Streaming now accounts for over half of UK music consumption, downloads plummet

That's roughly 1036 tracks per person over the 12 months, or three whole days (give or take) if you listened to all your tunes in one single binge. This is pretty darn significant, marking a market share jump of nearly 15% from the previous year - over 50% of music consumption in the UK comes from streaming. Perhaps considerably more as well, with YouTube omitted from the BPI's data.

The BPI reveal that (unsurprisingly) Ed Sheeran dominated, with four of the 10 best-selling songs of the year. Drake, Little Mix, Eminem, The Weeknd, Kendrick Lamar, and Stormzy, are among the names rounding out the Top 10.

Sales of music generated a whopping £1.2 billion for the UK economy in 2017, say the Entertainment Retailers Association, although it looks like digital downloads will soon fall out of the equation if trends continue. Sales of vinyl once again surged, with 4.1 million records sold on the format in 2017. The markey share is just 3%, however, with CDs still the preferred physical format by a considerable distance.

CDs, which hit dizzying highs of 162 million in 2004, accounted for slightly under 42 million last year. Digital downloads have had a steeper fall from grace, with a 23% drop in sales between 2016 and 2017. iTunes are rumoured to be ditching their music store in the near future, and evidence points to that being sound business sense.

Despite streaming's continued success, artists and creatives still don't reap the rewards: Spotify are being sued for a substantial amount over copyright issues, and Geoff Barrow (Portishead, BEAK>) recently reignited the conversation about fair compensation being the stuff of dreams.