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\n\tIt\u2019s official: The U.S. is listening to less music in English than ever before. A new midyear report from Luminate found that English-language songs fell to a new low of 87.1 percent of streams in the U.S., from last year\u2019s 88 percent. But what\u2019s just one percentage point, right?\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\tWell, considering the fact that the country is streaming more music than ever before (a whopping total of 732.7 billion streams in 2026), it\u2019s certainly not insignificant. As English-language streams dropped, Spanish-language streams rose to a historic peak of 9.4 percent, accounting for nearly 1 in 10 streams in the U.S., or approximately 68 billion streams. \u201cCasual U.S. listenership of Latin music has hit an all-time high, with 54 percent \u2014 or more than one in two music listeners \u2014 now reporting that they engage with the genre,\u201d Jaime Marconette, Luminate\u2019s vice president of music insights and industry relations, told<\/a> the Associated Press. \u201cLatin music\u2019s cultural footprint is rapidly widening far beyond its traditional core base into the broader American mainstream.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tBad Bunny<\/a> is largely to thank for that. This year, the Puerto Rico superstar\u2019s historic Super Bowl performance<\/a>, which sent conservatives into a frenzy over its Spanish-language focus, drove a record-breaking 2.74 billion on-demand audio streams in the U.S. in a single week. Luminate (which shares a parent company with Rolling Stone<\/em>, Penske Media Corp) also credits m\u00fasica Mexicana from acts like Tito Double P, Peso Pluma<\/a>, Junior H, and Gael Valenzuela with driving this trend.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tAnother big factor is K-pop. Korean music accounted for 1.1 percent of on-demand streams, driven by global icons like BTS<\/a>, though their <\/a>songs incorporate English lyrics as well. That hugely successful group also helped drive other major changes in the nation\u2019s music consumption habits, like an increase in CD sales. <\/p>\n