France continues to buy mainly French music with the 10 best selling albums in 2023 being by local artists and in French according to SNEP the French recorded music industry association. 17 of the 20 best album sales in 2023 were produced in France – and singing in French – with all generations and all musical styles combined, but with rap dominating at the top of the charts.
2023 French Recorded Music Highlights
- In the last 10 years, 17 to 19 French productions have consistently appeared in the Top 20 listings and this year there were 145 French productions in the Top 200.
- Emerging French-speaking artists have also performed well with 23 first albums appearing in the Top 200 Album charts including “Mélo” by Tiakola, which reached No. 4 in the chart.
- 29 artists placed 2 or more albums in the album chart with Jul achieving 8 albums in 2023. With Werenoi, whose album “CARRE” reached the top of the chart, five other artists managed to get 3 albums in the chart – Gazo, Grand Corps Malade, Johnny Halliday, Taylor Swift and The Weeknd.
- Although Aya Nakamura is the only female artist present in the Top 20 the representation of women in the full Top 200 is encouraging with 36 albums appearing, an increase of 7 over last year. More than half of these were produced in France (57%). In contrast the Streaming Top 200 is still very male-dominated, but was dominated by Miley Cyrus at Number 1 with “Flowers”. Ayra Starr, Aya Nakamura and Louane also appear in the Top 20 Streaming chart.
- The increase in listening volumes on streaming platforms benefits all musical styles and artists in all their diversity. An important indicator of this diversity is that the Top 200 streaming artists represented less than 7% of total listening on audio platforms in 2023, down 1.2 percentage points compared to the previous year.
- French productions also stand out in Classical and Jazz charts with Gautier Capuçon, hitting the top of the Classical chart and Sofiane Pamart having 3 albums in the first four places of this chart. Ibrahim Maalouf secured success with 8 albums in the Jazz charts including one which reached the Top 5.
A complete list of the Top 200 Albums 2022 can be downloaded here and the Top 200 Albums 2023 can be found here.
