The Q1 report from TuneCore, itself a music distribution company that allows its artists to retain all of their income from digital streaming and downloads, also recorded an 83% increase in overall music streams in 2018.
The news comes to bolster a fact known by many in the industry, including Megadeth’s Dave Mustaine, who last year voiced his frustration over the lack of Grammy Awards open to Heavy Metal bands.
In an interview on American Radio, Mustaine said, “I joined the Grammy chapter because we have one metal category and I think they’ve got a dozen polka categories… So 2020, we’re fighting — we’re getting all of the metal labels that we know, we’re trying to get them all together to petition the Grammys to give us another metal category”.
And the year ahead is looking good again for metal-heads, with new releases from Tool, Slipknot, Megadeth themselves, Korn, Anthrax, and more due out in 2019. Grammy event organisers may soon have to face the music.
Other notable growths reported from TuneCore include the 146% increase in streaming growth in Africa, with Morroco and South Africa leading the way with 243% and 125% increases respectively.
Oceania saw a 38% growth, making the region the third biggest growers of digital streaming in the world.
Asia’s 52% increase sees them as the second biggest growth region, boosted by the influence of J-Pop and K-Pop which had 133% and 58% respective increases.
Find out more over at Tunecore.
