Brits Buying British

British acts accounted for almost 53 percent of UK album sales in 2011, according to data from the Official Charts Company and analysed by the British Phonographic Industry.

It’s the UK’s strongest performance in the domestic albums market in 15 years, the days of Brit Pop and the Spice Girls in 1997.

Adele helped British acts to their marginal domination, which saw homegrown acts improve their sales by 4 percent on the previous 12 months.

But even without Adele’s sales, the Brits would still have been at their highest since 2007. Acts such as Coldplay, Jessie J, Ed Sheeran, Olly Murs and the late Amy Winehouse were among those to shift more than 500,000 copies.

U.S. artists were second with almost one-third of sales, their lowest share since 1999.

Canada, with major contributions from Michael Bublé and Arcade Fire, was in third place. Rihanna was almost solely responsible for Barbados coming as high as fourth.

The U.S. came out marginally best in the singles market, with nearly 44 percent of sales, just ahead of the 42 percent achieved by the British acts.