This shouldn’t surprise you. Sales of physical albums should see their first increase in two decades (on the backs of Taylor Swift, Billie Eilish and The Last Dinner Party), following years of streaming kickin’ ass n’ taking names.
The Official Charts Company and BPI say that sales increased 3.2% in the first six months of 2024, with 8,044,760 units sold. This is the first time the sector has seen an increase since 2004.
As mentioned, Taylor Swift is one of the main reasons why. Her ‘The Tortured Poets Deparment’ album was the biggest contributor to the increase (selling 254,241 copies in the first six months of 2024). Billie Eilish’s ‘Hit Me Hard and Soft’ sold 45,434 copies, The Last Dinner Party’s debut ‘Prelude To Ecstasy’ sold 42,352 copies. Liam Gallagaher, John Squire, Rod Stewart and Jools Holland all get honourable mentions.
Earlier this year, you heard about vinyl seeing an increase too. In April, vinyl sales saw their highest weekly totals in THREE DECADES. Who says Record Store Day doesn’t work?!
Of course, there are people who criticized these artists for making vinyl albums (environmental impacts), saying they’re being “wasteful”.
To which, Billie Eilish said, “We live in this day and age where, for some reason, it’s very important to some artists to make all sorts of different vinyl and packaging. Which ups the sales and ups the numbers and gets them more money.”
Eilish added, “It is right in front of our faces and people are just getting away with it left and right and I find it really frustrating as somebody who really goes out of my way to be sustainable and do the best that I can and try to involve everybody in my team in being sustainable — and then it’s some of the biggest artists in the world making f–king 40 different vinyl packages that have a different unique thing just to get you to keep buying more.”
What’s the last album you bought?
