Rock twice as popular as pop

Rock music is more popular than any other genre in the US, according to latest figures.

Music Business Worldwide reports that data collected by Nielsen Music shows that rock claimed 29% of total consumption across album, individual track purchases and streams in 2014. R&B/hip-hop was second, taking 17.2%, while pop finished a distant third claiming 14.9%.

In terms of pure album sales, rock music was also the clear winner, claiming 33.2% of the market compared to 13.9% for R&B/hip-hop. However, when it came to streamed music, R&B/hip-hop was out in front with 28.5% compared to rock’s 24.7% of the total market.

The annual report also shows that while vinyl purchases are on the up, sales of CDs and digital downloads declined from 2013, with more people now choosing to stream their favourite artists.

Nielsen’s David Bakula says: “Music fans continue to consume music through on-demand streaming services at record levels, helping to offset some of the weakness that we see in sales.

“The continued expansion of digital music consumption is encouraging, as is the continued record setting growth that we are seeing in vinyl LP sales.”

Many rock and metal acts have criticised streaming services like Spotify, including Blink-182’s Tom DeLonge and Soil, while Motley Crue bassist Nikki Sixx recently urged bands to stand up for themselves and fight for a fairer income from online services.

Scott Munro
Louder e-commerce editor

Scott has spent more than 30 years in newspapers and magazines as an editor, production editor, sub-editor, designer, writer and reviewer. After initially joining our news desk in the summer of 2014, he moved to the e-commerce team full-time in 2020. He maintains Louder’s buyer’s guides, scouts out the best deals for music fans and reviews headphones, speakers, books and more. He's written more than 11,000 articles across Louder, Classic Rock, Metal Hammer and Prog and has previous written for publications including IGN, the Sunday Mirror, Daily Record and The Herald covering everything from daily news and weekly features, to video games, travel and whisky. Scott grew up listening to rock and prog, cutting his teeth on bands such as Marillion and Magnum before his focus shifted to alternative and post-punk in the late 80s. His favourite bands are Fields Of The Nephilim, The Cure, New Model Army, All About Eve, The Mission, Ned's Atomic Dustbin and Drab Majesty, but he also still has a deep love of Rush.