Country music is the fastest-growing music genre in Australia, according to a new report from entertainment analytics platform, Luminate.
The report, which has arrived just in time for CMC Rocks, has unveiled some pretty spectacular statistics.
In Australia, Canada, the UK, and Germany, country music support has grown ahead of the industry. While the industry has seen an uptick of 7% in Australia, the overall increase from country music fans is massive at 28% from 2023 to 2024.
In 2023, country music made up 4.9% of listeners’ habits. It increased by another 1% in 2024. Throughout 2024, Australian listeners still listened primarily to rock (22.3%), pop (19.9%), R&B and hip-hop (19%), and all other genres at 32.9%.
With its 28% growth in listenership in Australia, country music dramatically overtook increases in rock (8.7%), Latin (6.4%), and pop (5%) listeners.
In Australia, the top five country music artists in the fourth quarter of 2024 accounted for 34% of all on-demand streams. They are Zach Bryan (10%), Luke Combs (9.5%), Morgan Wallen (7.9%), Chris Stapleton (3.4%), and Jelly Roll (3.1%).
All those artists, except Jelly Roll, have played in Australia, and Chris Stapleton recently embarked on his debut run across the country and New Zealand.
Zach Bryan made his epic Australian debut in December 2023, with demand leading the country music star to perform at Melbourne’s Flemington Racecourse – the venue that holds music festivals such as ULTRA, Laneway, Good Things, and Knotfest.
Meanwhile, Morgan Wallen and Luke Combs have visited Australia on multiple occasions. Combs recently performed record-breaking headline shows in stadiums across the country, becoming the first country artist to do so.
In 2023, Luminate found that Australia was the third-largest market for country music, behind the US and Canada.
You can find Luminate’s 2024 Year-End Report here.
Countrytown brings you Australia’s best country music news, interviews, charts and more every week! This post was authored by Countrytown and originally published on the Countrytown website. It has been re-published with permission.
