Post Malone, Lil Nas X Top Buzz Angle’s 2019 Year-End Charts, Streams Pass 1 Trillion Mark
Post Malone and Lil Nas X were among the chart-toppers in Buzz Angle’s year-end report for 2019 — with the top album and song of the year, respectively — while on-demand streams broke the 1 trillion mark for the first time in history.
However, as it had to sometime, streaming’s growth is slowing down. On-demand audio streams’ growth was down nearly 30 percent from 2018 (when they saw a 42 percent bump), and video streams were down even more, growing 10.6 percent compared with 24.3 percent in 2018.
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Post Malone topped Drake for the year and took two of the three largest prizes, Artist of the Year (with 4.4 million total album consumption units) and Album of the Year for his “Hollywood’s Bleeding” (2.7 million album consumption units). He was the most streamed artist in 2019, with 6.7 billion on-demand streams in 2019. Drake comes in second with 6.3 billion, followed by Billie Eilish with 5 billion. “Hollywood’s Bleeding” was also 2019’s biggest-selling album project — which combines album sales, song sales and on-demand streams in a formula in which 10 song sales and 150 streams equal one album sale — with 2.0 million sales.
The top 10 album, song and artist charts are below, which are based on consumption (sales + on-demand streams). See Buzz Angle Music’s full report for many more charts and details.
“Old Town Road” by Lil Nas X was the most consumed song in 2019 with more than 7.8 million song project sales. Post Malone and Swae Lee’s song “Sunflower” followed with more than 5.6 million song project sales.
The streaming mark of 1,010,000,000 streams represents an increase of 25% over 2018’s 809.5 billion streams. On-Demand Streams in 2019 accounted for 85% of all music consumption in the United States, a 7.6 point increase from 2018. Overall streaming activity in the United States, which includes on-demand and programmed streams, broke the 1.1 trillion mark for the first time.
In terms of straight physical sales (not including streams), Taylor Swift’s “Lover” was far in the lead with around 1.09 million units sold, while the No. 2 seller, Billie Eilish’s “When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?” at a distant 595,000 units.
However, Eilish — who was born a decade after record labels began phasing out vinyl in the early 1990s — topped the year’s vinyl sales with around 113,000 units. The Beatles’ “Abbey Road” was No. 2 with 101,000 units and Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” soundtrack was No. 3 with around 79,000. While much has been made of vinyl’s resurgence in popularity in recent years, those numbers indicate that it represents a small percentage of the overall music market.
Albums (Based on album’s total consumption: album sales + song sales + on-demand streams)
Hollywood’s Bleeding: Post Malone 2,655,714
When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?: Billie Eilish 2,293,370
Lover: Taylor Swift 2,038,347
thank u, next: Ariana Grande 1,848,838
Free Spirit: Khalid 1,406,749
Beerbongs & Bentleys: Post Malone 1,200,461
7 EP: Lil Nas X 1,183,940
Hoodie SZN: A Boogie wit da Hoodie 1,099,580
Happiness Begins: Jonas Brothers 1,083,498
Scorpion: Drake 1,062,468
Songs (Based on total consumption: song sales + on-demand streams)
Old Town Road: Lil Nas X 7,855,424
Sunflower: Post Malone & Swae Lee 5,680,501
Wow.: Post Malone 4,609,793
7 rings: Ariana Grande 4,279,938
bad guy: Billie Eilish 4,251,802
Truth Hurts: Lizzo 3,927,234
Middle Child: J. Cole 3,807,561
Without Me: Halsey 3,456,936
Ransom: Lil Tecca 3,453,510
Going Bad: Meek Mill 3,263,888
Top Artists (Based on total consumption: album sales + song sales + on-demand streams)
Post Malone 4,359,559
Drake 3,743,046
Billie Eilish 3,384,223
Taylor Swift 3,381,338
Ariana Grande 2,976,345
Youngboy Never Broke Again 2,379,128
Juice Wrld 2,240,770
Khalid 2,170,722
Queen 2,098,889
XXXTentacion 2,009,078
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