A new survey by Billboard Magazine and Nielsen Entertainment has crowned Baauer’s infamous Harlem Shake as the most streamed track of the year, with over 400 MILLION streams…. to date!
In comparison, Macklemore & Ryan Lewis’ Thrift Shop came in second, with an astounding 186 million streams, whilst Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories becoming the best selling vinyl release of 2013.
And the power of online streams? Well in further context, Bruno Mars achieved the top two highest in US radio plays, with When I Was Your Man and Locked Out Of Heaven, achieving a combined total of less than 800,000 – and that’s no typo!
There’s of course been a massive upward trend in general digital music over the years. Senior VP of Nielsen Entertainment David Bakula said “Streaming continues to be a tremendous growth story with over 50 Billion audio and video streams in the first six months of 2013”, before adding “…not only are we seeing massive volume of streams, but we continue to see growth on a comparable provider basis, with stream volume up 24% over the same period last year.”
In terms of overall purchasing of digital music, Bakula confirms that “overall sales are down slightly in the first half of 2013, but there continues to be encouraging growth in digital album sales”
The shock growth of vinyl LPs, up over 1/3 from last year’s decade-long record, has meant a massive shift in the way consumers are spending.
Still want that dusty CD?
