Music gross sales attain 20-year excessive due to streaming and vinyl

Music followers within the UK spent greater than ever on recorded music in 2024, fueled by main new releases from Taylor Swift, Coldplay and Billie Eilish, new information exhibits.

Streaming subscriptions and vinyl gross sales soared, with shoppers spending a complete of £2.4 billion within the final 12 months.

This surpasses the earlier excessive of £2.2 billion, achieved on the peak of CD gross sales in 2001.

The best-selling album of the 12 months was Taylor Swift's The Tortured Poets Department, which bought 783,820 copies; While Noah Kahn had the largest single of the 12 months with Stick Season, incomes the equal of 1.99 million gross sales.

The figures come from the Digital Entertainment & Retail Association (ERA), which mentioned subscriptions to providers like Spotify, Amazon Music and Apple Music accounted for about 85% of cash spent on music final 12 months.

The vinyl file market grew by 10.5%, with 6.7 million discs bought final 12 months, producing revenues of £196 million.

CD gross sales remained regular at £126.2 million – though the format nonetheless outsells vinyl when it comes to items, with 10.5 million albums bought.

ERA chief Kim Bailey referred to as 2024 a “banner year” for music, with gross sales greater than double the 2013 low level.

“Now we can say with certainty – music is back,” he mentioned in an announcement.

However, music business revenues in actual phrases nonetheless lag far behind 2001 figures.

Adjusted for inflation, the business earned the equal of £4 billion in 2001, when Dido was the largest album of the 12 months with gross sales of 1.9 million.

Questions are additionally being raised about how artists receives a commission within the streaming financial system. According to the Musicians' Union, virtually half of working musicians within the UK earn lower than £14,000 a 12 months.

Elsewhere, ERA mentioned video is the most well-liked type of house leisure, with cinephiles and TV lovers spending greater than £5 billion on streaming providers, film leases and DVDs.

The best-selling title of the 12 months was the comedian e-book film Deadpool & Wolverine, with gross sales of 561,917, over 80% of which had been digital.

Video sport revenues noticed a decline, from £4.8 billion in 2023 to £4.6 billion final 12 months.

The figures replicate a 12 months of high-profile flops, during which A-list video games like Concord, Suicide Squad and Skull & Bones failed to search out audiences.

A giant change additionally got here from boxed bodily video games, which noticed a 35% decline in gross sales.

The best-selling sport of the 12 months was as soon as once more EA Sports FC 25 – previously generally known as FIFA – with 2.9 million copies bought, 80% of which had been in digital format.

However, solely 4 of the highest 10 video games had been new releases, and two of these had been updates of present franchises.

The energy of Nintendo's Switch was additionally evident, with half of the highest 10 video games included titles that had been unique to the console.