A peak British record label body has crunched the numbers and revealed the impact that the global pandemic has had on music streaming habits in 2020.
For starters, while COVID took a wrecking ball to live music, it seemingly triggered the poms to stream more music from home. According to the latest stats from the British Phonographic Industry (BPI), more than 155 million albums were bought or streamed in 2020 — that’s an increase of 8.2% on the previous year.
Interestingly though, despite the boom in consumption, sales of individual albums were down, with not a single LP certified platinum in the UK last year. As the BBC points out, that’s the first time that’s ever happened since records began in 1973.
Elsewhere, in epic news for Australian pop sensation Tones And I, her earworm hit ‘Dance Monkey’ was the 2nd most streamed song in the UK in 2020, coming in just behind The Weeknd’s ‘Blinding Lights’.
It comes after Spotify revealed the unstoppable star was also the most-streamed artist overall, with the most-streamed song (also Dance Monkey) here in Australia for 2020 as well.
Check out the most streamed songs & albums in the UK for 2020, below.
