New music
Harry Styles tops the end of year UK single and album charts, it has been confirmed.
2022 was a helluva year, with the UK passing through two Monarchs, three Prime Ministers, and more scandals than the broadsheets could find space to print. Music stood by us through it all, and it seems like a bumper year for British artists.
Collating the data, the Official Chart Company has found that streaming rose in 2022, moving from from 147 billion audio streams in 2021 to 159 billion in 2022 – that’s around three billion streams per week.
Curiously, the purchase of physical albums – CD, cassette, vinyl – actually fell in the past 12 months, a decline of 13.1%.
That said, vinyl sales rose once more – increasing for their fifteenth successive year, reaching a high of 5.5 million units.
Harry Styles came out on top in both the year-end single and album charts; ‘As It Was’ topped the 2022 singles chart, while ‘Harry’s House’ won out over on the album countdown.
The UK’s most popular singles in 2022 were:
1. Harry Styles – ‘As It Was’
2. Ed Sheeran – ‘Bad Habits’
3. Fireboy DML and Ed Sheeran – ‘Peru’
4. Cat Burns – ‘Go’
5. Ed Sheeran – ‘Shivers’
6. Kate Bush – ‘Running Up That Hill’
7. Glass Animals – ‘Heat Waves’
8. Lost Frequencies and Calum Scott – ‘Where Are You Now’
9. LF System – ‘Afraid to Feel’
10. Sam Fender – ‘Seventeen Going Under’
The UK’s most popular albums in 2022 were:
1. Harry Styles – ‘Harry’s House’
2. Ed Sheeran – ‘=’
3. Taylor Swift – ‘Midnights’
4. The Weeknd – ‘The Highlights’
5. Olivia Rodrigo – ‘Sour’
6. Eminem – ‘Curtain Call: The Hits’
7. Elton John – ‘Diamonds’
8. Fleetwood Mac – ’50 Years – Don’t Stop’
9. Little Mix – ‘Between Us’
10. Abba – ‘Gold – Greatest Hits’
