Pop still the biggest music genre, but retail sales slide 7.6% in 2013

New research published by the Ovum news service Music & Copyright reveals that the two most popular music genres in terms of retail sales in the world are pop and rock. According to the annual genre study conducted by Music & Copyright, consumer spending on the two genres accounted for 56.7% of total spending in 2013. Retail sales of pop music stood at $6.8bn, and retail sales of rock music totaled $5.8bn (see Figure 1).

Although the two genres dominate global recorded-music sales, there were differences in their performance last year. Sales of pop music slid 7.6%, while the rock-music decline was 3.1%. Dance music and rap/hip-hop were the only two genres to see growth in retail sales: Dance sales increased 4%, to $1.3bn, while rap/hip-hop sales rose 1.4%, to $1.2bn. Jazz was the biggest loser for the second consecutive year, with sales down 10.1%.

Despite its fall in sales, pop remained the world’s most popular genre, accounting for 30.6% of global retail sales (see Figure 2), although this share was down, from 31.7% in 2012. Rock’s share increased, from 25.7% to 26.1%. Dance music scored the biggest share increase, rising from 5.5% to 6%.