Rock Music Gets A Streaming Lift

After more than a decade of ceding influence and chart space to pop and hip hop, rock and roll is finally making a comeback in culture.

Why It Rocks: Guitar-based rock and roll, in its many sub-genres, was the defining genre between 1960 and 2010 before slipping from the top echelons of popularity. But after fifteen years of perfectly manufactured pop stars and computer-generated beats, listeners may be starting to gravitate toward music that sounds a bit more raw.

Behind the Music: Luminate’s mid-year music report found that rock is growing faster than country and Latin.

• In May, Sweden’s Ghost and the UK’s Sleep Token both landed on the Billboard 200 album chart within two weeks of each other — the first time that’s happened in years, according to THR.
• Sleep Token’s new album, Even in Arcadia, also broke the record for the most-streamed hard rock album in a single week.
• Wet Leg, also out of the UK, scored a second consecutive number-one album last week with the release of Moisturizer.
• And legacy acts (using that term broadly) are surging in popularity — Creed has exploded on TikTok and Led Zeppelin’s streams have jumped 23% since the release of the documentary Becoming Led Zeppelin.

Final Mix: The newfound popularity of rock shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise considering that classic acts like the Eagles, U2, and Def Leppard are selling out arenas and residencies. And there’s no bigger tour this year than the Oasis reunion. Perhaps the nostalgia cycles of Gen Z have finally brought them around to appreciating the music their parents listened to at the same age… and now they want their own version of those types of bands. What goes around always comes around.

Encore: If we’re lucky, the guitar solo is about to make an epic return.