Latin Music Fans Ditch Physical Albums

Latin music is gaining more and more popularity around the world, with Bad Bunny, Karol G and Anitta just some of the artists to have become international sensations in recent years. This is partly thanks to streaming, which has improved access to music generally and made it easier to discover new artists. But as Nicole Forero of Insider reports, the shift is likely also due to artist collaborations, which have helped established artists to “remain relevant” while keeping the genre evolving.

As the following chart shows, more than 99 percent of the Latin music listened to in the first half of 2023 was downloaded or streamed online, according to the Luminate 2023 mid-year report. In fact, only 0.5 percent of all of the genre's music was purchased in the form of a physical album. This is a stark contrast to the other 11 genres studied, where jazz saw 24.2 percent of total album-equivalent consumption purchased in a hard copy form, World music saw 23.4 percent and rock saw 18.1 percent.

Latin music listeners were also particularly likely to enjoy the genre through video streams, with 8.5 percent of total album-equivalent consumption corresponding to this format. Only dance/electronic music listeners were more likely to consume music by video, at 9.1 percent.

According to the Luminate report, some 40 percent of U.S. listeners now consume music in a non-English language, with Spanish the most popular choice, followed by French, Korean, Japanese, Italian, German and Arabic.

Billboard Latin Music Week is running October 2-6, 2023.