Kent looks back on record year for music listening

With music sales and consumption making 2.4 billion in 2024, Oliver Leader de Saxe has been speaking to Canterbury's music scene.

Transcript

00:00£2.4 billion in 2024, that's a 20 year high note for music sales here in the UK,

00:08with more people buying records and streaming music than ever before.

00:12Well we've been here 8 years, it's our 8th year this year and this has been our best

00:16year ever, both in the shop and online as well.

00:19I think there's multiple reasons for that, but certainly the fact that it's more mainstream

00:25now, it feels like a normal thing to do, it no longer feels like a weird niche hobby

00:30that people have.

00:312024 was a massive year for vinyl sales, they rose by around 10.5% over the last 12 months.

00:40There's one vinyl which sold more than anything else, this album by Taylor Swift, the Tortured

00:46Poets Department, which sold more than 100,000 copies.

00:51But it wasn't just Taylor Swift that was setting the vinyl charts ablaze.

00:56She is remarkably talented at, well obviously songwriting and making music, but also at

01:02selling product.

01:03I mean she's remarkably business savvy.

01:05Taylor Swift hasn't been, she's not our top seller, we've sold a lot of Vercure this year,

01:10so Vercure are back after 16 years, that's an album we've sold a lot of, Fontaine's DC

01:14are back, Nick Cave's back, it's been a good year for music across the board.

01:19Here's everyone in Canterbury, all aboard, the vinyl boom.

01:23It's not for me, it's too bothersome, I just use my cell phone and let's go.

01:28Yes, Spotify, if I could afford vinyls, I'd love to have a connection.

01:32Yeah, I would also do vinyls as well if I could.

01:34Someday maybe.

01:35No, it's just quite cool, it's a cool time, wasn't it, when real music was made, sort

01:40of like live in a studio.

01:41They like the whole thing of the vinyl, don't they, taking out the sleeve, the feel of it,

01:46you know, we've had them in the past where you can kind of, they've been so old that

01:50you can hear the next track coming on.

01:52While the last year may appear pitch perfect for the music industry, with so many people

01:57streaming, is this translating to artists' pockets?

02:02Reality is that about 70% of the music that comes into the digital streaming services

02:07is passed straight back to the record label and the artists, so therefore if the value

02:12from the music streaming services is going up by 8% year-on-year, equally the value going

02:16back to the artists is going up by 8% year-on-year.

02:20But if anything's for certain, it's that the county can't get enough of spinning the artists,

02:27topping the charts.

02:28Oliver, Leader of the Saks, for KNTV in Canterbury.