Everybody’s favourite pop girlies have continued to make their mark on the music trade with the likes of Taylor Swift, Billie Eilish and Sabrina Carpenter prompting Brits to spend extra on recorded music in 2024 than ever earlier than.
Based on new figures launched by the Digital Leisure and Retail Affiliation (ERA), streaming companies and a vinyl revival pushed U.Ok. music consumption final 12 months to a 20-year excessive, exceeding the top of the CD period.
Client spending on recorded music — each subscriptions and purchases — reached £2.4 billion ($3 billion), overtaking the earlier excessive of £2.2 billion ($2.7 billion) achieved in 2001.
In the meantime, general music consumption reached the equal of 201.4 million albums a 12 months, ERA reported, and streaming alone generated the equal of 178 million albums — exceeding the document of 172 million albums offered in 2004 on the tail-end of the CD growth.
To nobody’s shock, Swift’s most up-to-date album, The Tortured Poets Division, was the biggest-selling album of the 12 months with 783,820 copies offered in Britain. Noah Kahan, however, took the 12 months’s hottest single with “Stick Season” which generated the equal of 1.99 million gross sales.
Rounding out the highest 5 albums of the 12 months within the U.Ok. have been The Weeknd (The Highlights), Carpenter (Brief N’ Candy), Kahan (Stick Season) and Eilish (Hit Me Laborious And Gentle).
Chappell Roan adopted in sixth place with The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess and Fleetwood Mac’s 50 Years: Don’t Cease got here in seventh place. Charli XCX‘s critically acclaimed Brat, Coldplay‘s Moon Music and Olivia Rodrigo’s Guts albums seal the highest 10.
“2024 was a banner 12 months for music, with streaming and vinyl taking the sector to all-time-high information in each worth and quantity,” stated ERA CEO Kim Bayley. “That is the beautiful end result of music’s comeback which has seen gross sales greater than double since their low level in 2013. We are able to now say definitively — music is again.”
The ERA additionally stated subscriptions to companies like Spotify, Amazon Music and Apple Music accounted for nearly 85 p.c of the cash spent on music final 12 months — collectively, they noticed a 7.8 p.c streaming enhance in comparison with 2023.
The marketplace for vinyl information grew by 10.5 p.c, with 6.7 million discs offered final 12 months, producing £196 million ($244 million). Once more, The Tortured Poets Division was 2024’s biggest-selling vinyl within the U.Ok. with 111,937 copies offered.
Elsewhere, video games gross sales declined 4.4 p.c, following a drop in bodily video games gross sales of greater than a 3rd in 12 months.
