More than 100bn tracks were played on audio streaming services for the first time in a single year in 2019, but fans still also love the enduring appeal of analogue and physical formats.
Lewis Capaldi tops the year-end albums & singles charts and is joined by Billie Eilish, Tom Walker, Lizzo, Dave, Mabel, Freya Ridings, Sam Fender, Tones & I, AJ Tracey & others in enjoying brilliant breakout years.
Music consumption up for fifth year in a row – the equivalent of 154m albums were consumed across streaming and purchasing in 2019, up 7.5% on 2018 and reaching its highest level since 2006.
114bn music streams in 2019 – a 3,000% increase on 2012.
Growth continues for vinyl – 4.3m LPs sold, the biggest total this century and sales up for a 12th year.
The unlikely renaissance of cassettes continues – over 80,000 sold, the largest amount in 15 years.
Official figures released by record labels’ association the BPI, based on Official Charts Company data1, show that 2019 marked a fifth consecutive year of growth in the consumption of recorded music in the UK.
The equivalent of 154 million albums2 were either streamed, purchased on physical formats or downloaded3 – up by 7.5 per cent in volume4 on the total recorded in 2018. This is the highest amount since 2006, when the figure stood at 161.4m albums. Please note that volume growth should not be equated with growth in recorded music revenues, which tends to be less pronounced. The BPI will announce 2019 label revenues in the early part of 2020.
The continued growth in streaming, which rose by 26 per cent on the year, underpinned this rise in consumption. Streaming now accounts for three quarters (74.4%) of Album Equivalent Sales (AES), the metric used by the industry to collectively measure music streaming and purchasing. December saw the highest weekly total of streams – 2.7bn – ever recorded, and the 2019 total of 114 billion plays on audio streaming services marks the first time the 100 billion landmark has been surpassed in a single year.
Rise fuelled by exciting new talent
The most-streamed track of 2019 – Lewis Capaldi’s Someone You Loved – was played over 228m times on audio streaming services such as Spotify, Apple Music and Deezer. Other artists making the year-end top 10 included Lil Nas X, Ed Sheeran, Stormzy and Billie Eilish, while singer-songwriter Tones and I enjoyed an 11-week run at the top of the Official Singles Chart with her global smash Dance Monkey – the longest run by a female singer in Official Charts history. The most popular 17 tracks were all played over 100m times each
Geoff Taylor, Chief Executive BPI & BRIT Awards said:
“British music proved once again in 2019 that it has a bright future. Strong demand for streaming music and vinyl, fuelled by the investment and innovation of UK labels in discovering and promoting new talent, boosted music consumption to levels not seen for 15 years. But the full benefits of this growth can only be unlocked if our new Government takes action to make the UK more competitive and encourage further investment, to require digital platforms to pay fairly for music and filter out illegal content, and to give all our schoolchildren the opportunity to play an instrument and discover the joy of making music.”
Lewis Capaldi scores a year-end double top as new artists enjoy breakout years
Lewis Capaldi was undoubtedly the British breakout star of 2019. He topped both the Official Singles and Official Album5 year-end charts as his debut album Divinely Uninspired To A Hellish Extent, released in May, was BRIT Certified 2x Platinum, selling over 640,000 albums across all formats and album equivalents, including well over 250,000 copies on CD and vinyl combined, according to Official Charts Company data. It featured the smash hit single Someone You Loved, which racked up over 2.3m chart-eligible sales. Lewis was also a huge success in the USA, hitting number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in October.
Whereas soundtrack albums such as The Greatest Showman, A Star Is Born, and Bohemian Rhapsody dominated the best-sellers list in 2018, the story of 2019 was one of particular success for artists. All three soundtracks retained their place in the upper reaches of the year-end chart, but among the new releases it was new artists who shone as well as established acts: alongside Lewis Capaldi’s debut, the top 10 Official Albums Chart for the year included new albums by Ed Sheeran (No. 6 Collaborations Project), Billie Eilish (whose debut When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? was both a critical and commercial smash), Ariana Grande (Thank U Next) and BRITs British Breakthrough recipient Tom Walker (What A Time To Be Alive).
There were also top selling new solo releases by Rod Stewart (You’re In My Heart, which claimed the Official Charts Christmas No.1 Album), Stormzy (Heavy Is The Head, the much-anticipated follow-up to his number one debut Gang Signs and Prayer), Harry Styles (his second full-length LP Fine Line), Dave (the Mercury Prize-winning Psychodrama), Robbie Williams (The Christmas Present), and Mark Ronson (Late Night Feelings), to name a few, while albums from Coldplay (Everyday Life) and Elbow (Giants Of All Sizes) also made their mark, as did the self-titled debut LP from BRIT School alumnus Freya Ridings.
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