Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department finished 2024 as the most popular album of the year in the U.S., according to music data tracking company Luminate. Meanwhile, the most-streamed song by on-demand audio streams was Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song (Tipsy),” and the most-heard song on the radio was Teddy Swims’ “Lose Control.”
Total music consumption in the U.S. – as measured in audio equivalent album units – increased by 5.6% in 2024. (View Luminate’s 2024 Year-End Music Report.)
See Luminate’s year-end top 10 albums, along with other year-end rankings and industry volume numbers, below.
But first, the fine print:
Equivalent album units – for album titles and chart rankings cited below (but not industry volume numbers) – comprise traditional album sales, track equivalent albums (TEA) and streaming equivalent albums (SEA). Each unit equals one album sale, or 10 individual tracks sold from an album, or 3,750 ad-supported on-demand official audio and video streams generated by songs from an album, or 1,250 paid/subscription on-demand official audio and video streams generated by songs from an album. Album titles and album chart rankings by equivalent album units do not include user-generated content (UGC) streams, but UGC streams are included in Luminate’s industry volume numbers. (UGC streams are not factored into any of Billboard’s weekly charts.)
For the sake of clarity, equivalent album units do not include listening to music on broadcast radio or digital radio broadcasts – including programmed streams – operating under Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) regulations. All numbers cited in this story are rounded, and reflect U.S. consumption only.
Luminate’s equivalent album unit totals include SEA and TEA for an album’s songs registered before an album’s release, but during the tracking period of Dec. 29, 2023, through Jan. 2, 2025.
Luminate began tracking music sales in 1991 when the company was known as SoundScan. Luminate’s sales, streaming and airplay data is used to compile Billboard’s weekly charts. Luminate’s 2024 tracking year ran from Dec. 29, 2023, through Jan. 2, 2025.
Luminate’s 2024 tracking year contained 53 weeks, instead of the usual 52 weeks. So, for 2024 volume comparisons to 2023, a corresponding 53-week period was used by Luminate for 2023: Dec. 30, 2022, through Jan. 4, 2024.
Highlights from Luminate’s 2024 U.S. year-end data:
- Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department was Luminate’s top album of 2024 in the U.S. It’s the third time Swift has led the year-end list. She was also tops with 1989 (in 2014) and Fearless (in 2009).
- Poets earned 6.955 million equivalent album units in 2024 in the U.S., according to Luminate. That’s the biggest yearly total for an album since 2015, when Adele’s third album, 25, earned 8.008 million units.
- Swift is the first artist in Luminate history (1991-present) to have three different albums be a year-end No. 1.
- Poets was also the top-selling album overall in the U.S. in 2024, by traditional album sales. It was also the top-selling album in each of CD, vinyl and cassette tape formats, as well as among digital download albums.
- Total U.S. audio album consumption increased 5.6% in 2024.
- U.S. on-demand audio streams increased 6.4% in 2024.
- Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” was the most-streamed song in the U.S. in 2024 by on-demand audio streams: 912.7 million.
- U.S. vinyl album sales increased by 4.3% in 2024.
- Seven of the year’s top 10-selling albums were K-pop projects.
- Digital track sales declined for a 12th year in a row in the U.S. in 2024.
- Teddy Swims’ “Lose Control” was the biggest song at U.S. radio in 2024: 3.250 billion audience impressions.
Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart dated May 4, 2024, and has spent 17 nonconsecutive weeks atop the tally (through its most recent week at No. 1 on the chart dated Dec. 21). The last album by a woman to spend as many weeks at No. 1 was Adele’s 21, which earned 24 nonconsecutive weeks on top in 2011-12.
Poets is the third Swift album to be named Luminate’s year-end No. 1 album, following 1989 (2014) and Fearless (2009). In both 2014 and 2009, the year-end list was based solely on traditional album sales. In 2015, the year-end ranking started being based on equivalent album units.
Since Luminate began electronically tracking music consumption in 1991, Swift is the first artist to have three different albums be Luminate’s year-end No. 1. Adele is the only other act to have the year-end top album in three different years, but Adele did it with two albums: 21 (2011-12) and 25 (2015).
Poets is the first album not by a solo male to be Luminate’s year-end No. 1 since 2015, when Adele’s 25 was tops.
Poets earned 6.955 million equivalent album units in 2024 in the U.S., according to Luminate. That’s the biggest yearly total for an album since 2015, when Adele’s third album, 25, earned 8.008 million units. (Previous to Poets, the last album to clear 6 million units in a single year was 25.)
