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

Captivated by large caller releases from Taylor Swift, Coldplay and Billie Eilish, euphony fans successful the UK spent much connected recorded euphony successful 2024 than ever before, caller figures show.

Streaming subscriptions and vinyl income changeable up, with consumers spending a full of £2.4 bn implicit the past 12 months.

That overtakes the erstwhile precocious of £2.2bn, achieved astatine the highest of CD income successful 2001.

The biggest-selling medium of the twelvemonth was Taylor Swift's The Tortured Poets Department which sold 783,820 copies; portion Noah Kahan had the year's biggest azygous with Stick Season, which generated the equivalent of 1.99 cardinal sales.

The figures came from the Digital Entertainment and Retail Association (ERA), which said subscriptions to services similar Spotify, Amazon Music and Apple Music accounted for astir 85% of the wealth spent connected euphony past year.

The marketplace for vinyl records grew by 10.5%, with 6.7 cardinal discs sold past year, generating £196m.

CD income remained level astatine £126.2m - though the format inactive sells much than vinyl successful presumption of units, with 10.5 cardinal albums bought.

The caput of ERA, Kim Bayley, called 2024 a "banner year" for music, with income astatine much than treble the debased constituent of 2013.

"We tin present accidental definitively - euphony is back," she added successful a statement.

However, euphony manufacture gross inactive lags acold down the 2001 figures successful existent terms.

Adjusted for inflation, the manufacture made the equivalent of £4bn successful 2001, erstwhile Dido's was the year's biggest album, with income of 1.9 million.

There are besides lingering questions implicit however artists get paid successful the streaming economy. According to the Musicians Union, astir fractional of moving musicians successful the UK gain little than £14,000 a year.

Elsewhere, ERA said video was the astir fashionable signifier of location entertainment, with cinephiles and telly addicts spending much than £5bn connected streaming services, movie rentals and DVDs.

The biggest-selling rubric of the twelvemonth was the comic publication movie Deadpool & Wolverine, with income of 561,917, much than 80% of which were digital.

Video games saw a driblet successful revenue, from £4.8bn successful 2023 to £4.6bn past year.

The figures bespeak a twelvemonth of high-profile flops, with A-list games similar Concord, Suicide Squad and Skull & Bones each failing to find an audience.

There was besides a immense displacement distant from boxed carnal games, whose income fell by 35%.

The biggest-selling crippled of the twelvemonth was erstwhile again EA Sports FC 25 – formerly known arsenic FIFA – which sold 2.9m copies, 80% of them successful integer formats.

However, lone 4 of the games successful the apical 10 were caller releases, and 2 of those were updates to existing franchises.

The powerfulness of Nintendo's Switch was besides apparent, with fractional of the apical 10 including games comprised of titles that are exclusive to the console.