Inn, the Troubadour, the Apollo and Hotel Café can flare up again, ensuring these cultural hubs don't become figments of the past. And if you want to know how memorable the inevitable "COVID is over" parties will be, just look at Gray's blazing smile during the GRAMMYs.

"I can probably count a very [small] number of times that I've seen him truly smile," the Station Inn's Brown reflects. "But truly smiling—that's what he was doing here."

Click here to support the Station Inn.

Click here to support the Troubadour.

Click here to support the Apollo Theater.

Click here to support Hotel Café.

Click here to support NIVA.

Capturing Los Angeles' COVID-Closed Venues

RIAA 2020 Mid-Year Report: Recorded-Music Revenues In The U.S. Grew More Than 5 Percent During The First Half Of 2020 Amid Coronavirus Pandemic

Photo: MediaNews Group/Reading Eagle via Getty Images / Contributor

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RIAA 2020 Mid-Year Report: Recorded-Music Revenues In The U.S. Grew More Than 5 Percent During The First Half Of 2020 Amid Coronavirus Pandemic

A new study from the RIAA shows that revenues from recorded music in the U.S. grew to $5.7 billion in the first half of the year, a boost largely driven by strong streaming numbers.

GRAMMYs/Sep 10, 2020 - 10:55 pm

A new mid-year report from The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) shows that revenues from recorded music in the U.S. grew to $5.7 billion, up from $5.4 billion as Billboard reports, in the first half of 2020; the change marks an increase of 5.6 percent.

Paid streaming subscriptions, which increased by 24 percent to more than 72 million on average, a growth of 14 percent in the first half of 2020 when compared to the first half of 2019, largely drove the aforementioned revenue growth.

Streaming music revenues—returns from subscription services like paid versions of Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon and others; digital and customized radio services, including revenues distributed by SoundExchange like Pandora, SiriusXM and other internet radio; and ad-supported on-demand streaming services like YouTube, Vevo, and ad-supported Spotify—grew 12 percent to $4.8 billion in the first half of 2020. 

Paid subscription revenues grew 14 percent to $3.8 billion, and further increased their share as the largest contributor, accounting for 67 percent of total revenues in the first half of 2020, according to the RIAA report. 

Digital downloads, a market that continues to shrink in the streaming age, fell from 8 percent to 6 percent for the category's share of total revenues in the first half of 2020. 

As the COVID-19 pandemic continued to wreak havoc on the U.S. and international music business as well as the global advertising markets, "growth in ad-supported streaming revenues slowed dramatically," the RIAA writes.

As well, revenues from physical products decreased by 23 percent year-over-year to $376 million in the first half 2020, Variety reports. The RIAA report indicates a "significant impact from music retail and venue shutdown measures around COVID-19, as Q1 2020 declines were significantly less than Q2 compared with their respective periods the year prior." 

Revenues from vinyl albums increased in this year's first quarter, but later decreased in the second quarter, resulting in a net overall increase of 4 percent for the first half of 2020, the report reports. Vinyl album revenues, which reached $232 million, accounted for 62 percent of total physical revenues, marking the first time vinyl exceeded physical CDs for such a period since the '80s, as well as 4 percent of total recorded-music revenues.

Read the RIAA's 2020 mid-year report in full.

RIAA Report: Latin Music Is Growing Faster Than The Overall U.S. Music Market

RIAA Report: Latin Music Is Growing Faster Than The Overall U.S. Music Market

Residente, Ricky Martin and Bad Bunny perform at the 2019 Latin GRAMMY Awards

Photo: Rich Fury/Getty Images

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RIAA Report: Latin Music Is Growing Faster Than The Overall U.S. Music Market

Led by a surge in streaming, Latin music accounted for 5 percent of the total recorded music business in the U.S. last year

GRAMMYs/May 3, 2020 - 01:09 am

The Latin music industry had a landmark year in 2019. A new report from the Recording Industry Association Of America (RIAA) shows that the U.S. Latin music industry "continued to grow at a faster rate than the overall market."

In its 2019 Year-End Latin Music Industry Revenue Report, made public this week (April 30), the RIAA reports that Latin music revenues in the U.S. grew 28 percent, to $554 million, last year, marking the highest figure the market has seen since 2006. Comparatively, the overall U.S. market grew 13 percent in the same year. 

Unsurprisingly, streaming, the "dominant format in Latin music in the U.S.," according to the report, comprised 95 percent of total Latin music revenues in 2019; said revenues totaled $529 million, a 32 percent increase. 

In the streaming category, paid subscriptions—Apple Music, Spotify Premium, Amazon Unlimited and the like—accounted for 65 percent of Latin streaming music revenues in the U.S. last year, while an additional 23 percent came from ad-supported streaming options like YouTube, Vevo and ad-supported Spotify, among other services. Digital and customized radio services, like Pandora, SiriusXM and other internet radio options, as well as SoundExchange distributions and related royalties rounded out the remaining streaming revenues. 

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Ultimately, Latin music accounted for 5 percent of the total recorded music business in the U.S. last year, which reached $11.1 billion; this marks an increase of 0.6 percent compared to the Latin music industry's total of 4.4 percent in 2018.

As Rolling Stone points out, despite Latin music's "notably higher ad-supported streaming revenue," the overall trends and statistics reported within the genre could signal a shift in streaming habits across the wider music market. 

"Because Latin over-indexes so much on streaming, it's really a leading indicator for the market in terms of where things are going," Josh Friedlander, senior vice president of research and economics at RIAA, said in an interview with Rolling Stone. "All the trends that we're seeing in Latin are ahead of where they are in the market."

The latest RIAA report reflects a wave of continued growth within the Latin music market over the last three years. In 2017, Latin music saw its first growth since 2005, rising by 44 percent by the mid-year, while urban Latin music dominated streaming services in 2018. By 2019, Latin music ranked as the fifth-most-popular genre in America, in terms of album consumption. 

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