Half of Poets’ 2024 units was generated by traditional album sales (3.491 million of 6.955 million) – via purchases of physical (CD, cassette and vinyl) and digital download albums. Streaming equivalent album (SEA) units comprise 3.434 million and track equivalent album (TEA) units comprise 30,000. Poets was also the most-streamed album of 2024, by total on-demand official streams generated by its songs, with 4.490 billion streams.
Poets was initially released on April 19 as a standard 16-song digital download album, as well as in an array of 17-song physical configurations. Two hours after the album dropped, Swift issued an expanded 31-song edition of the album, dubbed The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology, which added 15 additional songs. However, the Anthology edition was only available as a digital download and streaming set until Nov. 29, when its CD and vinyl editions became available for purchase exclusively through Target. The Target CD and vinyl additionally boast four bonus acoustic tracks (which were previously released in other alternate versions of the album). All told, more than 40 variants of Poets were released to U.S. customers in 2024, across CD, vinyl, cassette and digital download album versions.
Poets yielded 10 top-10 charting songs on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, including the No. 1 “Fortnight,” featuring Post Malone.
Rounding out Luminate’s year-end top 10 albums are titles by Morgan Wallen, Sabrina Carpenter, SZA, Billie Eilish, Noah Kahan, Chappell Roan, Zach Bryan, and Future and Metro Boomin.
TOP 10 ALBUMS OF 2024 IN U.S., BY TOTAL EQUIVALENT ALBUM UNITS
1. Taylor Swift, The Tortured Poets Department (6.955 million)
2. Morgan Wallen, One Thing at a Time (3.183 million)
3. Sabrina Carpenter, Short n’ Sweet (2.491 million)
4. SZA, SOS (2.473 million)
5. Billie Eilish, Hit Me Hard and Soft (2.259 million)
6. Noah Kahan, Stick Season (2.213 million)
7. Chappell Roan, The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess (1.946 million)
8. Morgan Wallen, Dangerous: The Double Album (1.895 million)
9. Zach Bryan, Zach Bryan (1.723 million)
10. Future & Metro Boomin, We Don’t Trust You (1.606 million)
Source: Luminate, for the tracking period Dec. 29, 2023, through Jan. 2, 2025. UGC streams are not included in this chart, but are included in Luminate’s on-demand streaming charts (below).
TOTAL U.S. AUDIO ALBUM CONSUMPTION INCREASES 5.6%: Audio equivalent album units increased by 5.6% in 2024, to 1.1 billion. For this figure, audio equivalent album units comprise traditional album sales (excluding independent retail sales*), track equivalent albums (TEA) and streaming equivalent albums (SEA, excluding video streams). Each unit equals one album sale, or 10 individual tracks sold from an album, or 3,750 ad-supported on-demand official audio streams generated by songs from an album, or 1,250 paid/subscription on-demand official audio streams generated by songs from an album.
*Note: There was a change in methodology behind Luminate’s independent retail store reporting beginning in January 2024, and, in turn, independent retail physical sales under the new methodology for 2024 are isolated and no trending analysis is provided versus 2023. So, any year-over-year album sales volume excludes independent retail physical sales, including the “total U.S. audio album consumption” figure above. Independent retail sales are included in all figures for individual album titles throughout this story.
TAYLOR SWIFT’S ‘TORTURED POETS’ IS 2024’S TOP-SELLING ALBUM: Poets is also by far the top-selling album of 2024, with 3.491 million copies sold across all configurations (physical and digital purchases combined: CD, vinyl LP, cassette, digital download album). That makes it the highest-selling album of any calendar year in the U.S. since 2015, when Adele’s 25 sold 7.441 million copies. See the top 10-selling albums, below.
Poets’ sales were so big that it outsold the year’s Nos. 2-8 top sellers combined.
TOP 10-SELLING ALBUMS OF 2024 IN U.S. (PHYSICAL & DIGITAL SALES COMBINED)
1. Taylor Swift, The Tortured Poets Department (3.491 million)
2. Billie Eilish, Hit Me Hard and Soft (570,000)
3. Travis Scott, Days Before Rodeo (493,000)
4. Sabrina Carpenter, Short n’ Sweet (484,000)
5. Chappell Roan, The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess (472,000)
6. Stray Kids, ATE (449,000)
7. Taylor Swift, 1989 (Taylor’s Version) (414,000)
8. ENHYPEN, Romance: Untold (378,000)
9. Taylor Swift, Lover (343,000)
10. Beyoncé, Cowboy Carter (329,000)
Source: Luminate, for the tracking period Dec. 29, 2023, through Jan. 2, 2025.
