Linkin Park, Metallica and Twenty One Pilots are among the top-selling rock artists of 2017, according to Nielsen Music's year-end report. The three acts stood tall in a period that showed a further decline for rock music overall, with R&B/hip-hop becoming the most dominant genre in the U.S.
You can download the full report from Nielsen Music here, which states that nine of the top 10 "most-consumed songs" for the year were from the R&B and hip-hop genre. Examining music industry trends with figures and charts, the reports lists 2017's top rock artists, in order, as: Metallica, Imagine Dragons, the Beatles, Linkin Park and TØP.
The Nielsen report highlights movie and commercial placements as assuaging some of rock's market-share nosedive. "Twenty One Pilots' 'Heathens' continued to perform from its use in 2016's Suicide Squad, and Portugal. The Man's 'Feel It Still' broke big thanks in part to commercials by Vitaminwater and Apple," it states.
Despite hop-hop and R&B grabbing a 24.5 percent market share, as opposed to rock music's 20.8 percent share, Metallica still landed at No. 9 on the top 10 album chart for total sales with 585,000 units moved, as noted by Theprp.com.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, streaming numbers continued to grow while physical and digital album sales fell—and no rock artists managed to make Nielsen's list of the top 10 artists ranked by on-demand streams, where rappers such as Drake, Future and Kendrick Lamar stole the show.
In general, the music industry itself experienced a 12.5 percent growth in overall consumption from the previous year, and vinyl sales figures are still on the rise: The two top-selling LP vinyl albums of the year were the Beatles' reissues of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and Abbey Road.
What's your take on rock music's steady decline in the charts? Are you surprised at R&B/hip-hop's takeover as the most-consumed genre of music in America? Sound off in the comments and let us know what you think.