Langley, Dean Top Luminate Mid-Year Songs Chart
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- Ella Langley and Olivia Dean each placed two songs in Luminate's top 10 mid-year chart, with Langley's "Choosin' Texas" at No. 1 (629K sales-equivalent consumption) and "Be Her" at No. 4 (312.52K), and Dean's "Man I Need" at No. 2 (347K) and "So Easy (to Fall in Love)" at No. 10 (268K).
- Langley's "Choosin' Texas" leads the mid-year chart with 629K consumption units, nearly double the No. 2 song, Olivia Dean's "Man I Need" at 347K, based on total sales-equivalent consumption.
- Global on-demand audio streams grew 9.8% year-over-year in the first half of 2026 to 2.8 trillion, with international streams rising 11.8% to 2.0 trillion and U.S. streams up a more modest 4.8% to 732.7 billion.
- Spanish-language music reached a new high of 9.4% of U.S. streams (nearly 1 in 10), pushing English-language consumption to a record low of 87.1% of the U.S. total.
- U.S. CD sales surged 16% to 16.3 million units in the first half of 2026, driven largely by K-pop physical product, though CD sales still grew 6.7% excluding K-pop.
- The Netflix documentary "The Rise of the Red Hot Chili Peppers: Our Brother, Hillel" drove an 11% jump in the band's U.S. streams and an 8% global bump in the week it landed, cited by Luminate as evidence of film/TV-music synergy.
- Luminate CEO Rob Jonas said the 2026 report is the first to combine music with film and television data, reflecting that "the two businesses no longer live separately as they once did."
Why it matters: Two artists with zero 2025 chart presence now hold four of the top 10 slots, reshaping the pop landscape heading into year-end rankings; meanwhile, the 9.4% Spanish-language share marks a structural shift in U.S. listening and the CD format's 16% growth shows physical product isn't dead — it's just K-pop-propelled.
