The Official best-selling CD albums of 2024

Coldplay claim the best-selling CD album of 2024 with Moon Music as the UK decline of CD sales slows.

Official Charts Company data can reveal that the British group’s 10th studio album shifted over 204,000 copies on the longstanding format, outselling its closest competition – The Tortured Poets Department from Taylor Swift (2) – by 7,000 units.

Moon Music reached Number 1 on the Official Albums Chart in October, becoming Chris Martin, Guy Berryman, Jonny Buckland and Will Champion’s 10th consecutive chart-topping studio album. The record’s first week chart units of 237,000 marked the biggest British debut since Adele 30’s in 2021, and was the band’s strongest opening week since 2008’s Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends.

In addition, Moon Music’s 182,000 first week CD sales was the highest weekly figure on the format since Ed Sheeran’s ÷ in 2017.

According to BPI analysis of Official Charts Company data, 2024 witnessed growth in UK physical album sales for the first time in two decades. While the increased demand for was led by vinyl sales, there were signs of a shoring up in the CD market. In 2022, CD unit sales dropped 19.4%, becoming then the latest in a long succession of annual double-digit percentage drops for the format. But this decline has since slowed with CD sales falling by just 2.9% in 2024 to 10.5 million units.

As with vinyl, the top CDs of the year were new releases. All but one of the 20 best-selling CDs came out in 2024 or 2023, with the top two – Coldplay’s Moon Music and The Tortured Poets Department by Taylor Swift – selling over 400,000 copies between them.

The biggest album of 2024 across all combined formats, Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department is the compact disc runner-up at 2, shifting 197,000 copies. TTPD’s opening tally of 109,000 CD sales makes it her fastest-selling album ever on the format.

Taylor also claims a further four albums in the wider Top 40: 1989 (Taylor’s Version) (11), Lover (20), Folklore (28) and Midnights (31). Taylor also scoops the biggest CD single of the year with Fortnight ft. Post Malone, shifting 16,500 units.

Sabrina Carpenter’s chart-topping album Short n’ Sweet is the third biggest album of 2024 overall, a position it matches on the CD format year-end chart. Rod Stewart & Jools Holland score the year’s best-selling collaborative album on CD in fourth with Number 1 album Swing Fever, while Teddy Swims rounds out the Top 5 in fifth with I’ve Tried Everything But Therapy – Pt 1, an impressive feat given the slow-burning album missed the Top 10 on the Official Albums Chart, peaking at Number 12.

Official Albums Chart Number 1s round out the Top 10: David Gilmour’s Luck and Strange (6), Michael Ball & Alfie Boe’s Together At Home (7), The Cure’s Songs Of A Lost World (8), Charli XCX’s Brat (9), and Billie Eilish’s HIT ME HARD AND SOFT (10).

Paul Heaton’s The Mighty Several ranks the highest among Top 10 albums that didn’t reach Number 1 on the Official Albums Chart (it peaked at Number 2 behind Charli XCX’s Brat in October) at Number 12, while pop starlets Dua Lipa and Chappell Roan rank closely behind at Numbers 13 and 14 with Radical Optimism and The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess respectively.

Other 2024 UK Number 1 albums in the Top 20 include Liam Gallagher & John Squire’s self-titled album (15), Green Day’s Saviors (16), The Last Dinner Party’s Prelude To Ecstasy (17), Snow Patrol’s The Forest Is The Path (18), and Kylie Minogue’s Tension II (19).

The Official Top 40 best-selling CD albums of 2024

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