charts discussion Only 5 albums by UK/Irish acts make the UK year end top 100, Brat #1 amongst Brits.

[Fitzswiftie]

A formerly thriving music scene, but in the recently published Official Chart year ends, only five records were by British or Irish acts

#8 Brat, Charli xcx 

#9 Moon Music, Coldplay

#40 Radical Optimism, Dua Lipa

#61 Romance, Fontaines D.C.

#83 Prelude to Ecstasy, The Last Dinner Party

With only three British holdovers from 2023 made significant enough impact to finish in the 2024 top 100, one of them being a compilation of four fours worth of hit songs from Joel Corry

 

#72 Another Friday Night, Joel Corry

#77 My 21st Century Blues, Raye

#78 Broken by Desire to be Heaven Sent, Lewis Capaldi

 

What happened to the UK music scene? Is it in a worse state than even a few years ago? Is it because the big hitters (Adele, Dave, Harry, Lewis, Sam, Stormzy, 1975 etc) are in-between eras?

Another reason?

[Popboi.]

Greatest hits collections swamping the chart more than ever, many American artists having a huge year are the main reasons.

[sugarysunflower]

Double check again, I went through the list and saw these entrants: 
 

Elton John

George Michael 

Oasis x 2

Arctic Monkeys x 2

David Bowie 

The Beatles

Ed Sheeran x 3

Rolling Stones

Amy Winehouse 

Dua Lipa x 2

Adele 

Phil Collins

Cure

Sam Smith

Harry Styles

 

So there's another 20-25 on top of your 8. So ~33% are British/Irish.

 

The vast majority of the albums weren't even new albums.
 

There's so many compilations of Greatest Hits from ABBA, Michael Jackson, Britney Spears to Eminem to Bob Marley and then just older 2000s/2010s album classics like Doo Wops & Hooligans, The Fame, GGGB, Starboy and even classics like Rumours. 

Edited December 31, 2024 by sugarysunflower

[Yakult]

UK chart rules essentially making the albums chart a variation of the singles chart to an extent. Catalogue albums that had a long singles campaign have a big advantage, while over 1/3 of the top 100 is clogged up with the same old greatest hits albums.

[Ivan_brit]

Dua Lipa & Charli XCX are coming to dominate 2025 Brit Awards AS THEY SHOULD!!!

[MatiRod]

Yeah this is bad. The UK has been one of the epicentres of popular music since the 60s and now they can't produce a new star. It's very weird. 10 years ago, with the amount of media attention and airplay, awards etc RAYE and The Last Dinner Party would be Top 10 of their respective years.

[Fitzswiftie]

2 hours ago, sugarysunflower said:

Double check again, I went through the list and saw these entrants: 
 

Elton John

George Michael 

Oasis x 2

Arctic Monkeys x 2

David Bowie 

The Beatles

Ed Sheeran x 3

Rolling Stones

Amy Winehouse 

Dua Lipa x 2

Adele 

Phil Collins

Cure

Sam Smith

Harry Styles

 

So there's another 20-25 on top of your 8. So ~33% are British/Irish.

 

The vast majority of the albums weren't even new albums.
 

There's so many compilations of Greatest Hits from ABBA, Michael Jackson, Britney Spears to Eminem to Bob Marley and then just older 2000s/2010s album classics like Doo Wops & Hooligans, The Fame, GGGB, Starboy and even classics like Rumours. 

Should've specified, I meant exclusively 2024 releases. 
 

My bad.

[gustavothehuman]

The current sales formula reduces the weight of each album's most streamed songs, but greatest hits compilations get away with that because... Well... It's full of hits 

 

Edited December 31, 2024 by gustavothehuman

[gustavothehuman]

Godplay achieving a year-end Top 10 on their third decade of career though 

[Youngbae]

They need to get rid of that stupid formula. You don't see Billboard Top200 dominated by albums with one track carrying the entire release so whatever concerns they had in 2014 are pretty much irrelevant.

[Truth Teller]

8 hours ago, Youngbae said:

They need to get rid of that stupid formula. You don't see Billboard Top200 dominated by albums with one track carrying the entire release so whatever concerns they had in 2014 are pretty much irrelevant.

I don't think that's the problem. If anything, the formula benefits hitless albums, and is the only reason Coldplay made it into the top 10 and The Last Dinner Party and Fontaines D.C. got in. What they should do is maybe eliminate compilations from the main chart because they do have an unfair advantage.

[Youngbae]

1 hour ago, Truth Teller said:

I don't think that's the problem. If anything, the formula benefits hitless albums, and is the only reason Coldplay made it into the top 10 and The Last Dinner Party and Fontaines D.C. got in. What they should do is maybe eliminate compilations from the main chart because they do have an unfair advantage.

When it comes to the 1st week position, it does help as it's usually physical sales-driven. But once your physical sales collapse and you don't have several big hits on your album, your chances to win against the same old GH compilations are next to none. Maybe they should attribute the streams to the original studio albums instead? That would work really well, actually.