Which Music Genres Still Rely on Physical Albums?

Around 67 percent of all recorded music revenue worldwide, which translates to $19.3 billion, was generated on streaming services like Spotify in 2023. Nonetheless, physical sales stood at their highest level since 2016. In the United States, listeners were even more focused on streaming. According to the RIAA's year-end report, 84 percent of all music revenue was generated in this segment. Luminate estimated that U.S. listeners accumulated 1.2 trillion audio streams compared to 105 million physical album sales and digital album downloads for the past year. Regarding consumers' share of listening to music on physical media out of all their music consumption, three genres stand out.

As the Statista chart created with Luminate data shows, the first two spots are claimed by jazz, where physical media carves out a music consumption share of 23.3 percent, and world music with 23.1 percent. However, streaming still makes up the lion's share of music consumption for these types of music with 68.5 percent and 65.2 percent, respectively. Rounding out the top 3 is rock with a consumption share of roughly 18 percent.

Classical music and pop rank fourth (8.8 percent) and fifth (8.6 percent). The latter is possibly connected to the financial success of artists like Taylor Swift. Swift had five records in the eight best-selling music albums of 2023, totaling 4.8 million units sold, with most of these sales in the vinyl category. Overall, Luminate lists U.S. physical album sales at 87 million, while the RIAA's tally stands at roughly 80 million.