Sir Lucian Grainge has been the king of the hill since taking charge of
UMG in 2012, and this year is no different as Uni posts 38.1% in overall share near the end of the third quarter. But
Sony’s hot streak, which has seen a series of bumps in both current and overall share, is nearing three years unabated, with
Rob Stringer’s company rising north of 27% in both metrics YTD.
WMG is holding steady at 18.8% in
Robert Kyncl’s first year at the helm.
UMG’s two juggernauts,
John Janick’s
Interscope Geffen A&M and
Monte Lipman’s
Republic, have been slinging deep bombs like
Mahomes and
Hurts, and the lead in the overall standings has been changing from week to week as a result. As of week 37, it’s IGA with 9.6%, a tenth of a point above Republic—but in the vibrant and meaningful current sector, Monte’s squad is making history, racking up a stunning 12.4% of the market, nearly three percentage points above the field. Just 233k units separate Republic and Interscope in the overall marketshare race as both hit 60m units YTD, so it’s possible we could see Republic, boasting upcoming albums by
Drake and
Taylor Swift, capturing both crowns at year’s end.
This clash of the titans is playing out against the fascinating backdrop of a marketplace in flux, as country and Latin acts seize increasing chunks of mainstream real estate, while the sound of guitars is getting louder thanks to mold-breakers like
Warner’s
Zach Bryan (with the #11 album YTD and his self-titled sophomore set climbing) and
Mercury/Republic’s
Noah Kahan (#41). Rock may not be back, but a new breed of rocking singer-songwriters like these two and
Mercury Nashville’s
Chris Stapleton—whose fifth album,
Higher, hits 11/10—are reshaping Gen Z tastes and cracking the door. This diversity of connecting talent means there’s less room on the charts for long-dominant hip-hop, though the giants of the genre remain as potent as ever.
Let’s look at this decade’s defining superstars: Republic’s incomparable Swift, with her nine (!) Top 50 albums,
Big Loud/Mercury’s massive
Morgan Wallen (who has the year’s #1, #4 and #31 LPs),
Rimas/
The Orchard’s world-conquering
Bad Bunny (#7),
Columbia’s wildly popular
Harry Styles (#20),
Parkwood/Columbia’s
RENAISSANCE woman
Beyoncé (#26),
OVO/Republic’s Drake (#10 and #27),
XO/Republic’s
The Weekend (#19, #41),
pgLang/Top Dawg/
Aftermath/Interscope’s
Kendrick Lamar (#40, #46) and
Darkroom/Interscope’s preternaturally gifted
Billie Eilish—for starters. But Top Dawg/
RCA’s ascending
SZA (#2),
Geffen’s
Olivia Rodrigo (#29, with her new
GUTS rocketing upward),
Epic’s returning
Travis Scott (#8),
Boominati/Republic’s
Metro Boomin (#5) and Bryan are also in the mix, and all possess distinctive voices. Collectively, this field of artists has established a wide-open marketplace that increasingly rejects the cookie-cutter, hit-cloning approach of so much contemporary A&R in favor of originality, genres be damned. Visionary artists tend to be discovered by visionary talent scouts.
New blood is coursing through the country genre, whose conventions are being transformed by streaming, hip-hop beats and game-changers like Oklahoma’s Bryan,
Broken Bow’s tatted
Jelly Roll and bell-bottomed
Lainey Wilson and Big Loud’s
STEM-distribbed country-rocker
HARDY (#43). These relative newcomers are rubbing elbows with
Bailey Zimmerman (#18), who’s leading the pack at
Ben Kline and
Cris Lacy’s
Warner Music Nashville (whose acts contribute to WMG’s 25.8%
in country current marketshare);
River House/
Columbia Nashville’s
Luke Combs (#13, #30, #50), the biggest hitmaker at
Randy Goodman’s
Sony Music Nashville (16.2% in overall share); and Stapleton, the flagship artist of
Cindy Mabe’s
UMG Nashville (16.8% in overall), whose two new tracks hew closer to
Tom Petty and
Al Green than to, say,
Kenny Chesney. UMG’s big slice of the country pie is primarily attributable to Wallen, who puts Republic at #3 with 25.4%—but let’s hope Monte doesn’t start coming to the office in chaps and a cowboy hat. WMG’s #2 standing is partially attributable to Bryan, an inspired inking by
Aaron Bay-Schuck.
Country has 8.8% of the overall market, a full percentage point over this time last year, rising by 12.8%, while Latin is at 6.9%, compared to 6.4% in 2022 and 5.4% at the end of 2021—five months before the release of Bunny’s
Un Verano Sin Ti—a 27.8% jump.
Sony is killing it in the Latin current competition with more than half the market at 50.5%. The Orchard itself is at 26.7%, led by
Double P/
Prajin’s música Mexicana trailblazer
Peso Pluma—another big score for EVP
Jason Pascal following his Bunny pickup—while
Afo Verde’s
Sony Latin sits at 19.9 in current share. UMG’s 26% share is paced by
Jesús López’s
UMLE at 22.6% overall.
Alejandro Duque’s
Warner Latina, with 9.2% in current, has the lion’s share of WMG’s 10.7%. Janick’s recently launched IGA Latin division, based in Miami and led by former Sony Latin exec
Nir Seroussi, is in play, and Colombian star
KAROL G is poised to make her move.
The 2020s are gradually morphing into something quite different from what’s come before. The decade is still too young to classify, of course, but nearly four years in, it's already quite distinct—part stylistic petri dish, part global melting pot.
