Photo: Wenn.com

Pop music overtook rock as the UK's most popular genre by album sales, holding its biggest market share since the late 90s.

New statistics published by the BPI cite stars such as Ed Sheeran, Sam Smith, Paolo Nutini and Paloma Faith as those who helped pop music take its market share to 34.5% of UK album sales, surpassing rock music's 33.2%. It marks the largest proportion of albums sold categorised as pop since 1999, when pop music accounted for 36.2%

Watch Ed Sheeran perform 'Sing' at Glastonbury 2014 below

Pop music also made up 36% of all singles sold, with BPI naming Pharrell Williams, Ed Sheeran, Taylor Swift and Meghan Trainor as the primary contributors. Nonetheless, rock sales remained solid, with the likes of Royal Blood, Foo Fighters and AC/DC all featuring in the top 50 albums of the year by sales. Rock music's share of the singles market grew to its largest in four years as well, to 24.3%.

Dance music was the third most popular genre by a significant margin, accounting for 7.7% of album sales, but 16.2% of the singles market. R&B made up 5.6% of album sales, whilst 3.2% was classical and only 2.7% hip-hop.

Meanwhile, country music saw an unexpected increase in market share of almost a third, with sales rising from 1.7% to 2.3%, a rise for which Dolly Parton's album Blue Smoke and her performance on Glastonbury's Pyramid Stage in June may be accountable.