What was the best-selling vinyl of 2025?
2025 was a massively successful year for vinyl sales, with a mix of new records and golden oldies culminating in yet another significant boost.
Vinyl sales have been surging year-over-year for almost two decades, showing a promising rise that may surpass sales of other physical formats, such as CDs, and the reasons remain clear: people are turning to vinyl for nostalgia as well as the satisfaction of owning a physical copy of their favourite music, now with more artists pushing the boundaries of creative expression through such formats, numbers are on the rise.
While vinyl still makes up a smaller portion of listening habits than streaming, this year saw a transformation from last year’s first major decline in years, with 2025 seeing a 13.3% growth rate; more than the 5.5% of streaming and just two million sales behind CDs, with 9.7m CDs sold in 2025, according to the British Phonographic Industry (BPI).
This is a significant change when you consider the fact that, only ten years ago, that figure was almost five times higher – showing that vinyl is on a sure journey to overtaking one of the most definitive physical formats in music, a major achievement when you also consider that this year’s best-sellers are an incredibly mixed bag, proving that increase is coming from audiences of all ages.
What was the best-selling vinyl of 2025?
To no one’s surprise, the best-selling vinyl of 2025 was Taylor Swift’s 12th studio album, The Life of a Showgirl. The record achieved several milestones, selling 147,000 vinyl units in a short period – the most any artist has ever sold since the Official Charts began compiling their charts in the 1990s.
This follows a successful streak for Swift, who initially held the record in 2024 for the highest single-week vinyl sales in the digital era with The Tortured Poets Department. This year, Swift released even more vinyl variants, allowing fans the choice of eight different versions of The Life of a Showgirl, making up a significant chunk of all versions across all formats, with somewhere upwards of 34 copies available of the very same record.
Behind Swift was Sam Fender’s People Watching, which took the lead over those chasing the nostalgia of the highly anticipated Oasis reunion with sales of (What’s The Story) Morning Glory at number three and Definitely Maybe at number ten. At number four, Swift emerges again with Lover (Live From Paris), while Olivia Dean makes a new entry with her successful sophomore record, The Art of Loving, and Sabrina Carpenter with Man’s Best Friend.
Oasis isn’t the only band enjoying a nostalgic resurgence, as Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours also takes up seventh place, above Fontaines DC’s massively popular fourth studio album, Romance. According to the BPI, many general sales were also recorded from British breakthrough acts, including Dean and Lola Young, who both broke onto US charts, as well as Yungblud, Wolf Alice, and Florence + The Machine.
Clearly, there’s room for artists both old and new in this competitive game of numbers, so long as they’re ready and willing to go up against the monopolising pop monolith herself and all her accompanying variants.
