‘Music is back’ as sales hit 20-year high

Music fans in the UK spent more than ever on recorded music in 2024, fueled by major new releases from Taylor Swift, Coldplay and Billie Eilish, new data shows.

Streaming subscriptions and vinyl sales soared, with consumers spending a total of £2.4 billion in the last 12 months.

This surpasses the previous high of £2.2 billion, achieved at the peak of CD sales in 2001.

The best-selling album of the year was Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department, which sold 783,820 copies; While Noah Kahn had the biggest single of the year with Stick Season, earning the equivalent of 1.99 million sales.

The figures come from the Digital Entertainment & Retail Association (ERA), which said subscriptions to services like Spotify, Amazon Music and Apple Music accounted for about 85% of money spent on music last year.

The vinyl record market grew by 10.5%, with 6.7 million discs sold last year, generating revenues of £196 million.

CD sales remained flat at £126.2 million – although the format still outsells vinyl in terms of units, with 10.5 million albums purchased.

ERA head Kim Bailey called 2024 a “banner year” for music, with sales more than double the 2013 low point.

“Now we can say with certainty – music is back,” he said in a statement.

However, music industry revenues in real terms still lag far behind 2001 figures.

Adjusted for inflation, the industry earned the equivalent of £4 billion in 2001, when Dido was the biggest album of the year with sales of 1.9 million.

Questions are also being raised about how artists get paid in the streaming economy. According to the Musicians’ Union, almost half of working musicians in the UK earn less than £14,000 a year.

Elsewhere, ERA said video is the most popular form of home entertainment, with cinephiles and TV lovers spending more than £5 billion on streaming services, movie rentals and DVDs.

The best-selling title of the year was the comic book movie Deadpool & Wolverine, with sales of 561,917, over 80% of which were digital.

Video game revenues saw a decline, from £4.8 billion in 2023 to £4.6 billion last year.

The figures reflect a year of high-profile flops, in which A-list games like Concord, Suicide Squad and Skull & Bones failed to find audiences.

A big change also came from boxed physical games, which saw a 35% decline in sales.

The best-selling game of the year was once again EA Sports FC 25 – formerly known as FIFA – with 2.9 million copies sold, 80% of which were in digital format.

However, only four of the top 10 games were new releases, and two of those were updates of existing franchises.

The power of Nintendo’s Switch was also evident, with half of the top 10 games included titles that were exclusive to the console.