'Music is back' as sales hit a 20-year high

UK music fans' spending on recorded music hit a record high in 2024, driven largely by new album releases from artists such as Taylor Swift, Coldplay, and Billie Eilish. A significant surge in streaming subscriptions and vinyl record sales pushed total spending to £2.4 billion over the past 12 months.

This figure surpasses the previous record of £2.2 billion set in 2001 during the peak of CD sales. The best-selling album of the year was Taylor Swift’s "The Tortured Poets Department," selling 783,820 copies, while Noah Kahan's "Stick Season" became the best-selling single of the year, with sales equivalent to 1.99 million copies.

These figures come from the Digital Entertainment and Retail Association (ERA), which stated that subscription revenue from streaming services such as Spotify, Amazon Music, and Apple Music accounted for nearly 85% of total music consumption last year. The vinyl market grew by 10.5%, with 6.7 million records sold last year, generating £196 million in revenue. CD sales remained steady at £126.2 million, although in terms of units sold, CDs still exceeded vinyl, with 10.5 million albums sold.

Kim Bayley, head of ERA, called 2024 a “bumper year” for music, with sales more than double the low point in 2013. “We can now definitively say – music is back,” she added in a statement. However, when considering inflation, the music industry's revenue still lags far behind the levels of 2001. In 2001, Dido's album was the best-selling album of the year, selling 1.9 million copies, and after adjusting for inflation, the industry's revenue at that time was equivalent to £4 billion.

Furthermore, the issue of how artists are paid in the streaming economy remains. According to the Musicians' Union, almost half of professional musicians in the UK earn less than £14,000 per year. This indicates that despite the increase in total music consumption, the issue of how artists are actually compensated still needs to be addressed.