Reggae music is the tenth most listened genre around the world according to IFPI’s Engaging With Music Report 2022. The music report from the globally respected music measurement organization is based on a survey of more than 33 thousand respondents from several countries.
The findings placed Reggae below genres like Country which comes in at No. 9 and Soundtracks which come in a No. 8.
Pop, Rock and Hip Hop took the top three positions respectively with Dance/Electronic , Latin, Classic/Opera , and R&B coming in at number 4,5,6 and 7 respectively.
Afrobeats did not make the global top ten list even as spin-off versions like Afro-fusion and Afro-pop genres gain popularity in the US with artist like Burna Boy, WIZKID and Tems making weekly appearances on the Billboard Afrobeats singles chart. However, Afrobeats’ popularity in its home country Nigeria, places it at No. 1 among the most listened music in that country.
Over 500 different genres were named by at least one person as the music they typically listen to with other non-popular genres mentioned like dangdut, disco polo and sertanejo.
Bob Marley is the most popular reggae artist and his album Legend: The Best Of Bob Marley & The Wailers has been streamed more than 3.5 billion times in the US alone according to the latest 2022 data obtained by World Music Views from our correspondence at Billboard’s Sales Tracker Luminate.
Note: An IFPI representative told WMV after this article was published that Jamaica was not one of the countries surveyed for this report and currently where is “no data available for that market specifically.”
Electronic Dance Music (EDM)
In April WMV also reported that Electronic Dance Music (EDM) made more than $4 billion dollars in global revenue per year according to the Ibiza International Music Summit (IMS) business report.
The data presented at this year’s Ibiza IMS showed that annual revenue from Las Vegas shows alone now contributes $600m. Global Dance Music Industry Grew 71% In the Last Year and Web3 was a major industry growth area, with 64% of all identified music NFTs issued by electronic artists.
Web3, Metaverse, NFTs, Blockchain, DAOs and tech are said to have played key roles according to the report, showcasing the adoption of new ways for artists and brands to build and monetize relationships directly with fans. Electronic artists also pioneered NFTs for digital collectibles
David Boyle, the head of London-based research, data and analytics firm Audience Strategies said, “The industry is buzzing,” as he presented the report, “I heard tons of excitement in my interviews with artists, promoters, agents and labels in the last month.
Partly because, as predicted last year, electronic music is back once again. Led by market share gains in the U.K. and Germany, we found growth in 16 countries as the joy and energy of electronic music soundtracks the world’s post-pandemic recovery.”
Key findings from the report were;
- The Dance/Electronic U.S. Market Share Is Stable.
In the United States, dance/electronic music makes up 3.3% of total recorded
music volume, (a 3% rise over last year.) The genre reached an all-time U.S.
high of 4% in 2016, the height of the EDM boom. As last year’s “IMS Report”
predicted, hip-hop’s U.S. market share dropped in 2021, hitting 27.7% after
reaching 28.2% in 2020.
- Streaming Was Up Across All Music Genres.
Streaming growth accelerated in 2021, up 24% year over year, compared with
19% growth in 2019-20 and 22% in 2018-19. This growth was powered by
existing platforms as well as new platforms and new monetization of existing
platforms including TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, Peloton, Apple Fitness,
Amazon Music Unlimited on Echo. Additionally, for the first time in 20 years,
physical sales returned to growth in 2021, with vinyl sales up 51% and CD sales
up 9%.
EDM is now a part of the mainstream music industry especially in Europe, but as he genre struggled to make it into mainstream in the 90s it fused with the sub-genres techno music, house music, hardcore rave (hardstyle), dub, trance, and drum and bass which helped propel it into popularity.
From IFPI’s Engaging Music Report 2020 EDM (Dance/Electronic) is the tenth most listened genre in India.
DJs and artists earnings were up $400 million — that’s 111% — over 2020, largely due to the return to live music and shows in 2021.
Dancehall is also one of the original forms of electronic dance music and has contributed to the EDM industry’s revenues, but there were no major dancehall-EDM hits or Jamaican shows last year.
Events like Colour Fest, Electric Butterfly Music Festival, were not held, and stalled Paradise Lost Festival was set to generate billions but have not managed to stage an event in a couple years thus the island missed out on the genres global popularity.
Among the top paid DJs and artists, Diplo who has been involved in Jamaica’s EDM development is at No. 7 but there are no dancehall or Jamaican DJs, even though the report boast of improvement in diversity. The report found that representation and demand for people of color in the “DJ Mag Top 100” — an annual ranking of the world’s 100 most popular electronic artists — grew in 2021.
Damian Marley’s Make It Bun Dem featuring Skrillix and Sean Paul’s One Wine and Come On To Me, add to the modern dancehall-EDM catalogue.
Charly Black and Gyptian have also found success with EDM, via both remixes and original tracks.
Black’s “Party Animal”, Busy’s “Bumaye” and just about any Sean Paul hit can be heard at NBA basketball games across the US.
Billboard.com tells the story of how EDM is as Jamaican as Ackee And Saltfish. One which suggests that successful EDM DJs and events are actually the offspring of King Tubby and his pioneering work.
“EDM DJs who dissect and otherwise manipulate their tracks while playing live, are following an innovation established by the brilliant Jamaican engineer, sound system owner-selector, the late King Tubby (born Osbourne Ruddock). While working as a disc cutter for Duke Reid and using a two-track recording console, Tubby eliminated vocal and instrumental segments, sometimes stripping a song down to a single thunderous bass line – which he embellished with echo and reverb effects – in a process called dub. Because of his expertise with electronics, Tubby was able to recreate the dub effects live on his sound system, something no one had ever heard, making his set the most popular of the early 70s,” -excerpt from Billboard’s report.
