Amidst artist criticisms of streaming services, Nielsen released numbers that demonstrate just how streamed music is on the rise. In the first six months of 2013, streaming music was up by 24% to nearly 51 billion streams, while overall sales of albums and tracks were down by 4.6% over a year ago. The top track of the six months, unsurprisingly, was the Harlem Shake, which was streamed 438 million times, with the next closest contender, Thrift Shop, at 187 million streams. So no matter how the streaming issue resolves itself, it remains clear that streaming music is a medium that listeners are clamoring for.