After years of warning of menace to grassroots and artist’s viability, UK acts have dropped out of worldwide best-sellers chart

UK acts didn’t make it into the worldwide annual charts of the yr’s high 10 bestselling singles or albums in 2024.

• Learn Extra: The 50 Greatest Albums Of 2024

Based on figures from the Worldwide Federation of the Phonographic Business (IFPI) by way of BBC Information, no homegrown artist featured on both record final yr after Benson Boone claimed the Quantity One tune with ‘Stunning Issues’ and Taylor Swift‘s ‘The Tortured Poets Division‘ was the world’s bestselling album.

Albums by Coldplay, Charli XCX and Dua Lipa didn’t make both record. The very best ranked artist was Artemas who got here in fifteenth with ‘I Like The Method You Kiss Me’ on the worldwide greatest promoting singles record.

Each lists had been primarily dominated by US acts together with Billie Eilish, Sabrina Carpenter and Kendrick Lamar.

Beforehand, UK acts appeared in a single or each of the highest 10 lists yearly since 2003.

It comes after David Martin of the Featured Artists Coalition lately pointed to Spotify’s most globally streamed artists of 2024, saying that the rising lack of UK names was an indication of the expertise pipeline already struggling – and never for an absence of expertise.

“I’m not saying that is doomsday, it’s fixable however this needs to be the canary down the mine to the UK music business,” he instructed NME. “What’s the complete ecosystem in a position to do collectively to stimulate exercise? Giant arenas and promoters must have that foresight. You’d count on them to.

“We must always all be very involved. The UK’s share of the worldwide music market has lowered from 17 per cent to 10 per cent within the final seven years. What number of UK artists topped the general Official Charts final yr? These needs to be pink flags for the business. In order for you venues to do properly, be sure you’ve obtained performances in them and that you simply’re stimulating new audiences. Would you like promoters to do properly? Make sure that there’s a requirement by permitting artists to construct new fanbases.”

Martin added that the UK wanted to urgently sort out points round cash made out of streaming, the grassroots levy, the influence of Brexit on touring and the regulation of AI.

“Proper now, we want development and simple wins,” he added. “I feel the UK is enormously underachieving in opposition to its potential. I do know the demand that’s on the market and the standard of artists we’ve got. Anyone that claims ‘There’s no good music on the market anymore’ is frankly stuffed with shit. There’s a lot good music on the market, it’s simply very tough for it to chop by way of and it’s not very properly supported within the UK.”

It comes after the federal government lately backed a name for a levy on tickets to gigs at enviornment stage and above – adopting a ‘Premier League mannequin’ with the highest tiers of the stay business paying again into the ecosystem to maintain the expertise pipeline flowing, as they do in soccer.

It’s hoped that the foremost corporations of the stay business will take it upon themselves to behave on a voluntary levy, with a deadline for significant selections set for March earlier than the federal government steps again in to think about making it necessary by legislation.

As for gig areas, the Music Venue Belief – who lately reported the “full collapse of touring” throughout the UK – have already been gifted ticket levy donations from the likes of Coldplay, Sam Fender and Katy Perry from their upcoming enviornment and stadium excursions. This additionally comes at a time when MVT’s annual report for 2024 confirmed that one venue was misplaced each two weeks final yr, with practically 44 per cent of their venues operating at a loss and a close to 20 per cent spike in venues in want of emergency assist on the point of closure.

With the authorities’s imposed enterprise charges and the VAT on tickets creating “crippling obstacles”, and the time taken for the levy to kick into motion, Music Venue Belief CEO Mark Davyd stated that UK venues “gained’t be out of the woods in 2025”.

“For 2026, I’d go as far to say that we are able to see a brighter future for venues, artists and the touring circuit,” he acknowledged. “This yr will nonetheless be arduous, however due to the generosity of Coldplay, Sam Fender, Katy Perry, Enter Shikari, Frank Turner, Mr Scruff, Alien Ant Farm, there will likely be some monetary assist accessible and we’re going to try to deploy that in a means that signifies that as many venues as attainable could make it by way of 2025 into the interval once we count on this levy to begin to make an actual distinction to venues, artists and promoters.”

Davyd added: “2025 goes to be a tough yr and there’s no level in pretending in any other case, however it’s going down in an environment the place all people understands the issues and try their greatest to resolve them.”

The worldwide greatest promoting albums of 2024 had been: