British artists have made history as they dominate the top 10 singles of 2022 for the first time since the music industry began publishing end-of-year sales charts more than 50 years ago.
Harry Styles leads the pack with his smash hit As It Was, which spent 10 consecutive weeks at number one on the Official Singles Chart and was the only track to surpass 180 million streams during 2022, according to analysis of Official Charts data by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI).
Singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran followed behind, with his track Bad Habits coming in second, while his collaboration with Nigerian singer Fireboy DML, called Peru, came third.
South London singer Cat Burns placed fourth with her song Go, which went viral on TikTok, Sheeran’s Shivers came fifth and Kate Bush‘s 1985 single Running Up That Hill, which enjoyed renewed popularity last year after featuring in the Netflix show Stranger Things, took sixth.
Oxford-based Glass Animals’ sleeper hit Heat Waves was seventh, and former Britain’s Got Talent contestant Calum Scott’s collaboration with Belgian artist Lost Frequencies on Where Are You Now finished eighth.
Scottish production duo LF System placed ninth with their track Afraid To Feel, and North Shields singer Sam Fender rounds off the top 10 with his Ivor Novello-winning song Seventeen Going Under.
The list was based on combined streaming and sales activity throughout 2022.
Pop megastar Styles was also behind 2022’s top album with his Grammy and Mercury shortlisted Harry’s House.
This makes him the first artist to have the year’s top single and album since Lewis Capaldi in 2019 with Someone You Loved and Divinely Uninspired To A Hellish Extent respectively.
Ed Sheeran at the Brit Awards in 2022
Sheeran’s fifth studio album = (Equals) also ranked number two…
