Linkin Park’s ‘Hybrid Theory’ is one of 2021’s top 5 most-streamed “throwback” albums, according to Spotify

More data for you! As you know, Spotify, at the end of the year, disseminates all kinds of data for their listener and userbase. Well, we’re here with more data analysis.

Linkin Park’s Hybrid Theory is one of the highest-selling albums of the new millennium – and in fact, of all time. New generations are discovering the band and album, just like they do other prominent artists. And now, Spotify tells us that the record did very, very well this year with a “throwback” audience.

We learned that Hybrid Theory was in the top 5 most-streamed “throwback” albums of 2021. The others? An esteemed list of some of the most popular albums of all time, including prominent albums from Nirvana, Fleetwood Mac, The Beatles, and GNR. All of the latter had some kind of viral event that transpired in the last year or album anniversary, so it checks out. In fact, the debut Linkin Park album was at #3 – impressive stuff. Nostalgia always sells, but timeless records do as well.

In fact according to this chart, out of the top 50 most-streamed musical groups in the world, Linkin Park is the only hard rock band. (Coldplay and Imagine Dragons are higher in the top 50, but surely aren’t what you’d consider “hard rock”).

Linkin Park’s “Numb” is also about to join esteemed territory, as the song on Spotify is clocking in at 947 million streams at the time of this writing. It’ll soon become the band’s second to reach one BILLION streams. Wild.