It was only one week ago when many Linkin Park fans were excited to see them on tour in support of One More Light. However, everything changed last Thursday (20) when frontman Chester Bennington took his own life. Despite his positive outlook, the singer’s demons took over. Following his death, album sales and streams of the band’s entire discography have risen in his honor. According to Billboard, as of July 20, the group had an increase of 5,332% in music sales and a 730% stream increase. Their albums sold 21,000 copies (up from less than 1,000 on July 19th), while their songs sold 90,000 downloads (up from 2,000 the previous day) and One More Light went up by 6,000 units. In total, the band sold 111,000 copies on July 20th (versus 2,000 the day before).
Top ten streamed songs are:
“In the End,” 923,000 on-demand audio streams
“Numb,” 740,000
“Heavy” featuring Kiiara, 684,000
“One Step Closer,” 480,000
“Crawling,” 439,000
“What I’ve Done,” 420,000
“Papercut,” 412,000
“Somewhere I Belong,” 394,000
“Numb/Encore,” JAY-Z/Linkin Park, 356,000
“Bleed It Out,” 350,000
While fans continue to mourn by looping songs such as “In The End,” “Numb” and “Heavy” on repeat, the band shared an open letter to their departed friend/bandmate. Additionally, Mike Shinoda posted a throwback image on his Instagram from the group’s pre-tattooed days. Shinoda believes it’s the first photo the nu metal act took together as a band under the name of Xero.
He commented:
“1997 or 1998…I think this was the first photo we ever took together. We had just told Chester that we wanted him to join the band. He said he was ready to move out from Arizona to L.A. We went to a pizza place near UCLA to hang out and talk about what to do next. The band was called Xero at the time, and we probably had less than a half a dozen songs. No flame tattoos yet, no red hair yet, most of us were still in college.”
