Men dominated the charts three times more than women in 2018

The BBC has shared a new report that reveals 91 men and male groups featured in the Official Chart Company's Top 100 Singles list, compared to just 30 female acts.

Out of the 100 singles, just 13 were credited to female musicians; a significant decrease from 2008's number of 35.

In contrast, the research reveals that the number of males releasing hit singles has soared, along with collaborations. A decade ago 59 men featured on hit singles, compared to 91 in 2018.

Collaborations between males and females have increased a reasonable amount in the past 10 years. In 2008 there were only 10 collaborations in the top 100 songs, and in 2018 it rose to 25.

Mabel, who has had a number of hit singles in the charts over the past year, including "Fine Line", "One Shot", and her most recent charting single "Don't Call Me Up", says of the gap, "I think it's about encouraging young female artists, to give them the space to experiment. I think that's the issue...As women, we get moulded in to something that we don't necessarily want to be, whereas as a boy I think you're encouraged to just sort of figure it out [and] do whatever you want to do. I think it's just about encouraging the younger generations to have fun with it."

John Legend said to the BBC, "That's surprising when you have people like Adele, Taylor Swift, Selena Gomez, Ariana Grande - women who I think of as the biggest things in music right now...But I guess if you count those DJs [eg Calvin Harris and DJ Khaled], it's a little different because the voices people are hearing are women, even though it's the DJ's record."