Adele Tops Illegal Download Chart

Adele was probably the most illegally downloaded artist in the UK in 2011, according to research by Musicmetric.

The London-based independent music data analyst collected information on peer-to-peer downloads across a range of illegal music sites.

It studied six major UK cities and tracked how many times the Top 20 selling albums of last year were unlawfully downloaded or shared.

It discovered Adele was the most illegally downloaded artist of last year and that London is also the piracy capital of the UK.

“There are three types of people who listen to music – those who fileshare, those who buy CDs and those who do both,” independent music analyst Mark Mulligan told The Daily Telegraph. “It is not surprising that those artists who sold lots of records last year, were also very popular across illegal download sites. There is a correlation between this success and illegal downloads.

“Artists like Adele are unique and part of a dying breed. She is a CD artist as well as being someone younger people want to access for free.”

In 2011, Adele was also the first artist to break the Apple iTunes 1 million sales barrier in Europe.

Mulligan says the record companies’ main concern is that people who buy music will die out, which means the labels and their artists are under growing pressure to search for new revenue streams.

In London, illegal downloading was three times more prevalent than it was in Manchester, which was the UK’s second city for music piracy.

In London Adele, Bruno Mars and Jessie J were favourites among the illegal downloaders. In Manchester Ed Sheeran, Amy Winehouse, Olly Murs and Take That were very popular.

Liverpool was the third-biggest UK city for filesharing, followed by Birmingham and Glasgow.

The top five most pirated artists across the cities that were surveyed were Adele, Jessie J, Rihanna, Bruno Mars and Lady Gaga.