DREAM YEAR
The rise and rise of pop sensation Lewis Capaldi
HE is a 23-year-old West Lothian singersongwriter famed for his bizarre social media pranks and who started playing guitar at nine and singing in pubs at 12.
Now Lewis Capaldi has become the UK’S best-selling artist of 2019 with both the best selling album and single of the year.
His ballad Someone You Loved topped the end-of-year listings having racked up 228 million streams. The song also gave the singer his first US number one in October.
In what was a huge year for Capaldi, the artist beat Ed Sheeran’s No. 6 Collaborations Project album to the top spot in the best-selling albums of 2019 list.
In August, Capaldi had actually played a number of gigs supporting Sheeran on the star’s record-breaking Divide world tour.
Another of Capaldi’s showbiz friends is Elton John, who called him earlier this year “the next British superstar”.
Capaldi, born in Glasgow and raised in Bathgate, sold more than 640,000 albums across all formats and album equivalents, including more than 250,000 copies on CD and vinyl combined, according to Official Charts Company data.
According to trade body the BPI, music consumption grew for the fifth year in a row, with the equivalent of 154m albums listened to across streaming and purchasing in 2019, up 7.5% on 2018 and reaching its highest level since 2006.
Streaming is also on the rise – the 2019 total of 114 billion plays on audio streaming services marks the first time the 100 billion landmark has been surpassed in a single year.
The year’s biggest hit singles included Lil Nas X’s country-rap crossover
Old Town Road, which finished at number two in the chart.
Ava Max’s pop smash Sweet But Psycho which was number 6 and Giant, the result of Dumfries-born superstar producer Calvin Harris’s collaboration with Rag ‘n’ Bone Man, at number five.
For Capaldi, it all began when manager Ryan Walter, the founder of Interlude Artists discovered him on Soundcloud three years ago. After releasing his first track, Bruises, independently in March 2017, Capaldi went on to be named as one of Vevo’s Artists To Watch later that year.
Capaldi has said it is “bizarre” that he had become so famous worldwide since the release of his breakthrough single Someone You Loved in November, 2018.
His album, released in May, last year was one of the fastest-selling records of the year and led to a sold out an arena tour.
Capaldi’s journey from zero to pop hero has not stopped him using social media to wantonly tout for even more chart success, by pushing fans to get his latest song to number one in the UK pop charts for the start of the decade.
Meanwhile a rewind to the 1970s and 1980s has continued a comeback, with sales of music cassettes hitting a 15-year high and vinyl also cementing a comeback.
The BPI said UK cassette sales reached 80,404 last year (2019), the highest annual figure since the 100,000 that were bought in 2004.
Brits bought 4.3 million vinyl LPS in 2019, with sales up 4.2% – the 12th annual rise in a row. Vinyl sales have surged by 2,000% since a low point in 2007, and now account for one in eight albums bought.
Other international and UK debut artists in the end-of-year albums Top 10 include Kilsyth-born Tom Walker’s What A Time To Be Alive at number 8 and Billie Eilish at number 4 with When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?
Meanwhile US star Ariana Grande finished at number 7 with Thank U, Next and Christmas album chart-topper Rod Stewart finished at number 10 overall with You’re In My Heart (Rhino).
The Greatest Showman soundtrack released two years remained in the
British music proved once again in 2019 that it has a bright future
running to be the number album overall again but finished at number 3.
Geoff Taylor, chief executive BPI and Brit Awards said: “British music proved once again in 2019 that it has a bright future.
“Strong demand for streaming music and vinyl, fuelled by the investment and innovation of UK labels in discovering and promoting new talent, boosted music consumption to levels not seen for 15 years. But the full benefits of this growth can only be unlocked if our new Government takes action to make the UK more competitive and encourage further investment, to require digital platforms to pay fairly for music and filter out illegal content, and to give all our schoolchildren the opportunity to play an instrument and discover the joy of making music.”
According to BPI, streaming is now responsible for three-quarters of “album equivalent sales” – the metric used by the industry to convert consumption on services like Spotify and Amazon Music into album sales.
Just three years ago, the technology was only responsible for 36% of album sales.
By contrast, physical sales were down 22.8% year-on-year and now account for less than 20% (18.2%) of the market. CDS slumped by 26.5% year-on-year to 23.5m.