We did it guys, streaming is now the most popular way to consume music according to Nielsen’s Year End Report. In 2016, on-demand audio streaming grew 38% and totaled at 250 billion streams worldwide. This comes alongside the news that there was a 3% volume growth in the music industry in general.
The winner of most sales from 2016 goes to Drake and his album Views, with second place going to Adele’s 25 and third to Beyonce’s Lemonade. Although no electronic dance music acts made it to the biggest selling albums, a pair of EDM titans had a very successful year with one of the most active singles.
That electronic music act is, of course, The Chainsmokers. Nielsen defines “activity” as the combined sales and number of audio streams on the various platforms monitored by Nielsen. The song that saw the most activity was “One Dance” by Drake, but The Chainsmokers’ hit “Closer” came in third with over 611 million streams, audio+video combined. 
The Chainsmokers’ “Closer” also ranked as the second-most digital bought song of the year, with 2,268,000 sales. These standings are some of the biggest we’ve seen for an electronic dance music act and it leaves us very excited for what’s to come for electronic music in 2017.
Image: Rukes
