Brits Do Best In Britain

High-charting releases from Ed Sheeran, Sam Smith, George Ezra, Paolo Nutini, Coldplay, and Paloma Faith, among others, accounted for 53.5 percent of UK sales.

It’s the largest share of the market that British acts have achieved since 1997, back in the days of the Britpop boom when Spice Girls, Oasis, The Prodigy, Radiohead and The Verve were among the big sellers. Only five non-British artists made it into the year-end Top 20 (Taylor Swift, Dolly Parton, Barbra Streisand, Pharrell Williams and John Legend), meaning that UK acts accounted for an impressive 15 out of 20 of the best-selling albums in the nation last year.

“The strongest performance by UK artists since the Britpop era shows that this country has great strength not only in talented musicians, but also in innovative record labels that invest in nurturing their careers,” said BPI chief exec Geoff Taylor. Albums from across the Atlantic accounted for 34 percent of all recorded music sales in the UK last year. In the Official Singles Chart, hits from artists such as Eminem, Katy Perry and Beyoncé took 37.7 percent share of the market, down from 40.9 percent in 2013 and still some way behind the Brits at 43.4 percent.

Canada again claimed third place in the albums share table with 2.8 percent of the market, in particular thanks to Michael Bublé, Dublin rockers Kodaline and The Script boosted the luck of the Irish in the albums market (2.2 percent, up from 1.8 percent).