Female artists (and Oasis) drove UK music gross sales in 2025 | EUROtoday

To nearly no-one’s shock, Taylor Swift dominated the UK music charts in 2025.

The star’s twelfth album, The Life of a Showgirl, was the 12 months’s greatest vendor, shifting a powerful 642,000 copies since its launch in October.

Women led the best way all 12 months, with breakout Brits like Olivia Dean and Lola Young powering the music trade to a record-breaking 12 months, as mixed gross sales rose by practically 5% to 201 million albums offered or streamed.

There was additionally an enormous resurgence for Oasis, whose blockbuster reunion tour helped them shift a couple of million albums throughout 2025.

The band’s biggest hits compilation, Time Flies, was the fourth greatest album of the 12 months, whereas (What’s The Story) Morning Glory, was seventh.

The figures had been revealed by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI), which mentioned streaming now accounts for 89% of the general music market.

Fans streamed 210.3 billion songs over the course of the 12 months, with US singer Alex Warren’s Ordinary the 12 months’s most-played monitor.

However, Warren’s music was one of many solely new releases to make a serious impression – as older songs clogged up the charts.

Six of the Top 10 best-selling tracks got here out in 2024. Chappell Roan’s Pink Pony Club was even older: It was initially launched in 2020.

It was a banner 12 months for brand new feminine expertise within the UK, with Lola Young touchdown the 12 months’s second-biggest single, with Messy.

Olivia Dean additionally grew to become the primary girl in UK chart historical past to realize her first primary single (Man I Need) and album (The Art Of Loving) in the identical week.

Asked why her songs had resonated with so many individuals, Dean mentioned she’d tried to make her album an antidote to troubling instances.

“I wanted it to feel just like a hug – comforting,” she instructed the BBC’s Sidetracked podcast.

“I just said everything needs to feel warm and intimate.”

Dean will cap off her unbelievable 12 months – which additionally noticed her obtain 4 simultaneous high 10 hits – by showing on Jools Holland’s Hootenanny.

There had been additionally breakthroughs for confessional songwriters Skye Newman and Sienna Spiro; whereas artists like Raye, PinkPantheress and Wet Leg all consolidated their first wave of success at dwelling and overseas.

On the singles chart, feminine artists accounted for two-thirds of 2025’s primary hits; and former Little Mix star Jade achieved the most important opening week for a debut album together with her critically-acclaimed That’s Showbiz, Baby!

Vinyl gross sales have risen for 18 successive years and elevated quickly once more, up 13% year-on-year to 7.6 million models.

Swift’s Life Of A Showgirl led the pack, and the star scored one other entry within the Top 10 with Lover (Live From Paris) – a restricted version launch which was solely obtainable for 72 hours on Swift’s web site.

According to the Official Charts Company, it offered 47,000 copies in that quick stretch of time; and subsequently grew to become the primary album to achieve primary on pure gross sales (with no streams contributing to its whole) in eight years.

Overall, vinyl gross sales have doubled within the final decade, and are on the right track to overhaul CDs for the primary time for the reason that Nineteen Nineties.

The two codecs at the moment are separated by simply 2 million gross sales, with 9.7 million Compact Discs offered in 2025. Ten years in the past, that determine was 47.3 million.

Although it’s totally a lot a distinct segment market, cassettes additionally noticed a 53.8% gross sales improve to 164,491 models in 2025.

The soundtrack to Robbie Williams’ biopic Better Man was, for causes that stay unclear, the 12 months’s finest vendor on tape.

In its report, the BPI highlighted {that a} new era of British expertise had achieved worldwide success in 2025.

Olivia Dean and Lola Young each broke into the US Billboard charts, and scored nominations for finest new artist at subsequent 12 months’s Grammy Awards.

Rock acts together with Yungblud, Sleep Token, Wolf Alice and Florence + The Machine additionally made waves overseas; whereas Ed Sheeran grew to become the primary abroad artist to high India’s Spotify Charts since 2021 along with his single Sapphire.

These achievements had been “an impressive feat, given more acts than ever are vying for audience attention”, mentioned Dr Jo Twist, CEO of the BPI.

“The UK is still the second largest exporter of music globally, which is amazing, but we can’t be complacent because streaming has opened the floodgates to every bit of recorded music that’s ever been made,” she instructed BBC News.

“Luckily, we have a brilliant ecosystem in the UK which helps those artists reach global success – but it’s a tough competitive environment and that’s why we need the continued support of the British government.”