What Are the Most Popular Music Genres In America?

What are the most popular music genres in America?

Here’s a breakdown of music genres 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.

Interestingly, Rock tops the list by a wide margin, though Rap/Hip-Hop isn’t far behind. Interestingly, Spotify counted Rap/Hip-Hop as its most the popular of its music genres in 2015, though Spotify users may represent a younger subset of music listeners.

II. Albums: CDs + vinyl.

US, 2015. Source: Nielsen Music.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, older formats lean towards older music genres. And, Rock certainly pre-dates Rap/Hip-Hop, though its origins are equally controversial and generation-defining. Incidentally, Rock tends to dominate vinyl sales, where formats like Rap/Hip-Hop don’t do so well (and, sales of EDM are almost nonexistent).

As for CD sales, shiny discs are still sold in the billions, though their buyers are typically older (and less interested in iTunes downloads or Spotify streams).

So how was all of this information calculated, you ask?

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 music genres, check out just how well different genres sell on different platforms.