Taylor Swift crowned recording artist of the year for fifth time
Canadian rapper Drake was named second biggest global artist of 2024
Yes, we listened to a lot of Taylor Swift last year.
The pop icon was the world's top artist of 2024 with a record 5.6 million sales of her album The Tortured Poets Department, according to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), which represents the recorded music industry worldwide.
The megastar made history by being crowned for the fifth time — and for the third consecutive year — as IFPI's biggest-selling global recording artist of the year.
Swift was first named IFPI global recording artist of the year in 2014 and then in 2019, 2022 and 2023, the most times for any performer since the award was introduced 12 years ago.
Canadian rapper Drake came in second on that chart for 2024 and was the fourth biggest artist in 2023. He last topped IFPI charts in 2018 and 2016.
Taylor Swift's The Tortured Poets Department record also topped four IFPI charts — global album, global vinyl album, global streaming album and global album sales — the IFPI said in a statement on Tuesday.
It had a strong lead on the 2024 global album sales chart, which calculates physical purchases and full album downloads, with 5.6 million units. K-pop group Enhypen's Romance: Untold took the second spot with 3.4 million units sold.
Swift's record-breaking Eras Tour, the first to surpass $1 billion in revenue, also boosted interest in her past records, with several appearing in the 2024 vinyl album and streaming album charts, the IFPI said.
There was a resurgence of her previous albums 1989 (Taylor's Version) (2023), Midnights (2022), folklore (2020), evermore (2020) and Lover (2019), which all landed in the top 20 of IFPI's 2024 global vinyl album chart.
"This has been a huge year for Taylor, and it has been incredible to see the extent to which fans all over the world are connecting with her superb catalog of music," IFPI chief executive Victoria Oakley said.
Presented to whoever tops the IFPI global artist chart, the prize is calculated by looking at an artist's or group's worldwide sales for streaming, download and physical music formats during the calendar year and covers their whole body of work, according to the organization.
The top 10 global artists for 2024 based on consumption of an artist's entire catalogue across all formats, including physical album sales, downloads and streaming across both free and paid platforms are:
- Taylor Swift
- Drake
- Seventeen
- Billie Eilish
- Stray Kids
- Zach Bryan
- The Weeknd
- Eminem
- Kendrick Lamar
- Sabrina Carpenter
It was also an incredible year for breakthrough artists across the IFPI global charts. Zach Bryan and Sabrina Carpenter made their first appearance in the Top 10 of the global recording artist chart whilst in the global streaming album chart, Noah Kahan, Benson Boone, Chappell Roan and Teddy Swims all featured for the first time.
K-pop continued to be the leading genre in the global album sales chart, based on unit sales across physical and download formats.
With files from CBC News