Ed Sheeran tops 40th Annual Request Chart

Ed Sheeran was announced as the most requested artist of 2024, as chosen by patients of the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital. He had been our runner-up for the previous three years, and previously topped our request chart in 2015 and 2017. He’s now made our chart for the last 14 consecutive years.

Abba reached a new peak position of number 2 in our annual chart, having made our Top 40 for every year since 1993. They have become one of our consistently most popular artists but are still yet to reach our top spot.

Queen drop to third place having last year become the first act ever to top our annual request chart for four consecutive years,  and a fifth time in total (1992, 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023). They have been on our annual chart every year since 1990, and have never missed our Top 20 in that time.

Elvis Presley makes our Top 5 for the 9th year in a row, and finishes 4th for a third consecutive year. He’s been our annual number one three times before (2005, 2018 and 2019). He hasn’t missed the Top 20 since 1992.

The Beatles rounded off the top five, meaning that once again we have the same five artists in our Top 5 as in 2023.

Elsewhere in the Top 10, The Eagles (6) make their first ever appearance in our Top 10, with Coldplay (7) re-entering to equal their previous best ever position.

Dire Straits (14) and The Carpenters (15) both made big gains to re-enter our Top 40, with the Carpenters achieving their highest ever position.

There were two first-time appearances on our chart from two legendary musical acts – Bob Dylan (25) and Beach Boys (36). Amazingly neither had appeared on our annual Top 40 previously.

The chart was announced on Radio Brockley by Alan Joyce for his 33rd year in a row, and live posts on Instagram were sent out by Macie Lewis. It kick starts a year of special features to mark the 40th anniversary of the chart. On Sunday 27th January Alan Joyce and Keith Reeve will be counting down the all-time most requested artists, and later in the year we will announce the most requested songs in the last 40 years.

Here’s the full Top 20.

MOST REQUESTED ARTISTS OF 2024
1     (2)   Ed Sheeran
2     (3)   Abba
3     (1)   Queen
4     (4)   Elvis Presley
5     (5)   The Beatles
6    (20)  Eagles
7    (re)   Coldplay
8     (9)   Elton John
9    (14)  Bob Marley and the Wailers
10  (16)  Adele
11  (11)  Taylor Swift
12   (7)   Fleetwood Mac
13  (10)  Frank Sinatra
14   (re)  Dire Straits
15   (re)  Carpenters
16   (8)   George Michael
17  (22)  Celine Dion
18  (32)  Michael Jackson
19  (25)  Rod Stewart
20  (26)  Whitney Houston