Statistics from the BPI showed that UK-recorded music saw an increase in sales and streams by 9.7% in 2024, to 200.5 million albums (or their equivalent), up from 182.8 million in 2023. This highlights a decade of uninterrupted growth.

The 11% rise in the streaming market has driven this growth – 199.6 billion audio streams were racked up over the past year, as opposed to around 179 billion in 2023. Streaming now makes up 88.8% of music consumption, a 1% increase from last year. In May, the Official Charts Company reported over four billion audio streams in a single week for the first time ever.

The BPI says that audio streaming consumption has more than doubled in six years, proclaiming it a result of “long-term investment and backing of record labels in supporting a diverse range of artists and new talent”. Between 2018 and 2023, UK record labels invested over £2 Billion in marketing and A&R.

Physical sales have also seen an uptick – for the first time since 1994, the sales of physical albums (vinyl, CD, cassette and others) increased by 1.4 percent. The rise in sales has been driven by new releases from artists such as Taylor Swift and Billie Eilish, who dropped multiple editions of their latest albums on the vinyl format, as well as classic records from Oasis and Fleetwood Mac. The vinyl market is now at a three-decade peak, with sales up 9.1 percent. In contrast, sales of physical CD’s have declined 2.9 percent.

The stats show that it’s been a great year for female artists – in 2024, six of the top 10 and half of the 20 biggest albums of the year were by women. To no surprise, Taylor Swift headed this progression, with ‘The Tortured Poets Department’ garnering 738,000 sales by the years end, the highest for any artists release in a calendar year since 2017.

Charli XCX left 2024 as the highest selling UK artist on the Official Album Charts, in an undeniable year that’s seen her earn grammy nominations, rave reviews, and pop culture frenzy for her club-influenced ‘Brat’ album. The release was one of 12 by female artists to top the UK album charts in 2024 – other UK female artists to do so were Dua Lipa with ‘Radical Optimism’, Beabadoobe with ‘This Is How Tomorrow Moves’ and The Last Dinner Party and their debut offering, ‘Prelude To Ecstasy’.

It’s been an interesting year for music, with both familiar names and emerging artists gathering accolades in streaming and sales. You can see our write-up on the UK’s five biggest songs of the year here, and the full list of 2024’s top-ranking albums and singles here.

Official Album Charts, 2024:
1. Taylor Swift – ‘The Tortured Poets Department’
2. The Weeknd – ‘The Highlights’
3. Sabrina Carpenter – ‘Short N’ Swet’
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’

At the same time last year physical album sales growth was negative at -0.3% and the whole of 2023 saw sales down 1.1% overall. If growth of physical records remains positive this year it will mean that 2024 will be the first year physical music sales have increased since 2004 when we saw a huge shift towards digital music and streaming. 2004 saw 163.4 million units being sold, showing how this trend towards streaming and digital music over the last two decades has affected physical music sales.

The overall consumption of music based on Album Equivalent Sales which combines all physical, digital and streaming, saw an increase of 9.8% in the first six months of the year rising to 98,548,427 units. Consumption of streaming equivalent albums alone increased by 11% to 87,974,752 units showing how streaming is still dominant within the market.

The vinyl boom of recent years has not yet been enough to drag the sales of physical albums into positive growth as the sale of CDs, which is still the dominant format in terms of units, has been seeing huge declines. However, this is on course to change in 2024 and this could be as a result of the emergence of vinyl collectors as well as initiatives such as Record Store Day, HMV Vinyl Week and National Album Day.

According to the half year figures Taylor Swift’s ‘The Tortured Poets Department’ leads the way in physical sales so far this year with 254,241 units sold which has been a significant contribution to the increased physical album sales. As well as this, the other albums to make up the top 5 of physical album sales were ‘Swing Fever’ by Rod Stewart & Jools Holland with 48,540 sales, Liam Gallagher & John Squire’s self-titled album with 46,982, Billie Eilish’s ‘Hit Me Hard And Soft’ with 45, 434 sales and The Last Dinner Party’s debut album ‘Prelude To Ecstasy’ with 42,352.

Vinyl was the driving force in the increase of physical sales in the first six months with sales of vinyl albums increasing 12.4% to 3,052,498 units. The growth of vinyl sales was up 13.3% in the second quarter of the year. CD sales were down 1.5% to 4,911,845 units in the first half of the year which, although shows a decline in sales, it actually marks a significant slowing of the decline of CD sales compared to recent years which has contributed to physical sales overall growth in the first six months of 2024. This could also potentially mean that there will be a CD revival as the decline in sales was even slower in the second quarter of the year at just 0.8%.

The growing interest in copies of physical music is also shown in the figures for the sales of singles with seven-inch vinyl sales being at their highest point in 15 years.

It comes after vinyl record sales in 2021 were at the highest they’ve been in 30 years, despite widely publicised issues with backlogs and delays. According to figures from the British Phonographic Industry (BPI), at least five million vinyl records were sold last year which is an 8 per cent increase on 2020. It marked the 14th year in a row that the format has increased sales, with vinyl records making up 23 per cent of all albums sold.

At the time the BPI chief executive Geoff Taylor as quoted in Nova stated “It’s a great time to be a music fan, with wider choice on offer than ever before supported by great value. Thanks to record label investment into new music and talent, fans can purchase and collect the music they most love on vinyl, CD and even cassette, whilst also enjoying access to over 70 million songs to stream instantly whenever and how often they want, in turn enabling a new generation of artists to create music and sustain successful careers in a global market.”

The surge in interest of vinyl is a very intriguing  subject, below is a video discussing this new vinyl revival.

The biggest-selling vinyl album of 2021 was ABBA‘s comeback record Voyage, while Adele‘s huge 30 and Sam Fender‘s Seventeen Going Under also sold big on vinyl. This has been greatly helped by campaigns such as LoveRecordStores, Record Store Day and National Album Day which really rallied sales for independent record shops and specialist chains.

Earlier this year, it was also reported that vinyl sales in the UK look set to overtake CDs. Vinyl albums brought in £135.6million in 2021 (up 23.2 per cent year-on-year) compared to £150.1million in CD sales (down 3.9 per cent year-on-year). On this current growth trajectory, vinyl will be ahead of CDs by the end of this year. It also emerged earlier this month that people born in the Gen Z bracket purchase more vinyl records, than their milennial elders which may greatly explain the increase.