Record number of artists and tracks accumulate multi-million annual streams in UK - including hits by Ed Sheeran, Tion Wayne & Russ Millions and Glass Animals

New analysis from the BPI – the UK association of independent and major record labels – reveals that a record number of tracks hit eight-figure annual stream totals in 2021.

The report - based on Official Charts Company data and published in The BPI's annual yearbook All About The Music 2022 - shows that almost 20,000 tracks were streamed a million times or more in 2021. At the same time, just under 1,800 tracks were streamed more than 10 million times on audio streaming services in the UK last year – almost 25 times higher than the number of tracks that reached the same threshold in 2014.

And, as the UK streaming market grows, streaming success is spread across more artists and tracks than ever before; with songs from the likes of Ed Sheeran, Mimi Webb, Glass Animals and Tion Wayne & Russ Millions proving hugely successful.

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BPI analysis unveils that a new high of 1,776 tracks accumulated at least 10 million audio streams in the UK in 2021. This was up by a tenth (10.8%) on the year before, while in 2014 72 tracks achieved this level of popularity. A huge 20,000 tracks were streamed over 1 million times last year as the UK’s streaming market grew by 5.7% overall to reach 147.2 billion audio streams. In 2021 more than three billion tracks were consumed in a single week for the first time.

As a result of the record number of tracks accumulating multi-million stream counts in the UK, more artists than ever are experiencing increased levels of streaming success.

In 2021 the year’s Top-10 most-streamed tracks accounted for just 0.8% of all streams, compared to 2.0% for the 10 biggest tracks five years earlier. The Top 100 tracks of last year made up 4.4% of the market, down from 10.3% in 2016, as the streaming market becomes progressively democratised and benefits more artists.

While Ed Sheeran’s Bad Habits was the year’s biggest hit, with more than 200 million streams, the yearbook highlights that artists such as Glass Animals' Heat Waves and Tion Wayne & Russ Millions' Body scored career firsts by having tracks accumulating more than 100 million UK streams in a single year. Artists including A1 x J1 (Latest Trends), Mimi Webb (Good Without) and Tom Zanetti (Didn’t Know) had songs reaching 50 million annual UK streams for the first time.

The BPI annual yearbook, All About The Music 2022, is out now.