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British music stars top 2012 charts

Music fans are buying British - with the three top-selling albums of the year all produced by home-grown talent.

Emeli Sande's debut album, Our Version Of Events, was the biggest seller with 1.4 million copies sold in 2012, according to figures from the Official Charts Company.

Adele's 21 - a huge hit when it was first released in 2011 - and + by Ed Sheeran took the next two spots with top 10 entries for other UK acts including One Direction's Up All Night, Mumford And Son's Babel and Olly Murs' Right Place Right Time.

Coldplay's Mylo Xyloto was also in the top 10.

The figures show music fans streamed audio tracks more than 3.7 billion times during 2012 with Somebody That I Used To Know by Gotye featuring Kimbra, Call Me Maybe by Carly Rae Jepsen and Titanium by David Guetta featuring Sia the three most-streamed tracks of the year.

Sales of digital albums rose 14.8 per cent to 30.5 million, although sales of albums on CD declined 19.5 per cent year-on-year to 69.4 million.

Despite the advance of digital, CDs still accounted for more than two-thirds (69.1 per cent) of total sales compared to a 30.4 per cent share for digital albums and 0.4 per cent for vinyl.

Digital dominated the singles market, which saw a six per cent sales increase to 188.6 million in 2012, with the overwhelming majority (99.6 per cent) being sold digitally.

Tony Wadsworth, chairman of trade body the British Phonographic Industry (BPI), said: "British artists continue to resonate strongly with music fans in their home territory, with albums by Emeli Sande, Adele and Ed Sheeran topping the end-of-year charts.

"The domestic success of albums from Mumford And Sons and One Direction has been replicated abroad - both British acts have achieved massive success in the US."

Source: music.uk.msn.com
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