Oasis and Olivia Dean make 2025 a good year for British music sales
Vinyl sales almost catch up with CDs, as Americans Alex Warren and Taylor Swift have most sold songs and albums in UK
Oasis’s comeback and the emergence of Lola Young and Olivia Dean as female stars made 2025 a good year for the British music industry.
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The British Phonographic Industry released its end-of-year figures on New Year’s Eve and revealed that streaming now accounts for 89 per cent of the music market in the UK.
Nonetheless, Oasis managed to shift one million copies of their back catalogue in the same year they held their Live ‘25 reunion tour. This helped contribute to 7.6 million vinyl records being sold across the country, the 18th year in a row the figure has risen, while 9.7 million CDs were sold, meaning the older technology might overtake the compact disc in 2026.
Taylor Swift topped the top album sales with her latest LP, the Life of a Showgirl, while Sam Fender’s third record, People Watching, was second and the highest placed British artist.
Dr Jo Twist of the British Phonographic Industry said: "The UK is still the second largest exporter of music globally, which is amazing, but we can't be complacent because streaming has opened the floodgates to every bit of recorded music that's ever been made.”
As for the most-streamed songs of 2025, it was not a totally different list to last year with Lola Young’s Messy, Gracie Abram’s That’s So True, Lady Gaga’s Die With a Smile, Benson Boone’s Beautiful Things, and Rose’s APT all being released in 2024. Chappell Roan’s Pink Pony Club was first released in 2020.
Most-streamed songs of 2025
- Alex Warren - Ordinary,
- Lola Young - Messy,
- Chappell Roan - Pink Pony Club,
- Golden - Ejae, Audrey Nuna, and Rei Ami,
- Rose and Bruno Mars - APT,
- Gracie Abrams - That’s So True,
- Benson Boone - Beautiful Things,
- Rayvn Lenea - Love Me Not,
- Olivia Dean - Man I Need,
- Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars - Die With a Smile