Music album consumption U.S. 2018, by genre

In 2018, hip-hop and rap music accounted for 21.7 percent of total music consumption in the United States, more than double the percentage of R&B music sales. Other highly popular genres included pop and rock music, whereas just 1.1 percent of all music sold in the U.S. in 2018 was jazz. Why are some genres more popular than others?  Whilst music is a highly subjective medium in terms of the listener’s taste and preferences, the top genres in terms of consumption tend not to fluctuate heavily. The catchiness and familiarity of pop music is appealing to a wide range of music fans. Pop songs tend to be easy to listen to and remember, usually feature simple, snappy lyrics to avoid polarizing listeners, making pop overall less divisive than other genres because it is designed to generate mass appeal. Conversely, religious music by its very nature is a niche genre in that it encompasses, describes or advocates certain beliefs, giving it the equal ability to alienate some listeners while appealing enormously to others, depending on their religious stance. The hit genre of 2018 was hip-hop and rap, a music style notorious for its tendency to divide listeners. Singer Drake arguably influenced sales within the genre that year, with ‘Scorpion’ topping the list of best-selling albums in the United States based on total streams and ‘Scary Hours’ also making the top ten. Drake came tenth in the list of most successful music tours in North America, with revenue from his live concerts amounting to 79 million U.S. dollars, and second in the ranking was Jay-Z and Beyoncé with 166.4 million dollars in revenue, artists whose music is also strongly aligned with the rap and hip-hop genre. Other artists in the genre who achieved significant influence in 2018 include Kendrick Lamar, Childish Gambino, Cardi B, Travis Scott and Post Malone, many of whom released songs that year which garnered hundreds of millions of audio streams. The sheer amount of hip-hop and rap music flooding the music industry has had a profound effect on the genre’s popularity, and musicians in the category tend to be prolific songwriters and active social media users. Equally, artists in the genre are arguably passionate about creating music which challenges social norms in a way that rock music has always been famous for.

在2018年，嘻哈和说唱音乐占美国总音乐消费的21.7%，是R&B音乐销售额的两倍以上。其他极为流行的音乐类型包括流行音乐和摇滚音乐，而2018年美国售出的所有音乐中，仅有1.1%是爵士乐。为何某些音乐类型比其他类型更为流行？虽然音乐在听众的口味和偏好上极具主观性，但在消费方面排名靠前的音乐类型往往不会发生剧烈波动。流行音乐的悦耳动听和亲切感对广泛的音乐爱好者具有吸引力。流行歌曲通常易于聆听和记忆，通常包含简单、生动的歌词，以避免分化听众，使其整体上比其他音乐类型更为团结，因为其设计初衷是为了吸引大众。相反，宗教音乐由于其本质属性，是一种小众音乐类型，它涵盖了、描述或倡导某些信仰，这使得它在某些听众中可能引起排斥，而对另一些听众则具有巨大的吸引力，这取决于他们的宗教立场。2018年最流行的音乐类型是嘻哈和说唱，这种音乐风格以其分化听众的倾向而臭名昭著。歌手Drake在那一年的销量中无疑产生了影响，其《Scorpion》专辑根据总播放量位列美国最畅销专辑榜首，《Scary Hours》也进入了前十。Drake在北美最成功的音乐巡回演出排行榜中位列第十，其现场音乐会收入达到7900万美元，排名第二的是Jay-Z和Beyoncé，收入达到1.664亿美元，这两位艺术家的音乐也与说唱和嘻哈音乐类型紧密相连。2018年，该类型的其他艺术家，如Kendrick Lamar、Childish Gambino、Cardi B、Travis Scott和Post Malone等，也取得了显著的影响力，其中许多人那一年发布的歌曲获得了数亿次的音频播放量。嘻哈和说唱音乐对音乐产业的冲击巨大，对这一音乐类型的普及产生了深远的影响，该类型的音乐家通常都是多产的词曲作者和活跃的社交媒体用户。同样，该类型的艺术家们或许对创作挑战社会规范的音乐充满热情，而这种热情正是摇滚音乐一直以来所闻名的。