While Bad Bunny’s Un Verano Sin Ti continues to cross the charts, the new album becomes the main catalyst for the Latin genre’s streaming thrust. In a historic turnaround, “Un Verano Sin Ti” captured 18% of all Latin American on-demand streams and pushed the category’s streaming market share beyond the country for the first time ever.
Last week (ending May 12) was the highest-flowing Latino week to date with over 1.8 billion weekly ODA streams, according to Luminate via painting.
This number exceeds any total weekly flow for the country type so far. That means that, over the course of the week, at least, the Latin genre jumped to take the country’s place as the fourth most in-demand streaming genre in the United States.
Since its release on May 6, the Puerto Rican singer has broken the record for the largest week of any Latin music album, achieving 274,000 equivalent album units acquired in the United States.
“Un Verano Sin Ti” also marks the second time an all-Spanish album has topped the Billboard 200 — and was also the first by Bad Bunny for his 2020 album, “El Último Tour del Mundo.”
Another victory for Latin music this week: For the first time ever, two Spanish-language albums reached the top ten on the Billboard 200 simultaneously. Furthermore, Eslabon Armado’s “Nostalgia” debuted at number nine on the chart, commemorating the first time a regional Mexican album hit the top ten.
The massive accomplishments of Bad Bunny and Eslabon represent the current evolution of Latin audience listening trends. According to Luminate via Billboard, Latin gained more than any other genre last year, increasing its market share to 5.39% (up 9% from 4.95% of the market in 2019).
In contrast, country music saw its market share rise slightly from 7.91% in 2019 to 8.09% in 2021. Where Latin growth is driven by live streaming, the country has experienced slower streaming growth.
While the massive bump of Latin music in recent chart week has been largely driven by the success of one album – Bad Bunny’s – country music has been somewhat dependent on one album for more modest gains in the past year and a half, which has been pushed to the limit. Big by the smash hit of Morgan Whalen “Dangerous: The Double Album”.
With Wallen’s album inevitably waning in its continuing influence, and with a possible upcoming country movie (Luke Combs’ June 24 release “Growin’ Up”) more than a month away, Latin music has a good chance of holding the new number four spot. Broadcast status in the coming weeks, if not months.
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