In a report published by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI), the data for streaming, digital purchases and demand for physical music media has grown for the eleventh successive year.
Their findings display a significant increase of 4.9 per cent from 2024 in both streaming and sales, with a 13.3 per cent rise in vinyl sales, and shockingly nearly an 80% boost in cassette tape sales. The BPI uses a metric they call “album equivalent sales” which uses data on physical and digital sales to create an approximate number of albums sold overall. 2025 produced equivalent sales of 210.3 million albums for UK artists, an impressive growth from last year, but considerably smaller than 2024s 9.7 per cent gain over 2023.
The BPI’s report, which uses data from the Official Chart Company, also recorded a 5.5 per cent increase in total streaming figures to 210.3 billion total streams, a 5.5 percent increase from last year, and it marks the first year that has amassed more than 200 billion streams. Streaming has again established its dominance as the primary source for music listeners, occupying 89.3 per cent of all music access.
As for physical media, their renaissance continues, with the exception of the less-nostalgic compact disc. CD sales dropped 7.9 per cent, still showing the highest physical media numbers of 9.7 million units, but in its place demand for vinyls and cassettes surged. The stated gain of almost 80 per cent cassette sales may only amount to a total of 330,000 tapes, but when added to the 7.6 million vinyls sold and the 9.7 million CDs, it led to a cumulative increase of 1.4 per cent and a final total of 17.6 million physical copies.
Oasis’s 2025 live tour took hold of the British consciousness
There have been several significant events and releases that have garnered a lot of the spotlight on British music, most notably this year’s Oasis reunion tour. New albums from established performers like Sam Fender have yielded strong sales, and streaming has driven massive attention on a new wave of female breakthrough artists, including PinkPantheress, Olivia Dean and Lola Young.
Certainly, the Gallagher brothers have made the headlines non-stop since they revealed they had set aside their differences in 2024. In the wake of their tour selling out every date, Oasis’s 2010 compilation album ‘Time Flies… 1994-2009’ shot to number one in the Official UK Album Charts again multiple times throughout this year, and finished the year as the fourth most popular album.
Sam Fender’s album ‘People Watching’ earned him the 2025 Mercury Prize, and was the only original release by a UK artist to reach the end of year album charts. Also this year was ‘Even In Arcadia’, the latest release from our own Sleep Token, the most popular and mysterious masked band in rock and heavy metal. Both albums have earned their respective creators international praise and attention, which has showed in both streaming and digital sales.
And finally, the bright young stars of the new era. Olivia Dean broke new records this year when her single ‘Man I Need’ and album ‘The Art Of Loving’ topped both of their respective charts in the same week. Newcomer Lola Young’s ‘Messy’ was the second most popular single of the entire year, an incredible feat for a new artist.
Outside of the UK, Taylor Swift claimed both the most popular album for the second consecutive year, and the best selling vinyl for the fourth year in a row, with her album ‘The Life Of A Showgirl’.
