Following up on a comprehensive look at the U.S. music industry in 2014, Nielsen has released its year-in-review for our neighbors to the north. Canadian listeners streamed more than 6 billion songs in just the second half of 2014. Streaming had some strong genre-based preferences; for instance, R&B and hip-hop accounted for 21% of on-demand streaming, but just 12% of digital downloads. EDM and Latin music also showed inclinations toward on-demand listening over downloads.
Total album sales across formats dropped for the third consecutive year, this time falling 5% from 2013. Digital album sales inched up to 39.3% of the total, compared with 39.1% in the previous year. Track sales on digital platforms declined for the first time since Nielsen started following the metric.