British artists sell a third of top 40 best-selling albums worldwide

[-:Undertaker:-]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/cele...worldwide.html

UK artists sell a third of top 40 best-selling albums worldwide

Top British acts including Adele, One Direction and Ed Sheeran took a bigger chunk of global sales in 2015 with combined sales of 33.5 million records, research finds

Adele, Ed Sheeran and Sam Smith helped secure a booming year for the UK music industry in 2015, with British acts responsible for a third of the top 40 best-selling albums worldwide, according to new research. The 12 albums by homegrown acts that featured among the best selling albums globally, sold a combined total of 33.5 million records.

They included A Head Full of Dreams by Coldplay, Wilder Mind by Mumford and Sons and Drones by Muse, as well as two albums by One Direction, Made in the AM and Four. Adele’s 25 topped the worldwide chart with almost 15 million sales, and was closely followed by Ed Sheeran’s X at number three and Sam Smith’s In the Lonely Hour at four.

The UK sales represent a seven per cent increase on 2014, analysts said, and prove the growing success of the British music industry on the global stage. Dan O’Neill, head of new business at Centtrip, said: “As a nation we should be proud to have some of the best and most successful artists in the world. “Not only do they make incredible music, they also make a huge contribution to the UK economy through jobs and revenue.”

The research found that 2.7 per cent of the UK’s most wealthy 1,000 people worked in the music industry and were together worth £24.6billion, an increase of 18 per cent on 2014. Of the five British artists who notched up top 10 best-selling albums last year, four also made the top 10 in 2014; Ed Sheeran, Sam Smith, Coldplay and One Direction.

Separate research released last month found that home-grown artists accounted for 15 of the top 20 albums in the UK last year. Adele led the way, with 2.5 million copies of her new album 25 sold in the UK in the six weeks since its release, according to the BPI, the music trade body.

The surge in streaming and a revival of vinyl records helped drive revenue to £1.1 billion, it said.

Brand Britain: a cultural giant in music, television and entertainment. The fifth-largest economy in the world and on-track to be the largest in Europe. The world's number one financial centre. One of the most powerful countries in terms of military power. One of the richest even in per capita per person. At the head of one of the world's largest organisations and family of nations; the Commonwealth. A history and heritage that only the likes of China, France, Japan and Russia can compare to.

Aside from being proud there's a message in all that who think this country can't make it in the 21st century and who talk it down.

[dbgtz]

Bloody service economy.