Taylor Swift and Noah Kahan drive bumper year for music sales in 2024
Artists Taylor Swift and Noah Kahan were at the forefront of a "banner year" for music sales in 2024, propelled by a mix of streaming services and the resurgence of vinyl, according to new figures.
The UK's music consumption and recorded music revenues soared to a 20-year peak, surpassing the zenith of the CD era, as per the annual data released by the digital entertainment and retail association ERA. Music revenue from streaming platforms such as Spotify, YouTube Music, and Amazon climbed by 7.8% to £2.018 billion. Vinyl album sales saw an even sharper increase of 10.5%, reaching £196 million, while CD album revenues remained steady at £126.2 million.
Taylor Swift's album "The Tortured Poets Department" emerged as the year's top-selling album with 783,820 units sold, including 111,937 on vinyl, making it also the year's most popular vinyl album. Noah Kahan's single "Stick Season" was the biggest hit of the year, amassing the equivalent of 1.99 million sales.
READ MORE: PIP and DLA claimants set to lose £750 this month as key payment scrapped
READ MORE: 'Ideal' temperature to heat home could help you avoid frozen pipes - not 17C
Overall, consumer spending on recorded music, encompassing both subscriptions and purchases, hit £2.4 billion, eclipsing the previous record of £2.2 billion set in 2001, stated ERA. Kim Bayley, CEO of ERA, said: “2024 was a banner year for music, with streaming and vinyl taking the sector to all-time-high records in both value and volume. This is the stunning culmination of music’s comeback which has seen sales more than double since their low point in 2013. We can now say definitively – music is back.”
Preliminary figures reveal that music revenues saw a growth of 7.4% in 2024, outpacing video, which increased by 6.9%, and games, which experienced a decline of 4.4%. The surge in video was fuelled by subscriptions to services such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and Apple TV, which grew by 8.3% to £4.5 billion – accounting for almost 90% of the sector’s revenues.
The top-selling title of the year was Deadpool & Wolverine, with digital sales making up more than 80% of the 561,917 units sold. Despite the games sector witnessing a 4.4% drop last year, it remains nearly twice as large as the recorded music business.
The year marked a shift away from full game sales, with PC download-to-own down 5%, digital console games down 15% and boxed physical games down 35%, in favour of subscription models which saw a growth of 12%. The best-selling game of the year was once again EA Sports FC 25 – formerly known as Fifa – which generated 2.9 million unit sales, 80% of them in digital formats.