Rock music hits a near-decade high in UK singles market

With artists such as Sam Fender, Sleep Token and Sombr pushing the genre into the weekly top 10, rock music claimed 22.2% of singles music consumption in 2025 — its highest total since 2016.

This was up from 21.4% the previous year, and placed it second only to pop music, which had a 33.3% share. Hip-hop/rap was the third biggest singles genre at 14.1%, followed by R&B at 10.4% and dance at 9.5%.

Official Charts data analysed by BPI reveals that rock music’s near-decade high foregrounds its continuing popular revival in the singles market, with six tracks classified as rock making the weekly Official Singles Chart Top 10 across 2025 — compared to only one in 2020. 

Caramel by UK rock band Sleep Token, Sailor Song by US singer-songwriter Gigi Perez and Sombr’s Back To Friends all made the Top 10 during the year, while other Top 10 entries classified by rock included Sam Fender’s Rein Me In with Olivia Dean.

Benson Boone’s Beautiful Things, after gaining popularity in 2024, returned to the weekly Official Singles Chart top 10 in 2025 and was the year’s biggest track classified as rock, ranking overall at number seven.

Enduring rock releases such as the Goo Goo Dolls’ Iris, The Killers’ Mr Brightside, Fleetwood Mac’s Dreams and Hozier's 2024 hit Too Sweet also finished the year in the Official Singles Chart Top 40.

Four of the year’s Top 10 albums were classified as rock. Two of these places were taken by Oasis, on the back of their record-breaking reunion tour, with Time Flies - 1994-2009 and (What's The Story) Morning Glory. Fleetwood Mac’s retrospective, 50 Years - Don’t Stop, and Sam Fender’s third studio album, People Watching, also made the year-end Top 10.

Rock’s other big albums last year included Arctic Monkeys’ 2013 release AM and Fontaines D.C.’s Romance, released in 2024. Best of releases that also remained popular in 2025 include

Linkin Park’s Papercuts - Singles Collection 2000-2023, Queen’s Greatest Hits and The Cure’s Greatest Hits.

Sam Fender’s People Watching was the UK album with the highest first-week sales in 2025, with an opening tally of over 107,000 chart units, as well as being one of 17 rock albums to top the weekly Official Albums Chart in 2025. Fifteen of these albums were exclusively by UK artists, while the other two were UK/US pairings — Elton John and Brandi Carlile on Who Believes in Angels and Aerosmith and Yungblud on One More Time.

Rock also accounted for 54.9% of vinyl album purchases in 2025, and 61 of 2025’s top 100 best-selling albums. These albums included Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours, Fontaines D.C.’s Romance, Sam Fender’s People Watching and Oasis’ (What's the Story) Morning Glory and Definitely Maybe. Rock also dominated 2025’s biggest vinyl artists with Arctic Monkeys, Fleetwood Mac, Fontaines D.C., Pink Floyd, Radiohead and Sam Fender among the year’s 10 biggest acts.

“For decades, rock has played a critical role in maintaining and enhancing the UK’s status as a global music superpower,” said Dr Jo Twist, chief executive at the BPI. “This was truer than ever in 2025.

“Rock has long flourished thanks to its incredible foundations built on a deep, exceptional, and still-cherished back catalogue. We can now add to that contemporary stars such as Sam Fender, Sleep Token, Wolf Alice, and Yungblud, who hail from across the UK and who are breathing new life into this much-loved genre both at home and around the world.”

Image credit: Wikimedia Commons, by Richard Nicholson under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.