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Linkin Park Are The Most Streamed Rock Artist Of The Year

They haven't released an album in two years, but Linkin Park are still the most-listened to rock band of 2019, according to Deezer.

In an end-of-year round-up report from music streaming service Deezer, Linkin Park have been revealed as the most-listened to rock band of 2019.

Despite not having released new music these past two years since 2017's One More Light, the California nu-metal titans have nevertheless come out on top as being the most-streamed rock artist of the year. While we all already knew the power of the LP Family, this is more proof that the band have one of the most dedicated fanbases in music.

Unfortunately there's very little rock to be found elsewhere in Deezer's statistics, with Ed Sheeran announced as the most streamed artist of the year both in the UK and globally, while Ariana Grande, Post Malone, Lewis Capaldi and Billie Eilish also rank high throughout the United Kingdom.

"Local music has completely smashed it this year!" says Nigel Harding, VP of Artist Marketing at Deezer. "Home-grown artists like Ed Sheeran and Lewis Capaldi have captured the hearts of the nation. Similar to the rest of the world, the UK has been loving English and Spanish mash-up tracks in 2019. It’s also been great to see how podcasts are taking the UK by storm, especially in crime and comedy.”

To coincide with the announcement of their end-of-year artist numbers, Deezer have also unveiled a new #MyDeezerYear function – which you can see more of here.

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Given that next year will mark the 20th anniversary of Linkin Park's game-changing debut Hybrid Theory, as well as a decade of their fourth album A Thousand Suns, surely streaming stats will increase even more for the band and keep them at the top spot yet again in 2020.

Speaking to Kerrang! about Hybrid Theory, Mike Shinoda explained of the band's initial ascent in their early days – and how they found ways of getting their music out there to fans.

“We started seeing a following develop when we started doing street team work on the internet,” he said. “We’ve always been interested in putting our songs out there for people worldwide. Once we had them available, we’d go into chat rooms and have conversations with people. Eventually, they’d ask about the band and we’d let them know where the music was at. I would sit and talk to five people at a time and one by one they’d all go and check out the site, coming back and saying that they liked what they heard.”

“I think it’s an important key,” added the late Chester Bennington. “But first and foremost writing good music is the thing. It doesn’t matter how good your team is, or how much money you have behind you or how cool your video looks – if the songs aren’t there and the band can’t pull it off live, then nothing will come from it.”

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