Female pop stars celebrate a record-breaking year in UK charts

From Taylor Swift to Charli XCX, women had a record-breaking year on the British charts, according to new figures from the British Phonographic Institute (BPI).

Female pop artists topped the singles chart for an unprecedented 34 weeks - the highest ever figure.

Twenty-one of those weeks belonged to Sabrina Carpenter, whose hit singles Espresso, Taste and Please, Please, Please dominated the second half of the year.

Women were also responsible for half of the year's biggest-selling albums, with Taylor Swift's Tortured Poets Department leading the pack.

A break-up album full of caustic kiss-offs and sober reflection, it accumulated more than 783,000 sales by the end of December - more than any artist has managed in a calendar year since Ed Sheeran's ÷ sold 2.7 million copies in 2017.

Swift had another three albums among the year's 20 biggest titles: 1989 (Taylor's Version), Lover and Folklore.

There were also places in the year-end top 20 for albums Billie Eilish's Hit Me Hard And Soft, Sabrina Carpenter's Short N' Sweet, Chappell Roan's The Rise And Fall Of A Midwest Princess and Charli XCX's Brat - all of which have been nominated for album of the year at the 2025 Grammy Awards.

However, the availability of millions of songs at the touch of a button is making it harder for British musicians to compete.

For the first time since records began in 1970, none of the year's top 10 best-selling songs was by an artist from the UK.

Instead, the chart was dominated by US singer-songwriters, including Noah Kahan, whose breakthrough hit Stick Season notched up a total of 1.99m sales (including streams) over the year.

Benson Boone's Beautiful Things took second place, while Sabrina Carpenter's summer anthem Espresso came third.

The biggest-selling song by a Brit was Myles Smith's folk-pop stomper Stargazing, which came twelfth.