Brits rack up £1.3bn in music sales, with UK artists making up half of the top 20 best-sellers for 2018

British artists had their most bumper year to date in 2018, as local musicians scored half of the UK’s top 20 albums last year with more than £1.3bn in music retail sales across the country.

Data released today by record label association the BPI put singer/songwriter George Ezra's 'Staying At Tamara's' as the best-selling album released in 2018, with the likes of Dua Lipa, Calvin Harris and Jess Glynne following suit.

Around 143m albums or their equivalent were either streamed, purchased or downloaded last year, with audio streams rising 34 per cent year-on-year to hit 91bn.

Blockbuster film soundtracks also took over the charts this year, with the 2017 soundtrack to 'The Greatest Showman' landing the overall sales crown of 2018 after spending half of the year at the number one spot. Last year's top 10 albums list also featured soundtracks to 'Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again' and 'A Star Is Born', and Queen's back catalogue was boosted by the success of the 'Bohemian Rhapsody' band biopic.

Sales of vinyl records also continued to grow in 2018, reaching 4.2m in total. British band Arctic Monkeys led the way, scoring the record for the fastest-selling LP in 25 years.

However BPI chief executive Geoff Taylor warned that several obstacles to continued growth sat on the horizon for 2019, such as a potential hard Brexit knocking consumer confidence.

He added that we may already be seeing the effects of this, citing British music retailer HMV's fall into administration last week.

Audio streaming now accounts for nearly two thirds of all UK domestic music consumption, passing the milestone of 2bn streams in a single week for the first time last month. Demand for CDs, on the other hand, slipped by over a fifth in 2018.