Music discovery trends: where do fans find new music?

I’ve often said, “You only get one chance to make a first impression.” With more music than ever being uploaded and distributed every day, those first impressions can certainly contribute to making or breaking a music career, and if that’s the case – as I assert it is – understanding where potential fans will find your music, and how to make sure it sounds the best it can when they do, cannot be undervalued.

In this article we’ll examine the latest results of a large, ongoing survey from Edison Research, a leading firm in quantitative and qualitative research, to help figure out where you should be spending your energy when it comes to releasing your music. We’ll also consider tools at your disposal to make sure your music will sound exactly the way you want when potential fans hear it for the first time.
 

And start getting your tracks ready for release by using  RX .

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How are people discovering music in 2024 (and why should I care)?

Unsurprisingly, a lot of today’s music discovery happens online. However, what did surprise me – at least a little – was the degree to which word of mouth and AM/FM radio play a role. I was also a little surprised by the rather stark difference age-demographics made in certain categories.

Both of these realizations came while I was reviewing the data from the latest Edison Research Music Discovery Report, and they got me thinking about how I need to be treating music I work on for my clients as well as mastering trends as a whole. Now, I want to share the conclusions of those musings with you, but first we need to understand a little bit about how music discovery is happening right now, and why it matters.

We’ll get into some of the charts and graphs in a moment that may look similar to the recent mastering trends report – you didn’t think you could get rid of the data nerd that easily did you? – but before we do, let me pitch why I think this is important.

In the “old days” there were arguably fewer places to go to hear new music. Certainly, word of mouth and radio have been around for ages, but beyond that you pretty much had to head on down to your local music shop to pick up the latest CD, cassette, or, before that, record. As distribution mediums, those had a degree of consistency and predictability to them. These days though, we have numerous online distribution platforms to contend with, each using their own codecs and distribution loudness standards, both of which can change over time.

As such it’s important to know two things: 1) where your target audience is most likely to hear your music, and 2) what your music will sound like on that platform next to other similar music.

What are the most common ways people discover new music?

When we ask, “How do people discover music?,” there are at least a few ways we can frame it. In an effort to tease out which methods are used by the greatest number of people, even if not a majority of the time, we might ask, “What are all the ways you discover new music?” This is the first way we’ll examine the data. After that we’ll also ask, “What’s the main way you find new music?”

But first, one last caveat about the data. This data was gathered by Edison Research in January of 2024 via a national survey of 1,086 random participants aged 12 or older. That may not sound like that many people compared to the U.S. population of over 345 million, but it’s enough to give us 99% confidence that the results are within ±4% accuracy. However, it does also mean that strictly speaking, the information presented here is relevant primarily in the United States.

So, that said, what music discovery methods are utilized by the greatest number of people?

This shows us that word of mouth is still huge, coming in at 82%. Not only that, it’s up 14% compared to 2016 – more on that later. After that, YouTube also has a commanding share at 70% of all people using it for discovery at least some of the time, followed by AM/FM radio and Spotify at 50% and 48%, respectively.

However, if we filter down to a few different age groups and sort accordingly, the picture changes a bit.

The influence of age on music discovery

Hopefully it’s no surprise that different generations utilize technology differently, and the data paints a clear picture of this. When we sort by the prevalence in the 12–34 crowd, word of mouth retains its place in first, but nearly everything else gets a good shakeup.

Spotify emerges as a dominant player at 68%, followed closely by socials like Instagram and TikTok, and – somewhat surprisingly – AM/FM radio even outpaces YouTube by 6%. So what if we sort by prevalence in the 35–54 crowd? Again the picture changes.

Here, after word of mouth, YouTube is the major player at 75%, followed by radio – 61% – and Spotify – 39%. We even see Amazon Music make an appearance, supplanting Apple Music and nearly equal with Spotify at 38%.

So what? Why does this all matter? Well, what it clearly demonstrates is that knowing your target audience is important and should change where you focus your energy. Maybe that’s energy in terms of marketing, or maybe it’s energy in terms of mastering and delivery. I can’t claim to know that much about the former, but we’ll definitely dig into the latter a bit later on.

It’s also worth mentioning that age isn’t the only demographic that plays a major role; so do factors like race and sex. Examining all the differences is beyond the scope of this article, but I’ll encourage you to check out the full Music Discovery Report for those details, if you’re interested.

How have prevalence trends changed over time

Lastly, before we move on to single-platform dominance, I think it’s worth looking at how prevalence has changed over time, mainly because it may give us some idea of where things are headed. This next chart shows how platforms that existed both in 2016 and today have changed in prevalence over time.

Now, there’s no guarantee that these trends will continue or if so for how long – everything has its ebb and flow – but the growth of Spotify is foreshadowing what we’ll see when we look at single-platform dominance.

What single platform is most used to discover new music?

Now, let’s change our perspective from “all the ways people discover music” to “the one main way people discover music.” When we do this, one platform shoots to the forefront.

Keep in mind here that “Other” comprises at least 9 unique sources, with none of them contributing more than about 5%. Spotify comes in at 18%, just eking out word of mouth and YouTube, both at 16%. However, you may have noticed that there are some large discrepancies between the orange and blue bars for several sources. What’s up with that?

The influence of age on platform usage

As it did with overall prevalence, age plays a major factor when looking at primary discovery sources – arguably moreso. When we limit to the 12–34 age group and sort by primary discovery source popularity, here’s the picture that emerges.

Spotify absolutely runs away with it at 32%, outperforming even the “other” conglomerate. Not only that, we see TikTok hold its ground against “other,” both landing at 16%. One other point I’d like to underscore is that for at least a handful of years the conventional wisdom has been that YouTube is the number one spot for music discovery, but here we can see that depending on how we ask the question and what demographic we look at, that may or may not be true.

