Bad Bunny becomes first Latin American artist to win an IFPI Global Chart Award

IFPI, the organisation that represents the recorded music industry worldwide, has announced Bad Bunny’s Un Verano Sin Ti as the winner of the Global Album Award for 2022.

Bad Bunny is the first Latin American artist to win an IFPI Global Chart Award. Un Verano Sin Ti, the hugely celebrated fifth album from the Puerto Rican rapper and singer, was released in May 2022. The 23-track album, which is an all-Spanish language record, went on to spend 13 weeks atop the Billboard 200 album chart, and later that year became the first Spanish-language album to be nominated for Album of the Year at the GRAMMY Awards.

Elsewhere in the Global Albums Chart, there were successes for a range of artists – from Taylor Swift, IFPI’s Global Recording Artist Of The Year 2022, whose album Midnights charted at #2, to the UK’s Harry Styles’ Harry’s House which charted at #3 (Styles also won the IFPI Global Single of the Year Award 2022 for his smash success As It Was). Both Olivia Rodrigo’s SOUR (#9) and Ed Sheeran’s = (#10) spent a second year in the Top 10, while the original soundtrack for Encanto reached #5.

BTS led amongst eight albums from South Korean acts to feature in the Top 20, with Proof taking the #4 spot. Both Stray Kids (MAXIDENT #6 and ODDINARY #14) and SEVENTEEN (Face The Sun #7; SECTOR 17 #18) had two albums in the Top 20, while TOMORROW X TOGETHER and ENHYPEN both appeared in the Global Albums Chart for the first time, at #11 and #16 with MANIFESTO: DAY 1 and minisode 2: Thursday’s Child respectively. South Korean girl group BLACKPINK also made their debut in the Top 10 with their album BORN PINK which charted at #8.

Frances Moore, Chief Executive, IFPI, said: “We are incredibly excited to award Bad Bunny, the first Latin American artist to win an IFPI Global Award, with the Album of the Year Award. His unique sound, encapsulated in his award-winning album Un Verano Sin Ti, has captured the world’s attention on a remarkable scale over the last 12 months.

“This year’s Global Albums Chart bears testament to the incredible partnerships that exist between artists and record labels. These partnerships nurture and support artists while they write and record their music before going on to promote albums on a global level, achieving extraordinary amounts of success around the world.”