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Posted by: Mart!n Jan 1 2015, 10:19 AM

By Liv Moss

British artists dominate as all of the year’s Top 10 artist albums come from homegrown talent.

British acts ruled the UK’s albums market in 2014, according to the Official Charts Company’s end of year sales data published today by British recorded music trade body, the BPI.

Ed Sheeran’s X was the biggest selling artist album of 2014, selling over 1,689,000 copies in the UK (over 1 million copies more than the biggest artist album of 2013, One Direction’s Midnight Memories). X’s bumper sales are the highest of any artist album since Adele’s 21 back in 2011, and mean that the best-selling artist album in each of the past 10 years has now come from a British act

Ed’s second studio album, X spent 12 weeks atop the Official Albums Chart in 2014. Alongside claiming the title of the fastest-selling artist album of the year, the LP was the most digitally downloaded album of the year, as well as racking up the biggest one-week sales tally of the year, shifting 214,000 copies in the week before Christmas.

X has also spawned four Official Singles Chart Top 40s, including Ed’s first ever Number 1 single, Sing, and the record-breaking Thinking Out Loud.

Newcomer Sam Smith’s In The Lonely Hour is at Number 2. With UK sales of nearly 1,248,000, Sam joins Ed Sheeran as one of only two artists to have sold over a million albums in the UK this year. Sam also achieved the rare feat of becoming the only artist in 2014 to sell one million albums in both the UK and US.

Continuing the British theme, George Ezra’s Wanted On Voyage is the third biggest selling artist album of 2014, shifting over 678,000 copies. Wanted On Voyage spent 26 weeks in the Top 10, topping the Official Albums Chart for two weeks back in October, 14 weeks after its original release.

Paolo Nutini’s Caustic Love is at 4. Released in April, Caustic Love became the then fastest-selling album of the year, shifting 109,000 copies in its first 7 days on sale. The album went on to spend three weeks at the Number 1 spot, and has now sold over 545,000 copies in the UK.

Rounding out the Top 5 is Coldplay’s Ghost Stories. Another former fastest-selling album of the year (overtaken by Ed Sheeran’s X), Ghost Stories sold 168,000 copies in its first week, back in May. The LP scored Coldplay their sixth UK Number 1 album and to date, has sold nearly 544,000 copies.

The entire Top 10 artist albums come from homegrown artists - the strongest performance by British artists since Official Chart records began. Paloma Faith’s A Perfect Contradiction is at 6, followed by One Direction’s Four (7), Olly Murs’ Never Been Better (8), Pink Floyd’s The Endless River (9) and Take That’s III (10).

Commenting on another strong year for British music, Geoff Taylor, Chief Executive BPI and BRIT Awards, said: “The remarkable success of British artists in 2014 is exciting news for the future. Our record labels are backing home-grown talent like Ed Sheeran, Sam Smith and George Ezra, who in turn are catching fire around the world.”

While the retail value of recorded music remains above £1 billion, overall album sales have slipped this year (Digital -9.0% and Physical -6.9% from 2013). However, album streaming has seen an exponential boost, increasing by a massive 97.6% in the last 12 months.

Announced by Spotify as their most streamed artist in the world 2014, Ed Sheeran joins One Direction, Coldplay and Calvin Harris as one of only four British acts to have achieved 1 billion streams on the service.


Chart online

http://www.officialcharts.com/chart-news/the-official-top-40-biggest-selling-artist-albums-of-2014-3387/


Source: OCC

Posted by: Mart!n Jan 1 2015, 10:23 AM

Also there are links on that page scroll down to the bottom of the page for The Official Top 40 Most Streamed Songs of 2014 and The Official Top 40 Biggest Selling Singles of 2014, the latter contents top 10 single sales.

Links provided for future reference


http://www.officialcharts.com/chart-news/the-official-top-40-most-streamed-songs-of-2014-3388/ (Streaming included)
http://www.officialcharts.com/chart-news/the-official-top-40-biggest-selling-singles-of-2014-3389/ (Sales)

Posted by: Suedehead2 Jan 1 2015, 10:25 AM

I did a round-up of the singles chart yesterday (see the latest news box). I'll do the albums later today.

Posted by: gooddelta Jan 1 2015, 10:29 AM

Idina grabbing that iconic top 10 sales finish! Although I suppose the chart that we'll have to see as the official chart of the year is this mess revealed on Radio 1 yesterday without streaming data prior to July included.

Posted by: Mart!n Jan 1 2015, 10:39 AM

That mess of a chart is because they didn't add the physicals, if I'm reading it correctly. So... does that mean they are not adding the physicals to the official chart. or am I missing something.

Posted by: gooddelta Jan 1 2015, 10:41 AM

So this week's chart falls into 2015's EOY data I take it?

Posted by: T Boy Jan 1 2015, 10:56 AM

Controversially, I quite liked the 'mess' Radio 1 gave us yesterday. No, it wasn't exactly fair but it was a reflection of the weekly charts from last year. Streaming being added caused a huge mess anyway but that's an entirely different issue.

Posted by: Suedehead2 Jan 1 2015, 05:08 PM

A round-up of the albums list is now available from the latest news box and the front page.

Posted by: ¡bré! Jan 1 2015, 05:11 PM

Yes, I think the formula used made sense in that if they're going to include streaming data in anything, mid 2014 is the least arbitrary cut off point they could choose. The EOY was always going to be a big mess this year anyway, at least things should be clearer next year

Posted by: paulgilb Jan 1 2015, 10:38 PM

I'm pretty sure Dust Clears isn't anywhere near a million copies...

Great reads, though (both singles and albums)!

Posted by: Suedehead2 Jan 1 2015, 11:55 PM

Note the use of the word "hit"

Posted by: Doctor Blind Jan 1 2015, 11:58 PM

Technically "Dust Clears" was a 'hit' as it made the Top 75.

I watched them perform at Latitude the week before it was released as a single, only about 500 or so in the crowd because they were fairly unknown back then!

Posted by: Suedehead2 Jan 2 2015, 12:00 AM

Pedant

Posted by: mr_aly Jan 2 2015, 01:00 AM

You've read it wrong, it's saying the next single (i.e. the one after 'Dust Clears').

Posted by: vidcapper Jan 2 2015, 06:33 AM

I guess we won't know until we see the YTD T100's in C+ next week.

Personally, I still think this weeks sales will count towards 2014.

Posted by: Gezza Jan 2 2015, 06:51 AM

I think the BPI have confirmed that the current chart is the final one of 2014.

Posted by: Robbie Jan 2 2015, 11:24 AM

Every time the last Saturday in December has fallen on the 27th this has been the cut-off sales point for the chart year. See 1997, 2003 and 2008. It should really be January 3 as the cut-off point (more days of the chart week fall into 2014) but this has never happened yet in the Millward Brown / CIN / OCC era.

Posted by: Suedehead2 Jan 2 2015, 06:08 PM

I suspect the decision probably dates back to the days before Sunday trading. At that time, there would have been three days in each year so, presumably, somebody made the decision that the week's chart would be the first of the new year. If they had considered the possibility of Sunday shopping, the decision may have been different.

Posted by: Hadji Jan 2 2015, 06:19 PM

I'm a bit disappointed that OCC haven't yet published the 40 biggest selling compilations of 2014. I wanna see if Frozen made it or got knocked down to #2 by NOW 89

Posted by: Gezza Jan 2 2015, 06:41 PM

Frozen ended up at No 2 behind Now 89