After years of warning of threat to grassroots and artist’s viability, UK acts have dropped out of global best-sellers chart

nme.com:

BBC News, no homegrown artist featured on either list last year after Benson Boone claimed the Number One song with ‘Beautiful Things’ and Taylor Swift‘s ‘The Tortured Poets Department‘ was the world’s bestselling album.Albums by Coldplay, Charli XCX and Dua Lipa did not make either list.

The highest ranked artist was Artemas who came in 15th with ‘I Like The Way You Kiss Me’ on the global best selling singles list.Both lists were mainly dominated by US acts including Billie Eilish, Sabrina Carpenter and Kendrick Lamar.Previously, UK acts appeared in one or both of the top 10 lists every year since 2003.It comes after David Martin of the Featured Artists Coalition recently pointed to Spotify’s most globally streamed artists of 2024, saying that the increasing lack of UK names was a sign of the talent pipeline already suffering – and not for a lack of talent.“I’m not saying this is doomsday, it’s fixable but this should be the canary down the mine to the UK music industry,” he told NME. “What is the whole ecosystem able to do together to stimulate activity?

Large arenas and promoters need to have that foresight. You’d expect them to.“We should all be very concerned. The UK’s share of the global music market has reduced from 17 per cent to 10 per cent in the last seven years.

How many UK artists topped the overall Official Charts last year? These should be red flags for the industry. If you want venues to do well, make sure you’ve got performances in them and that you’re stimulating new audiences.