With his top-selling song “As It Was,” former One Direction singer Harry Styles defeated Ed Sheeran on the UK’s Top Hits of 2022 chart. Based on their examination of Official Charts Company data, the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) determined that “As It Was” was the most-heard single in the UK for the year. According to aceshowbiz.com, it received 180.9 million streams, spent ten consecutive weeks at No. 1 in the U.K., and spent 15 weeks at the top of the Billboard Hot 100, setting a new record for a British artist.
Styles “leads an all-British takeover of the Top 10 biggest tunes of the year in the U.K., marking the first time in 50 years that all ten of the year’s most popular singles were recorded by British artists,” according to the Official Charts website. With his tracks “Bad Habits” and “Peru,” which he co-wrote with Nigerian musician Fireboy DML, Ed took the second and third places on the list. In addition, he achieved the fifth position with his song “Shivers.”
The TikTok-famous song “Go” by London-born singer “Cat Burns” is in fourth place, and Kate Bush’s 1985 classic “Running Up That Hill” is in sixth place after making an unexpected chart comeback thanks to its use in the Netflix series “Stranger Things.” Heat Waves by Oxford-based Glass Animals peaked at No. 7, and Calum Scott, a former competitor on Britain’s Got Talent, and Belgian musician Lost Frequencies’ duet on “Where Are You Now” came in at No. 8.
The Scottish duo LF System’s song “Afraid to Feel” and vocalist Sam Fender’s Ivor Novello-winning song “Seventeen Going Under” round out the Top 10.British musicians’ success coincides with the UK’s consumption of recorded music rising for the eighth year in a row in 2022, when yearly audio streaming data in the UK first pass the 150 billion threshold.