The BPI has revealed positive market figures for 2024, including a rare increase in overall physical music sales.
Based on Official Charts Company data, the UK recorded music market hit new heights in terms of streaming consumption as well as registering a return to growth for physical music sales. (The chart year ended with weekly albums and singles rundowns reported on Friday, December 27, which explains the annual market figures and year-end chart results.)
Sales of albums on physical formats increased year-on-year for the first time since 1994 in 2024, by 1.4% – a potential outcome highlighted by Music Week analysis six months ago.
Chart trends in 2024 – as revealed in Music Week’s end-of-year coverage in our latest edition – included record-breaking success for women, led by Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department for albums consumption.
Streaming fuels market growth
The BPI announced that UK recorded music consumption across sales and streams rose 9.7% in the past year to 200.5 million albums (or their equivalent). The market has now seen a decade of uninterrupted growth.
This increase was driven by an 11.0% rise in the streaming market, with 199.6 billion audio streams accumulated over the course of the year, contributing to a market where streaming now makes up 88.8% of consumption (compared to 87.7% in 2023). In May, the Official Charts Company recorded over four billion audio streams in a single week for the first time ever.
Audio streaming consumption has more than doubled in six years, which the BPI said was underpinned by the “long-term investment and backing of record labels in supporting a diverse range of artists and new talent”. In the five years between 2018 and 2023, UK record labels invested more than £2 billion in marketing and A&R.
More than 10,000 acts surpassed the threshold of one million audio streams in the UK alone over the course of 2023.
However, the BPI warned of “rapidly intensifying global competition” for UK talent, while the parameters of a new government consultation on AI and copyright has also raised concerns for the sector.
Dr Jo Twist OBE, BPI chief executive, said: “We’ve seen another strong year benefiting from streaming and driven by era-defining women. It’s clear that, thanks to strong investment in diverse artists by record labels, paired with a world-class rights framework, British music has huge potential for continued growth and global impact.
“From Coldplay and Charli XCX, to The Last Dinner Party and Myles Smith, there were plenty of examples of UK music success stories in 2024. But there are also rising challenges for domestic talent in a rapidly changing and hyper-competitive global music economy.
“The UK’s creative output and human creativity is being placed at risk by proposed changes to British copyright law, which would allow international tech giants to train AI models on artists’ work without payment or permission, and would be the wrong way to realise the exciting potential of AI. Meanwhile, streaming fraud is also a rising concern.”
British music has huge potential for continued growth and global impact
Dr Jo Twist
Twist added: “By meeting the growing global challenge head-on, tackling challenges around AI, copyright and streaming fraud, and encouraging consumers towards viable models, like paid streaming subscriptions, we can help to ensure that the value of British music is protected and that our industry can continue to grow and flourish at home and around the world.
“The UK remains a world music power, but this status cannot be taken for granted: we need a supportive policy environment that puts the focus on human artistry and enables continued investment in the next generation of British talent.”
Physical album sales return to growth
While vinyl sales have now been increasing for 17 years, 2024 was the first year in two decades when overall physical sales (vinyl, CD, cassette and others) registered year-on-year growth. The 1.4% increase took the total to 17,377,379 units.
Vinyl is at a three-decade high, with sales growing by 9.1% to 6.7 million units. CD’s decline of 2.9% year-on-year to 10,497,151 was more than offset by the rise in vinyl to result in an overall sales increase. That CD dip compares favorably with a slump in unit sales of 19.4% in 2022 and 6.9% in 2023 – evidence of a slowing decline which suggests CD sales growth could be just around the corner.
However, it was quite a close run thing with physical sales under-performing in the Q4 period (down 1% year-on-year).
While catalogue continues to play an important role in vinyl’s revival, new frontline releases are increasingly driving vinyl LP sales, as shown by seven of the year’s 10 biggest sellers having been released in the calendar year. These were headed by Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department, which sold more than 111,000 vinyl LPs, and also included new albums by Billie Eilish (Hit Me Hard And Soft), Fontaines DC (Romance), The Cure (Songs Of A Lost World) and Charli XCX (Brat).
Catalogue’s strength was evident in the 30th anniversary reissue of Oasis’ debut album Definitely Maybe, which was the second most popular vinyl LP of the year.
As with vinyl, the top CDs were new releases. All but one of the 20 biggest sellers came out in 2024 or 2023, with the top two – Coldplay’s Moon Music and The Tortured Poets Department by Taylor Swift – selling over 400,000 copies between them.
Moon Music achieved 182,166 CD sales in its week of release in October, the highest for any album on the format since Ed Sheeran’s ÷ in 2017. Moon Music finished as the year’s top-selling CD and was the ninth-biggest selling album overall.
British artists provided six of the 10 top CD sellers of the year, with Coldplay joined by David Gilmour (Luck And Strange), Charli XCX (Brat), The Cure (Songs Of A Lost World), Michael Ball & Alfie Boe (Together At Home) and Rod Stewart & Jools Holland’s Swing Fever.
Karen Emanuel, Music Week's Women in Music Businesswoman of the Year and CEO of Key Production Group, said: "It's absolutely brilliant to see the first physical music year-on-year growth in 20 years. Not only are more people embracing the physical experience, but they are often looking to support the artist more directly by buying the physical format.
"We also know Gen Z is getting more into vinyl and CDs, because buying, listening and owning physical music provides something more tactile that streaming just can't match. It's an exciting time and we expect it to grow even further in 2025 and beyond."