An album by Swift has been the year’s top-seller in seven of the last 11 years: Poets in 2024, 1989 (Taylor’s Version) in 2023, Midnights in 2022, Folklore in 2020, Lover in 2019, Reputation in 2017 and 1989 in 2014. She also had the year’s top seller in 2009 with Fearless. Swift is the only act to have the top-selling album of the year at least eight times since Luminate began tracking sales in 1991.
Poets was also the year’s top-selling album on CD (1.512 million), vinyl (1.489 million), digital download (465,000) and cassette (24,000).
As mentioned earlier in this story, Poets was available across more than 40 different variants in the U.S. in 2024 – helping its sales figures. In total, there have been 15 CD editions, seven vinyl variants, four cassettes, and 19 digital download versions. Most versions contain at least one bonus track (ranging from bonus studio songs to acoustic or live renditions of songs from the album).
Taylor Swift sold the most albums of any act in 2024 in the U.S., as her collected catalog of albums sold 6.003 million copies (across all configurations, physical and digital combined). The second-biggest act, by album sales in 2024, was Stray Kids, with 1.009 million sold. Swift and Stray Kids were also the Nos. 1 and 2-selling acts, by album sales, in 2023.
PHYSICAL & DIGITAL ALBUM SALES DECLINE: Luminate reports that physical album sales – excluding independent retail store sales – declined 1% in 2024 to 55.6 million. (Indie store sales are excluded from this year-over-year album sales volume comparisons due to a methodology change, as noted earlier in this story, behind Luminate’s independent retail store reporting in 2024 versus 2023.) Digital album sales fell 9.5% in 2024 to 16.8 million.
VINYL ALBUM SALES INCREASE 4.3%: Luminate’s year-end report reveals that U.S. vinyl album sales increased 4.3% in 2024 as compared to 2023, when excluding independent retail store sales (due to the methodology change noted above in this story). In 2023, industry-wide, vinyl sales increased for an 18th consecutive year.
TOP 10-SELLING VINYL ALBUMS OF 2024 IN U.S.
1. Taylor Swift, The Tortured Poets Department (1.489 million)
2. Billie Eilish, Hit Me Hard and Soft (340,000)
3. Chappell Roan, The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess (336,000)
4. Sabrina Carpenter, Short n’ Sweet (291,000)
5. Taylor Swift, 1989 (Taylor’s Version) (200,000)
6. Taylor Swift, Folklore (267,000)
7. Taylor Swift, Midnights (188,000)
8. Taylor Swift, Lover (185,000)
9. Fleetwood Mac, Rumours (178,000)
10. Olivia Rodrigo, Guts (175,000)
Source: Luminate, for the tracking period Dec. 29, 2023, through Jan. 2, 2025.
The Tortured Poets Department was the top-selling vinyl LP of 2024, with 1.489 million sold – more than four times the number of copies that the second-biggest vinyl set of the year, Billie Eilish’s Hit Me Hard and Soft, sold: 340,000. Poets is only the second album to sell a million copies on vinyl in a calendar year since Luminate started tracking sales in 1991. Swift’s own 1989 (Taylor’s Version) was the first, in 2023, with 1.014 million copies sold on wax that year.
Poets scored the single-largest sales week for a vinyl album in the modern era (since Luminate began tracking data in 1991) with its opening sales week of 859,000.
Swift finished 2024 with five of the top 10-selling vinyl albums. Further, her catalog of albums sold 2.935 million copies on vinyl in 2024 – the most of any artist. (Billie Eilish was the second-biggest selling act on vinyl in 2024, with 520,000 sold.)
K-POP CONTINUES TO DOMINATE CD TOP SELLERS: Seven of the year’s top 10-selling CD albums are by K-pop acts, while efforts from Taylor Swift and Billie Eilish are the lone non-K-pop projects among the top 10 best sellers. Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department is the top-selling CD album, with 1.512 million copies sold. A year ago, seven of the top 10 sellers were also K-pop titles. All of the titles in the 2024 year-end top 10 ranking below profit from their availability across multiple collectible editions aimed at superfans.
TOP 10-SELLING CD ALBUMS OF 2024 IN U.S.
1. Taylor Swift, The Tortured Poets Department (1,512,000)
2. Stray Kids, ATE (442,000)
3. ENHYPEN, Romance: Untold (363,000)
4. ATEEZ, GOLDEN HOUR: Part.1 (250,000)
5. Stray Kids, HOP (248,000)
6. TOMORROW X TOGETHER, minisode 3: TOMORROW (240,000)
7. ATEEZ, GOLDEN HOUR: Part. 2 (225,000)
8. Taylor Swift, 1989 (Taylor’s Version) (175,000)
9. TWICE, With YOU-th (174,000)
10. Billie Eilish, Hit Me Hard and Soft (165,000)
Source: Luminate, for the tracking period Dec. 29, 2023, through Jan. 2, 2025.
