IFPI, the organization that represents the recorded music industry worldwide, has published three new Global Album Charts, highlighting last year’s biggest releases by sales, as well as the top-selling vinyl and streaming albums of the year.
The news follows last week’s launch of the IFPI Global Music Report, which showed that recorded music revenues grew 10.2% globally in 2023 to $28.6 billion.
Announced today (March 28) by IFPI are: The IFPI Global Album Sales Chart, which includes sales from all physical formats as well as album downloads; and the IFPI Global Vinyl Album Chart includes only vinyl album sales. IFPI says that both charts are purely units-based.
The Global Streaming Album Chart, also announced today, takes into account streams from ad-supported and subscription streaming platforms, weighting these streams “according to the economics between formats and across regions”.
K-Pop group SEVENTEEN (with their album FML) are No.1 on the IFPI Global Album Sales Chart, which, as we noted above, measures unit sales across all physical formats, as well as full album downloads – a combination, according to IFPI is “known as pure sales”.
At the end of February, SEVENTEEN were also named the winner of the IFPI Global Album Award for 2023. That chart, according to IFPI, is calculated according to an album’s worldwide sales across downloads and physical music, as well as streaming formats during the calendar year.
SEVENTEEN’s album FML sold 6.4 million units globally in 2023, breaking the record for most pre-orders ever for an album in South Korea.
According to IFPI, 19 of the Top 20 albums in its Global Album Sales Chart, (which includes sales from all physical formats as well as album downloads) come from K-Pop acts.
To flip that stat around, only one of the Top 20 albums in IFPI’s Global Album Sales Chart last year WASN’T by a K-Pop act.
IFPI noted on Thursday that this feat is “unprecedented” and demonstrates South Korean artists’ “global dominance of the physical album format”.
The only non-K-Pop artist present in the Top 20 was Taylor Swift, with her album 1989 (Taylor’s Version), which IFPI reports sold 2.8 million units globally in 2023 (see below).
Taylor Swift, who was also recently named as IFPI Global Recording Artist of the Year, held each of the top three places in the IFPI Global Vinyl Album Chart for 2023 (see below).
Swift had a total of seven albums reach the Top 20 of that Chart overall, with the releases of 1989 (Taylor’s Version) at No.1, Speak Now (Taylor’s Version at No.2) and Midnights at No.3 joined by folklore (No.7), Lover (No.9), evermore (No.13) and Red (Taylor’s Version) (No.15).
Meanwhile, country star Morgan Wallen scored his first ever IFPI Global Chart No.1 in the IFPI Global Streaming Album Chart.
According to IFPI, this chart counts global streams from both ad-supported and subscription platforms and calculates a weighted global unit number taking into account differing economics across regions.
Wallen’s 2023 album One Thing at a Time was the biggest streaming album of the year on this basis, with Wallen also appearing at No.9 with Dangerous: The Double Album.
Lewis Morrison, Director of Global Charts & Certifications at IFPI, said: “Congratulations to SEVENTEEN and Taylor Swift for their second IFPI Global Charts awards of 2023, and to Morgan Wallen for his first ever global No.1.”
“Congratulations to SEVENTEEN and Taylor Swift for their second IFPI Global Charts awards of 2023, and to Morgan Wallen for his first ever global No.1.”
Lewis Morrison, IFPI
Morrison added: “Each of these artists created (or in the case of Taylor, reimagined) incredible music which found a global audience and achieved enormous commercial success in 2023, and the charts themselves highlight the multitude of ways in which music fans are engaging with their favourite albums all over the world.
“As highlighted in IFPI’s Global Music Report, revenues from both digital and physical music formats continue to see healthy growth, and the combination of fantastic artistry, format variety and the tireless work of record labels is the foundation on which this growth is built. Well done to everyone who featured in each of the album charts, which are a great summary of a fantastic year for global recorded music.”Music Business Worldwide
