For the first time since 2013, there were no acts from the UK in the list of top ten biggest selling artists this year released recently by IFPI, an organisation representing the music industry worldwide. The winner of 2020’s IFPI Global Recording Artist of the Year Award was BTS, with Taylor Swift taking second spot and Drake third place.
Every year, IFPI publishes the top ten biggest selling record artists list which contains acts generating the biggest revenue that year. More specifically, it reflects an artist’s performance across digital and physical (including vinyl) music formats across the world. This year, the list was topped by BTS, a group who primarily performs in a non-English language for the first time. They came second place in 2018 and seventh in 2019.
The full list is shown below:
- BTS
- Taylor Swift
- Drake
- The Weeknd
- Billie Eilish
- Eminem
- Post Malone
- Ariana Grande
- Juice WRLD
- Justin Bieber
This is highly unusual as UK acts have consistently appeared in IFPI’s list every year for the past seven years. There was One Direction in 2013, One Direction, Coldplay, Sam Smith in 2014, Adele, Ed Sheeran, Sam Smith in 2015, David Bowie, Adele in 2016, Ed Sheeran in 2017, Ed Sheeran, Queen in 2018 with Queen, The Beatles and Ed Sheeran again in 2019. 2020 has been a particularly strange year for many industries, especially music – which may have affected the lack of presence from UK artists.
However, the organisation also released a list of best-selling albums of 2020, where Harry Styles’ ‘Fine Line’ placed fifth and Dua Lipa’s ‘Future Nostalgia’ tenth. Furthermore, many previous winners from the UK such as Adele and Ed Sheeran are expected to release new albums this year so music enthusiasts can hopefully expect UK-based artists in the 2021 list.
