This story is part of Billboard\u2019s music technology newsletter \u2018Machine Learnings.\u2019 Sign up for \u2018Machine Learnings\u2019 and other Billboard newsletters for free\u00a0here.<\/p>\n
\tWhat was the song of the summer for 2025?\u00a0<\/p>\n
\tIf you look at different news outlets, social media sites and streaming platforms, you\u2019ll get a lot of answers \u2014 but very little consensus. \u201cOrdinary\u201d by Alex Warren came in at No. 1 on Billboard\u2019s Song of the Summer chart. \u201cLove Me Not\u201d by Ravyn Lenae was listed on Spotify\u2019s editorial list as their No. 1. \u201cHold My Hand\u201d by Jess Glynne, due to the song\u2019s use in the background of a popular audio meme called \u201cJet2Holiday,\u201d earned the title on TikTok. Nylon said the summer would \u201cgo down in infamy\u201d for having no clear winner; Pitchfork noted it\u2019s a \u201cyear without a consensus favorite\u201d; and The New York Times summed it up best: There are just \u201ctoo many niches.\u201d<\/p>\n
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\tBut it\u2019s not a particularly infamous year, as Nylon put it \u2014 it\u2019s part of the new norm. The idea of a musical monoculture is losing power, and there\u2019s data to prove it. According to a Billboard analysis based on Luminate\u2019s midyear reports, the market share of music\u2019s biggest streaming hits has shrunk significantly over the last 10 years. A decade ago, in 2016, the top 10 on-demand audio streaming songs in the U.S. at midyear held 0.16% of the total number of on-demand audio streams overall. In 2025, the top 10 streaming songs in the U.S. hold less than one third of that mark, at 0.05% of the overall market share. As streaming matures, recommendation algorithms improve and listening habits are increasingly driven further away from the mainstream, it\u2019s becoming harder and harder to release a song that hits true ubiquity.<\/p>\n
\tWhen taking into account the rise of TikTok as a destination for music consumption and discovery, the portrait of what is considered \u201cmainstream\u201d becomes even more confused. At the time the platform took off, around 2019, songs that did well on TikTok largely translated over to streaming success, but based on the divergence between TikTok\u2019s own midyear top songs and that seen on the charts, it increasingly feels like what music works on social media isn\u2019t necessarily the same as what works on streaming.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\tMark Mulligan of MIDiA Research predicted this in 2024 with the \u201cbifurcation theory,\u201d arguing that social media sites, like TikTok, \u201cwill emerge as a parallel alternative to streaming, rather than simply a feeder for it.\u201d And the research firm\u2019s new report, released Sept. 16, further underscores this, noting that \u201cTikTok is driving more TikTok consumption rather than streaming consumption,\u201d and that close to three-quarters of users who follow artists on TikTok do not explore the artist\u2019s music off platform.<\/p>\n
\tThe trend away from the mainstream does not bode well for those in the business of building superstars, or for superstars themselves. In a recent TikTok, Lizzo addressed this problem, saying, \u201cEvery major artist \u2014 from Lady Gaga to Drake \u2014 has dropped albums this year, and yet everyone is saying there\u2019s no song of the summer\u2026 No one can serve the masses anymore.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\tRelated\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\tAlex Warren\u2019s \u2018Ordinary\u2019 Is No. 1 on Billboard\u2019s Songs of the Summer Chart for\u00a02025\t\t<\/p>\n
\tAt a time when practically every song in recorded music history is available for $11.99 a month, music fans no longer feel confined to listening to any particular song. Yesterday\u2019s radio DJs, record store owners and late night show bookers have been replaced by an endless buffet of every song imaginable. But we still need some way to make sense of it all, and that\u2019s where algorithms come in, pushing us further into the niches or back to older \u201ccatalog\u201d songs (songs over 18 months old) of which we\u2019re already fond.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\tThere are also more songs released every day now than at any other time in history (around 100,000 songs per day, according to Luminate). With this in mind, it is unsurprising that, from time to time, a definitive Song of the Summer remains elusive, and whatever tops the charts might not be on everyone\u2019s radar.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\tThis idea of fragmentation is not specific to music, of course; it\u2019s something that has seeped into nearly every facet of life online. There was once a handful of network TV shows everyone was watching; now Netflix and YouTube offer endless options. There were once a few trusted news sources to consume; now there are countless online publications, Substack writers, and influencers offering the same information, often with a spin. Consensus politics is breaking apart before our very eyes. In a time of great choice, it seems we all get decision fatigue, often clinging to the comfort of what we already know and believe.<\/p>\n
