SoundCloud Listener Report Highlights the Platform’s Role as a Gen-Z Tastemaker

The trend has been clear in recent years: Listeners are less enthralled with new songs. Current music’s share of ear-time has fallen from 27.8% in 2022 to 27.3% in 2023 to 26.7% last year, according to Luminate. In 2024, listening to catalog albums — releases more than 18 months old — increased by 6.5%, more than twice as fast as consumption of current albums.

Much of the music cued up on streaming services is still relatively recent: Luminate found that tracks released in the last five years account for roughly 50% of on-demand streams in the U.S. Even so, SoundCloud users are much more keenly attuned to the newest releases than the average listener — current music has accounted for more than 46% of plays on the platform in each of the last three years, according to SoundCloud’s latest Music Intelligence Report, an annual run-down of listener behavior which the company is making public for the first time.

The document “highlights some of our unique positions in the industry,” says Wyatt Marshall, the company’s director of music intelligence. “An artist might start on SoundCloud before they go somewhere else. [As a result], you get people coming to listen to new music on SoundCloud, because that’s where it exists first.”

For young listeners, new music discovery is increasingly spread across a variety of short-form video platforms and streaming services; TikTok especially has commanded the conversation in recent years. Still, even “in today’s landscape dominated by TikTok and Instagram, SoundCloud remains a critical launchpad for Gen-Z’s emerging cult favorites,” says Corey Goldglit, manager of A&R at the distribution company Too Lost. “While social media fuels trends, and Spotify fuels hits, SoundCloud continues to be where devoted fans first discover raw, innovative talent like Fakemink, OsamaSon, 1oneam, and Nettspend.”

While SoundCloud is best known for nurturing rappers and electronic producers, it’s adding value in other genres as well: Sean Lewow, co-founder of the label Music Soup, has seen the platform introduce listeners to Waylon Wyatt and Vincent Mason, a pair of rising country artists on his roster. (Music Soup is a joint venture with Interscope Records and Darkroom Records.) Uploads of country and folk music on SoundCloud have risen by more than 50% in the last two years, while streams of these styles rose 15% on SoundCloud in 2024. 

This mirrors the growing interest in these genres in the U.S. and around the world. “These scenes are attracting people [on SoundCloud] who have always been into it,” Marshall says, “but also engaging a new group of people who are discovering these sounds.”

Since SoundCloud artists and users can interact with music in ways beyond just clicking “play” and “skip” — commenting on songs, for example, or sending direct messages to peers — the platform has additional data to parse when trying to map scenes. “We look at social interaction amongst artists as an indicator of affinity,” Marshall explains. “Zooming out from that gives a feel for what shapes a scene.”

And for how scenes meld borrow from and build off each other. Historically, it’s been difficult for U.K. hip-hop to acquire fans en masse outside of its home country — even with other English-speaking listeners. The Music Intelligence Report, however, singles out two sets of British acts “that are building their sound around the U.S. underground while adding a unique English twist;” in the process, they are “drawing listeners from England and beyond.” 

These two groups — the first includes fakemink, Feng, and GhostInnaFurCoat, while the other counts Rico Ace, kwes e, and TeeboFG as members — enjoyed a 71% uptick in streams in the past two years, according to SoundCloud’s data. “In recent months,” the report continues, “tracks from these artists are increasingly showing engagement spikes indicative of future success.”

The Music Intelligence Report identifies other sounds that SoundCloud believes are poised to become more popular in 2025: Vinahouse, which Marshall describes as a “hyper-speed, really energetic” style of club music that’s popular in Vietnam; Brazilian plugg, the latest mutation of a hip-hop sub-genre that has thrived on SoundCloud for several years; and shoegaze, which has also been enjoying a revival on TikTok. 

New rappers continue to see success on the platform as well. The third most-played account created on SoundCloud last year belonged to BabyChiefDoIt, who trailed behind only VonOff1700 and Raq Baby. BabyChiefDoIt signed a deal with Artist Partner Group in August, and Izzy Elefant, the label’s head of streaming, calls the platform an “essential” part of the rapper’s rise. 

SoundCloud’s features, especially “real-time comments and direct messaging, create an interactive experience that sets it apart from other streaming services,” Elefant continues. “These tools allow BabyChiefDoIt to engage with listeners directly, receive immediate feedback, and foster a sense of community.”

In a splintered landscape for music discovery, Lewow adds, it’s important to “leave no stone unturned.” SoundCloud “has opened our artists up to an audience that they might not have found otherwise.”