One Direction are officially the biggest global recording artists of 2013
Band most popular act across downloads, streaming and CD sales
One Direction have collected their award after being named the IFPI Global Recording Artist of 2013 last month. The award, which honours the most popular act globally across downloading, streaming and physical format sales, was presented by IFPI's chief executive Frances Moore.
L-R: Harry Magee (Modest Management); Sonny Takhar (Sony/Syco); Mark Collen (Sony); Zayn Malik; Nicola Tuer (Sony); Louis Tomlinson; Nick Gatfield (Sony); Liam Payne; Niall Horan; Frances Moore (IFPI); Harry Styles; Edgar Berger (Sony); Richard Griffiths (Modest Management); Will Bloomfield (Modest Management).
One Direction saw huge success with their third studio album Midnight Memories, which contained the hit singles Best Song Ever and Story of My Life. The album topped the US Billboard Top 200 chart, making One Direction the first group in the charts history to debut at No. 1 with their first three albums. Midnight Memories also topped the charts in countries from Australia to the UK.
The video for Best Song Ever has had over 200 million views on VEVO and Story of My Life has recorded more than 150 million views to date. The band's music was also heavily streamed on services such as Deezer and Spotify.
Top 10 global recording artists 2013
| 1 | One Direction |
| 2 | Eminem |
| 3 | Justin Timberlake |
| 4 | Bruno Mars |
| 5 | Katy Perry |
| 6 | P!nk |
| 7 | Macklemore & Ryan Lewis |
| 8 | Rihanna |
| 9 | Michael Bublé |
| 10 | Daft Punk |
(Source: IFPI. See note to editors below)
IFPI published its first global recording artists chart on 30th January 2014 to accurately capture the popularity of artists across streaming channels, alongside digital and physical album and singles sales the previous year.
The independently verified chart included sales of albums - across digital, CD and vinyl formats; singles, both downloaded and physical; on-demand streams and music videos. The chart included all the music of each artist featured, not just one track or album. It used track and album equivalents to combine measurements of downloads, physical sales and streams.
Frances Moore, chief executive of IFPI, says: "It was a pleasure to give IFPI's inaugural Global Recording Artists Award to One Direction. We named them the IFPI Global Recording Artists of 2013 back in January when we published our chart which, for the first time, measured the popularity of artists across the many different ways in which fans choose their music."
For further information contact:
Adrian Strain or Alex Jacob, IFPI London
Email: adrian.strain@ifpi.org / alex.jacob@ifpi.org
Tel: +44 (0)20 7878 7935 (Press Office)
Notes to editors:
The compilation of the IFPI top artist chart has been independently verified through certain agreed procedures by BDO LLP. BDO LLP has verified that IFPI has compiled the chart correctly in line with the outlined procedures. The certain agreed upon procedures carried out by BDO did not constitute an audit or review.
