Female artists lead the way as physical music sales end slump

Charli xcx's Brat summer may have given way to winter, but the success of albums by female artists helped arrest a two-decade-long decline in sales of physical music.

- Rob Davies

Women led the way in recorded music this year, according to the BPI trade body. They topped the singles chart for 34 weeks and made up half of the top 20 albums for the first time.

Albums by female artists including Taylor Swift, Sabrina Carpenter, Charli xcx and Billie Eilish were the engine room of growth as combined sales of streaming and physical music rose by nearly 10% to pass 200m albums or their equivalents as measured by the BPI.