\tThough the last decade has seen listeners driven further into their own algorithmic rabbit holes, the overall total of U.S. on-demand audio streams grew steadily year-over-year from 2016 to 2025. This benefitted large music companies \u2014 like Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group and (of course) Spotify \u2014 which all went public during this period, in part, due to the good fortunes and growth brought by the medium. The predictability of streaming returns is also a reason why the appetite for the investment in music catalogs has soared. Even though investing in new artists is notoriously risky, the music catalog market for older songs is considered by many on Wall Street to be a stable asset with which to park one\u2019s money.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\tRelated\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\tSummer Songs 1958-2025: The Top 10 Tunes of\u00a0Each\u00a0Summer\t\t<\/p>\n
\tBut now the music industry faces a dilemma \u2014 most Americans who want a streaming subscription already have one. According to the RIAA, U.S. subscription revenue growth fell to 5.3% in 2024 from 10.6% in 2023, and growth in subscribers fell to 3.3% from 5.7%. A similar slowdown can also be seen in other mature markets, like the U.K. It\u2019s why companies like Spotify or UMG will often point to their growth strategies in emerging markets, like India or Latin America, on earnings calls to soothe investors\u2019 anxieties.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\tBut it remains to be seen how much value can be extracted from music listeners in countries with less spending power. Music subscription prices in developing nations are listed as far lower than in the U.S., for example, and thus, the royalty rates paid to artists from these countries\u2019 streams are also lower. For services, the costs to publicize their product in new markets is high, and the potential gains might be low. <\/p>\n
\tSimultaneously, while the top 10 streaming songs are losing market share, the top songs on the Billboard Hot 100 (which weights popularity based on a mix of sales, streaming and radio) are experiencing increasingly slow turnover. \u201cLose Control\u201d by Teddy Swims, for example, is still in the top 10 on the Hot 100 this week and has been on the chart for a record breaking 109 weeks and counting. \u201cLose Control\u201d and other big songs are lasting Hot 100 hits \u2014 and yet they represent an increasingly small piece of the streaming pie than they would have a decade ago.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\tRelated\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t2025 Midyear Record Label Market Share: REPUBLIC Leads, Interscope Stays Hot, Atlantic Inches\u00a0Up\t\t<\/p>\n
\tWhere is this all heading? The mainstream will continue to become more diffuse, although there will always be a rare song that still reaches near-total ubiquity. Thankfully for hitmakers, most people aren\u2019t crate diggers, and they want someone (or something) to tell them what to listen to, but the big hits will continue to get a smaller piece of overall market share and will be harder to come by as listeners become increasingly tribal. Radio, once the marker for a true hit song, will continue to become less relevant to younger listeners.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\tThose in the business of superstars, however, like major music companies, have not taken this lying down. Through savvy tactics like acquiring artist services and distribution companies, and forming joint ventures, the majors have managed to capture this diffusion while offloading work and risk from their balance sheets. Universal chairman\/CEO Lucian Grainge has also used his power to encourage a number of streaming services to revamp their royalty models, starting in 2023, to pay what he called \u201cprofessional artists\u201d better and redirect money away from the longest part of the long tail.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\tIn the future, anticipate more growth in more niche genres, less market share for top hits and majors playing the volume game \u2014 and, presumably, less consensus over the Song of the Summer. Because, as Lizzo put it, \u201cIt\u2019s not because the music [being released today\u2019] isn\u2019t incredible. It\u2019s because of the way that the algorithm is set up.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This story is part of Billboard\u2019s music technology newsletter \u2018Machine Learnings.\u2019 Sign up for \u2018Machine Learnings\u2019 and other<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3035,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3034","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sincategoria"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clasicosnoticias.com.ar\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3034","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clasicosnoticias.com.ar\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clasicosnoticias.com.ar\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clasicosnoticias.com.ar\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clasicosnoticias.com.ar\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3034"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.clasicosnoticias.com.ar\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3034\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clasicosnoticias.com.ar\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3035"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clasicosnoticias.com.ar\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clasicosnoticias.com.ar\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clasicosnoticias.com.ar\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}