Music streaming increased by more than two thirds in the UK last year, but is the success of Spotify and other streaming services rendering the music charts redundant?
Just 11 songs reached number one in the UK charts in 2016, the lowest recorded number for any complete year to date. Only four of these 11 songs were by artists who hadn’t had a number one before.
The British Phonographic Industry’s music market report for 2016 found that 45 billion songs were streamed in the UK last year, up by 68 per cent on 2015.
Although – after years of struggling to come to terms with how the internet has changed music consumption – this is an encouraging sign for the music industry, it could be leading to a more homogeneous set of acts at the top of the charts.
Spotify’s end of year report for 2016 showed that Drake was the most popular artist pretty much everywhere, while Justin Bieber came in second place despite not having released an album last year.
Streaming figures have been included in the UK singles chart since July 2014, but their impact seems to have affected the number of opportunities smaller artists have of reaching the top.
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