Christian Music, ‘Recession Pop’ surge in the US

There are a few music trends that are surging in 2025 that might surprise you.

According to Luminate’s 2025 Midyear Report, which was released Wednesday, more music is being streamed than ever before but growth has slowed. It also shows that there’s been a resurgence in Christian music and “recession pop” in the U.S. specifically.

Music streams continued to grow globally and stateside in the first half of 2025. Global on-demand audio streams reached 2.5 trillion in the first half of 2025 — up from 2.29 trillion in the same period last year.

And in the U.S., on-demand audio streams grew to 696.6 billion in 2025, compared to 665.8 billion in 2024.

But even though more music is being streamed than ever before, compared to past years, the rate of growth is slowing down. In 2024, U.S. and global on-demand audio streams grew 8% and 15.1%, respectively. In 2025, those numbers have dropped to 4.6% and 10.3%.

Christian/gospel music is on the rise, being led by acts like Forrest Frank, Brandon Lake and Elevation Worship. Luminate’s vice president, Jaime Marconette, attributed the genre’s growth to a “younger, streaming-forward fanbase,” which is 60% female and 30% millenial.

“Recession pop”, which describes the carefree pop music that emerged in 2007-2012 around the time of the Great Recession, has also seen a jump this year. “Recession pop” includes music from artists such as Lady Gaga, Bruno Mars and Rihanna among others.

Luminate found that U.S. on-demand audio streams of pop music from that era have increased 6.4% in 2025.