Apple Music Classical shares biggest albums of 2024: What it says about how we enjoy classical music

Apple Music and Spotify Wrapped have both now shared the top streamed artists of the year. In a year that proved once again women’s power over the pop charts, Taylor Swift was a prominent entry on both sets of lists, topping both album lists.

It’s been a great year in the streaming charts for the likes of Sabrina Carpenter, Billie Eilish, and Chappell Roan, with impressive showings also from male artists like Kendrick Lamar and Benson Boone.

If this list seems a little obvious, then it only takes a short canter over to the data from Apple’s classical music platform Apple Music Classical to see that things are even more stolid over there.

Frédéric Chopin, the 19th century Polish composer shows up in the top five most streamed albums list not once, but twice.

Launched last year and expanded to Asia in January 2024, Apple Music Classical was created to solve the problem of music streaming services not being designed to suit fans of the genre. While pop music fans usually listen to just the original version of a song, fans of classical composers from before the era of recorded music usually prefer to choose between renditions of pieces by contemporary(ish) performers.

As a result, the most listened to classical albums of 2024 include a range of contemporary works and new albums of contemporary performers playing pieces by classical composers.

The five most popular albums on Apple Music Classical in 2024 are:

South Korean virtuoso pianist Yunchan Lim tops the table. The 20-year-old became famous for winning the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition two years ago and his first album since signing with Decca is his performance of Chopin’s two sets of études, totaling 24 pieces.

“Interpreting Chopin's Etudes was a rewarding