Bad Bunny and BTS help push U.S. listening beyond English
Luminate’s midyear report says English-language music hit a new streaming low in the U.S. as Spanish and Korean tracks gained ground.
By Poppy Nakagawa · Culture Writer
4 min read
English-language music has slipped to its smallest share yet of U.S. streaming, according to Luminate’s 2026 midyear report, with Spanish-language hits climbing to a record slice of American listening.
The report found that songs in English made up 87.1 percent of U.S. streams in the first half of 2026, down from 88 percent last year. That small-looking drop lands in a year when U.S. listeners generated 732.7 billion streams, making the shift far from minor.
Spanish-language music reached 9.4 percent of U.S. streams, according to Luminate, equal to nearly one in every 10 streams and about 68 billion plays. Jaime Marconette, Luminate’s vice president of music insights and industry relations, told the Associated Press that casual U.S. listening to Latin music has reached a high, with 54 percent of music listeners saying they engage with the genre.
Marconette told the AP that Latin music’s reach is expanding beyond its longtime audience and into the wider U.S. mainstream.
Bad Bunny is one of the biggest names behind the surge, according to Luminate. The Puerto Rican star’s Super Bowl performance this year, centered on Spanish-language music, helped drive 2.74 billion on-demand audio streams in the U.S. in one week, the report said.
Luminate also pointed to música mexicana acts including Tito Double P, Peso Pluma, Junior H and Gael Valenzuela as part of the same shift.
Korean music is also gaining ground. Luminate said Korean-language music accounted for 1.1 percent of on-demand streams, with BTS among the major acts pushing the category, though the group’s songs also include English lyrics.
CDs are having a youth moment
The report also found a bump in CD sales, helped by Gen Z and millennial buyers. CD sales rose 6.7 percent in the first half of 2026, reaching 16.3 million units in the U.S., according to Luminate.
That beat vinyl’s growth rate, which Luminate put at 2.4 percent. The catch: half of Gen Z and millennial CD buyers surveyed by Luminate said they do not own a CD player.
K-pop played a major role in the physical-format boom, according to the report, accounting for nearly 10 percent of the CD-sales increase. Six Korean acts appeared among the 10 bestselling CDs in the U.S.: BTS, Enhypen, Ateez, Cortis, Stray Kids and Tomorrow x Together.
The remaining titles in that top 10 came from Harry Styles, Olivia Rodrigo and Katseye, according to Luminate. The company also linked younger listeners’ buying habits to nostalgia, reporting that 60 percent of Gen Z respondents said they mainly listen to music from the 1990s or earlier, up from 18 percent in 2021.
Hip-hop leads streams as country keeps climbing
R&B and hip-hop, counted together by Luminate, remained the top streaming category in the U.S., accounting for nearly one in four on-demand audio streams. Marconette told the AP that the genre group remains a major commercial force, while its earlier dominance is easing as listening habits spread across more genres.
Country ranked fourth among U.S. streaming genres in the first half of 2026, behind R&B and hip-hop, rock and pop. Luminate counted 63.8 billion on-demand audio streams for country music.
Country’s chart presence also grew. Luminate said country albums made up 20 percent of the Billboard 200 share in the first half of the year, while Morgan Wallen’s 2025 album I’m the Problem ranked among the top albums of 2026 so far.
AI tracks enter the mix
Luminate reported that 54 percent of U.S. musicians have positive or accepting views of generative AI tools in music, compared with 35 percent of nonmusicians. Far fewer musicians said they had used the tools, with 18 percent reporting they had used AI to edit or remix existing music.
AI-made tracks have still drawn listeners. Luminate said Breaking Rust’s “Livin’ on Borrowed Time” had 19 million on-demand audio streams in the U.S., while “Papaoutai (Afro Soul)” by Chill77, Unjaps and Mikeeys reached up to 210 million global streams.
Marconette told the AP that generative tools are changing creative and production work, while individual AI-generated songs have not yet produced a long-term shift in listening behavior.
This story draws on original reporting from Rolling Stone.