Ok, what about the primary source of discovery for the 35–54 crowd?

There’s YouTube, back in the lead at 26%, but notably only 1 point ahead of “other.” Further, word of mouth and radio still play a bigger role than any specific music streaming platform. The interesting thing to me here is that there’s a clear divergence between YouTube and Spotify amongst those two demographic groups.

How has primary source usage changed over time

Ok, before we talk about how you should approach mastering depending on where your audience is most likely to find your music, let’s take a look at primary source changes since 2016.

There are a few interesting takeaways here as well:

1. Although word of mouth is reported as a source of music discovery 14% more in 2024 than it was in 2016, 7% fewer consider it a primary source.

2. Despite the younger generations’ reliance on Spotify over YouTube as a primary source, YouTube has still grown by 2%.

Ok, onward!

How should I be mastering to take advantage of music discovery trends?

If you’re looking for comprehensive tips on how to master for streaming platforms, we have an entire article dedicated to that. Here, instead, I want to focus on a slightly different idea: listen like your audience will. That might seem like an obvious or simplistic idea, but it’s amazing how often it’s neglected. So what do I mean by that? It really comes down to two things: normalization and codec.

Does loudness normalization matter?

Some people will tell you that you should be mastering to some reference level – usually -14 LUFS integrated. Others will tell you that normalization doesn’t matter and you should just get your songs as loud as you can before things totally fall apart.

I feel they’re both wrong, each missing important points.

To understand why, it’s helpful to know a little about how normalization is being utilized by end-users in 2024. On some platforms – like YouTube – normalization is always on and song, rather than album based. On other platforms – like Spotify – normalization can be turned on and off by the end-user and sometimes even changed in level. So, when possible, are end-users turning off loudness normalization?

Mostly, no.

While Spotify isn’t in the habit of sharing very specific data points, a contact there was able to share some very useful ballpark numbers that illustrate what I think are important points.

• Roughly 85% of users, give or take a few percent, leave normalization set to its default of on and “normal” (e.g. -14 LUFS).
• Further, these are active users, not ones who made a free account once, left the settings alone, and no longer use the service. I mention this because I frequently see claims that the number of users who leave normalization alone is overreported due to inactive users. Not so!
• Very few users actively change the normalization based on their listening environment.
• Of the ways people listen to Spotify, the web player – the only client that doesn’t support normalization – is the least utilized behind the mobile and desktop apps in that order.

So, does loudness normalization matter? Yes, absolutely. If you’re not sure how your music will sound at -14 LUFS you’re missing something important! However, it’s also true that how it will sound without any normalization is important at least some of the time. And here’s the good news: there’s no reason you can’t have – and audition – both!

Should I worry about codecs?

I used to have a colleague who loved to say, “trust but verify.” This is similar: “check, but don’t fret.” Yes, it’s a great idea to check what your music will sound like after passing through the codec(s) for any given streaming platform, but keep in mind that:

1. Codecs are always changing and being improved, and there’s no guarantee that the codec one platform uses today will be the same one they use in the future.

2. Many platforms use multiple codecs and bitrates depending on factors like playback client, network connection strength, and more. It is absolutely impossible to control or optimize for all of those.

Ok, so what’s the bottom-line, practical advice here for both loudness normalization and codecs? Glad you asked.

Check your masters with Streaming Preview and Loudness Optimize in RX

RX 11 has a couple great new modules that make checking exactly the things we’ve been talking about quick and easy. Here are the steps I suggest to make the most out of them.

1. Figure out what platform matters most to you based on the information above – or in the full Music Discovery Report – and head there for a listening session. If there are options to turn off loudness normalization and listen to a lossless version, start there. If not, jump to step 3.

2. Find some music that might serve as good reference tracks for your material – in a similar style or genre and could ideally live in a playlist together. Again, with normalization off, listen to your master and listen to the other songs. Happy? Great! Give yourself a pat on the back. Not so happy? It may be more OK than you think. Let’s file away that feeling and come back to it in a moment.

3. Now, turn loudness normalization back on on your streaming platform and if you were listening to a lossless stream and want to check the impacts of a codec, turn that on to the platform’s default as well. Next, load your song in RX 11, open the Streaming Preview module, select an appropriate preset based on your streaming platform, and use the Compare or Render option to hear the result. Listen to this next to the other songs you picked on the streaming platform and evaluate how you feel now.

Chances are, if you were happy with the unnormalized comparison, you’ll be happy here too. You may even find that if you were worried that your song sounded a little quiet or thin when unnormalized, you’re happy with how it sounds in comparison now that normalization has been implemented. If so, great! Give yourself a pat on the back. This is the way the vast majority of people will hear it. If you’re still not happy, it’s on to step 4.

4. If you still feel like your song is a bit quiet with normalization turned on, we may be able to do something about that. If you’re unhappy for other reasons, unfortunately that’s outside the scope of this article – but we have plenty of others to help you out. Open up Loudness Optimize, let it scan your song, and check the % Measured number   in the upper left of the window.

Get your music heard in 2024 (and beyond)!

Alright, let’s bring this puppy home. What are some key takeaways from both the data and what we know about how people listen to music?

First and foremost, know your target audience. With such large differences in discovery habits between age groups, races, and other demographic differences, understanding your audience will allow you to more effectively focus your energy on everything from publicity, to sonics.

Second, once you match your audience’s discovery preferences to a music source or platform, make sure you understand what your music will sound like there. This should include both loudness normalized and unnormalized contexts – although the normalized context is arguably more important in today’s music ecosystem.

So there you have it. My data-driven top tips for getting your music noticed in 2024 and beyond. Good luck, and happy discovery!

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