A landmark year for women on UK charts
During 2024, six of the Top 10 and half of the 20 biggest artist albums of the year were by women, headed by Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department. The album accumulated more than 783,000 sales by the end of December – the most for any artist release in a calendar year since 2017. It was one of four albums by Swift to finish among the year’s 20 biggest titles (along with 1989 (Taylor’s Version), Lover and Folklore).
There were also places in the year-end Top 20 for albums by Billie Eilish (Hit Me Hard And Soft), Sabrina Carpenter (Short N’ Sweet), Olivia Rodrigo (Sour), Chappell Roan (The Rise And Fall Of A Midwest Princess) and Charli XCX, whose sixth studio album Brat reached No.1. It has since been nominated for Album Of The Year at the Grammy Awards, one of seven nominations for Charli XCX.
Brat was one of 12 albums by solo women artists or groups to top the albums chart in 2024, equaling the most in any calendar year (there were also 12 in 2023). These also included Prelude To Ecstasy, the debut album by 2024 BRITs Rising Star Award winners The Last Dinner Party, and new releases by fellow UK artists Dua Lipa (Radical Optimism) and Beabadoobee (This Is How Tomorrow Moves) alongside US stars including Ariana Grande (Eternal Sunshine), Beyoncé (Cowboy Carter) and Gracie Abrams (The Secret Of Us).
On the singles chart, women beat a record-breaking run of 31 weeks at No.1 in 2023. The total of 34 weeks was helped by Sabrina Carpenter, who alone spent 21 weeks at the top via her three chart-toppers Espresso, Please Please Please and Taste.
Women were also responsible for 47% of tracks that reached the weekly Top 10 during the year. See below for the biggest songs and albums of 2024.
British artists challenged by US stars
More than 20 British groups and solo acts topped the albums chart during the year.
These included The Last Dinner Party, D-Block Europe, Charli XCX, Dua Lipa, James Arthur, Beabadoobee, Lewis Capaldi, Blossoms, Elbow, Idles, James, Kasabian, The Libertines, Shed Seven (twice), and Snow Patrol, Rod Stewart & Jools Holland, Michael Ball & Alfie Boe, Liam Gallagher & John Squire, David Gilmour, Oasis, Coldplay and The Cure.
Artemas and Myles Smith were among the UK singles chart breakthroughs in 2024. Artemas’ I Like The Way You Kiss Me (No.17) and Smith’s Stargazing (No.12) were among the year’s 20 biggest singles and became global hits.
But Music Week reported on the No.1 drought for UK talent with new releases during 2024. The only British chart-toppers were Backbone, the collaboration between Chase & Status and Stormzy, and Charli XCX’s Guess (feat. Billie Eilish). Wham!, of course, reached No.1 again with vintage festive hit Last Christmas, and UK-signed, Irish singer-songwriter Hozier had a transatlantic No.1 with Too Sweet.
The BPI highlighted solo Top 10 hits for Little Mix stars Jade and Perrie, along with Central Cee scoring his eighth Top 10 single and a first US Hot 100 Top 20 entry.
“While UK artists and music companies remain at the vanguard of talent and creativity, 2024 also highlighted the intensifying global competition provided by both by traditional leading players, such as the US, as well as from emerging, fast-growing markets like South Korea and Latin America, which are achieving international success with their artists in part because their governments are backing their industries,” said the BPI.
UK artists were behind just nine of the 40 top tracks of 2024 across streaming and sales, with the highest being Stargazing by Myles Smith at No.12. Five years ago, in 2019, 19 of the year’s 40 biggest singles were by UK artists.
US singer-songwriter Noah Kahan scored the year’s biggest song hit with Stick Season. Having first been released in 2022, it finally reached No.1 in January 2024 and stayed there for seven weeks. It was joined in the year’s top five by Benson Boone (Beautiful Things), Sabrina Carpenter (Espresso), Teddy Swims (Lose Control) and Hozier (Too Sweet).
Top 10 biggest albums of 2024 (Official Charts Company)
1 Taylor Swift – The Tortured Poets Department
2 The Weeknd – The Highlights
3 Sabrina Carpenter – Short N’ Sweet
4 Noah Kahan – Stick Season
5 Billie Eilish – Hit Me Hard And Soft
6 Chappell Roan – The Rise And Fall Of A Midwest Princess
7 Fleetwood Mac – 50 Years - Don’t Stop
8 Charli XCX - Brat
9 Coldplay – Moon Music
10 Olivia Rodrigo – Guts
Top 20 Biggest Songs of 2024 (Official Charts Company)
1 Stick Season – Noah Kahan
2 Beautiful Things – Benson Boone
3 Espresso – Sabrina Carpenter
4 Lose Control – Teddy Swims
5 Too Sweet – Hozier
6 A Bar Song (Tipsy) – Shaboozey
7 Birds Of A Feather – Billie Eilish
8 Good Luck, Babe! – Chappell Roan
9 Austin – Dasha
10 Please Please Please – Sabrina Carpenter
11 Cruel Summer – Taylor Swift
12 Stargazing – Myles Smith
13 Prada – Casso, Raye, D-Block Europe
14 Texas Hold ‘Em – Beyonce
15 I Had Some Help – Post Malone and Morgan Wallen
16 Murder On The Dancefloor – Sophie Ellis-Bextor
17 I Like The Way You Kiss Me – Artemas
18 Greedy – Tate McRae
19 Fortnight – Taylor Swift feat. Post Malone
20 Scared To Start – Michael Marcagi
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