Ongoing History Daily: Music industry facts, part 1

Here are a few music industry facts that could blow your mind.

1. More than 1.2 trillion songs are now being streamed worldwide every year.
2. The global music biz is valued at around US$20 billion. Spotify on its own is valued more than twice as much.
3. Musicians have shorter lifespans than regular people. A study indicated that musicians die younger and have higher rates of suicide, homicide, and accidents.
4. The average length of a song in 2019 was three minutes and 42 seconds, which is almost a minute shorter than songs were in 1995.
5. CDs made albums longer. When we bought music on vinyl and cassette, the average number of tracks per album was 12.5. When CDs came along, that increased to 15.8 songs.

More facts next time.

Friday’s post was on the spooked horses of Lollapalooza.

And don’t forget to check out my podcast The Ongoing History of New Music where you listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google, Stitcher, or wherever you get your on-demand audio.