Report: Country Music Thrives As Fans Learn to Stream

For the last few years, the music industry has only known one direction: up. Global sales have climbed 5 years in a row, buoyed by the rise of streaming services Spotify and Apple Music, while concert ticket sales eclipsed $10 billion, a new high.

Bloomerg reports the pandemic changed all that.

Concerts have been canceled for most of 2020, and music listening has fallen by about 550 million streams a week (3.4%) for the last 10 weeks, according to Billboard/MRC Data. The decline has impacted almost every kind of music, with dance, latin and hip-hop/R&B suffering the most.

But two genres have been spared the covid crunch: children’s music and country. Country in particular has thrived. U.S. residents have listened to an average of 11.1% more country since mid-March—an increase of 127 million streams a week.  And while growth in kids’ music has subsided as more people return to work, country has only accelerated. Country music streaming climbed 22.4% in the final full week of May.

New releases from Kenny Chesney, Sam Hunt and Kelsea Ballerini helped. Chesney ranks No. 30 in the latest edition of Bloomberg’s Pop Star Power Rankings, while Hunt is No. 109.

But that doesn’t explain why Luke Combs, whose record came out seven months ago, had one of the 10 best-selling albums in the U.S. last month. Nor does it explain why Morgan Wallen, whose album came out two years ago, is also in the top 100.

Music executives and fans have cooked up all sorts of hypotheses for country’s durability during the coronavirus. Some have argued it is comfort food at a time when people are craving any form of succor. An executive at Pandora, the online radio service, noted country music is a perfect complement to drinking. (Alcohol sales have also soared during the pandemic.)

The simplest explanation may be the most boring: country fans are learning to stream. The first groups to use Spotify and YouTube as their primary listening services were young people in big cities. These young people have flocked to rappers from Puerto Rico and boy bands from Korea, along with Drake and Dua Lipa.

Country music had remained stuck in an analog world. While country is the third-most-popular genre in the U.S., according to MusicWatch, it is second-most-popular among CD buyers. It hasn’t been in the top 3 among online music consumers.

But as Spotify has progressed from popularity to ubiquity, and tech giants Apple, Amazon and Google pumped streaming services through smart speakers, people of all ages and demographics have embraced streaming. Country has crept into the top 3 among people who use free streaming services.