ON-DEMAND AUDIO STREAMS UP 6.4%: Total U.S. on-demand audio streams (inclusive of UGC streams) grew 6.4% in 2024 to 1.4 trillion. (Note: UGC streams are included in Luminate’s industry streaming on-demand volume numbers and its year-end streaming song charts. UGC streams are not factored into any of Billboard’s weekly charts.)
TOP 10 MOST STREAMED SONGS OF 2024 IN U.S., ON-DEMAND AUDIO
1. Shaboozey, “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” (912.7 million)
2. Kendrick Lamar, “Not Like Us” (823.5 million)
3. Post Malone featuring Morgan Wallen, “I Had Some Help” (822.9 million)
4. Benson Boone, “Beautiful Things” (800.5 million)
5. Teddy Swims, “Lose Control” (785.8 million)
6. Sabrina Carpenter, “Espresso” (758.9 million)
7. Zach Bryan featuring Kacey Musgraves, “I Remember Everything” (739.5 million)
8. Tommy Richman, “Million Dollar Baby” (731.3 million)
9. Billie Eilish, “Birds of a Feather” (660.7 million)
10. Hozier, “Too Sweet” (630.9 million)
Source: Luminate, for the tracking period Dec. 29, 2023, through Jan. 2, 2025. Includes UGC streams.
Related
DIGITAL TRACK SALES DROP FOR 12TH YEAR IN A ROW: Digital track sales declined for a 12th year in a row, falling 12.8% to 118.77 million in 2024 (down from 136.20 million in the comparable 53-week period of 2023). The top-selling digital song of 2024 was Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song (Tipsy),” with 480,000 sold. It was the third year in a row that no song sold at least a half-million downloads. Prior to 2022, it last happened in the early days of downloading, in 2004 (the first full year of the iTunes Store, which launched in mid-2003).
2024 also marks the third year in a row that no song sold at least 1 million downloads. Before 2022, the industry last had a year without a million-selling download in 2005.
TOP 10-SELLING DIGITAL SONGS OF 2024 IN U.S.
1. Shaboozey, “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” (480,000)
2. Teddy Swims, “Lose Control” (311,000)
3. Benson Boone, “Beautiful Things” (293,000)
4. Post Malone featuring Morgan Wallen, “I Had Some Help” (252,000)
5. Beyoncé, “Texas Hold ‘Em” (192,000)
6. Hozier, “Too Sweet” (162,000)
7. Jelly Roll, “I Am Not Okay” (152,000)
8. Jimin, “Who” (131,000)
9. Sabrina Carpenter, “Espresso” (125,000)
10. Kendrick Lamar, “Not Like Us” (121,000)
Source: Luminate, for the tracking period Dec. 29, 2023, through Jan. 2, 2025.
TEDDY SWIMS’ ‘LOSE CONTROL’ DOMINATED AIRWAVES: Teddy Swims’ “Lose Control” was the most popular song on radio in 2024, with 3.260 billion audience impressions earned across all monitored radio stations in the U.S. Audience impressions are measured by cross-referencing plays with Mediabase, Nielsen Audio and/or Luminate Metro Radio Streaming audience data – i.e., a play of a song on a top-rated New York station at 8 a.m. on a Monday has more listeners (audience) than an overnight weekend play in a smaller city.
TOP 10 RADIO SONGS OF 2024 IN U.S. (BASED ON AUDIENCE IMPRESSIONS)
1. Teddy Swims, “Lose Control” (3.250 billion)
2. Shaboozey, “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” (2.767 billion)
3. Post Malone featuring Morgan Wallen, “I Had Some Help” (2.591 billion)
4. Benson Boone, “Beautiful Things” (2.565 billion)
5. Hozier, “Too Sweet” (2.436 billion)
6. Jack Harlow, “Lovin’ On Me” (2.325 billion)
7. Sabrina Carpenter, “Espresso” (2.253 billion)
8. Doja Cat, “Agora Hills” (2.098 billion)
9. Taylor Swift, “Cruel Summer” (2.054 billion)
10. Luke Combs, “Fast Car” (1.993 billion)
Source: Luminate, for the tracking period Dec. 29, 2023, through Jan. 2, 2025.
