What is the most loved and listened to rock band in the world? This question has been the subject of hundreds of thousands of arguments between drunken fans.
Whether Deep Purple takes precedence, whether Pink Floyd imposes itself with its complex sound or the universal truth prevails and Queen comes out with one breast ahead. Well, there is an answer now!
The British company Liberty Games decided to do research on which are the most listened to bands of different genres – both globally and for each country separately.
The study looked at data from YouTube for 2022, with the authors focusing on how many individual bands’ music videos were listened to in those 12 months. On this basis, they also determine which are the most listened to groups in classic rock in the world.
And the answer is more than definite – Queen.
The British group holds the first place in 63 countries, including most of Europe, as well as Mexico, India, Mongolia, Argentina and others. A total of over 1.86 billion times someone played a Queen song on YouTube during the study period.
Guns N’ Roses surprisingly ranks second. Although the American band charted at number one in far fewer countries than Freddie Mercury and Company, they were quite popular in South America. The group of Axel Rose and Slash has amassed a total of 1.33 billion streams for the year.
Immediately behind them are AC/DC with approximately the same number of song plays for the researched period – 1.33 billion. The Australian rock dinosaurs, on the other hand, emerged as a favorite group in many more countries, including the USA, Canada, Germany, Switzerland, Serbia and other.
Further down the top ten most listened to classic rock bands are Bon Jovi (1.05 billion listens), Metallica (1.05 billion listens), Nirvana (1.05 billion listens), The Beatles (1 .01 billion streams), The Rolling Stones (571 million streams), Creedence Clearwater Revival (561 million streams) and Pink Floyd (494 million streams).
Outside of these 10 great bands, other bands – Journey, Def Leppard, U2, Bruce Springsteen, Jimi Hendrix, Thin Lizzy, Chicago, David Bowie and The Eagles – are ranked number one in individual countries.
How are things in Bulgaria and the Balkans?
In our country, the most listened-to rock group remains Metallica, and in this regard, our country is the only one on the Balkan Peninsula, together with Albania, to make this choice.
Queen (Greece, North Macedonia, Romania and Slovenia) remains the most popular among our neighbors. AC/DC are fan favorites in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro.
Around the world – in Russia, Queen is the most listened to, in China – David Bowie, in Brazil – Guns N’ Roses, and in Vietnam – Bon Jovi.
On the infographic you can see which artists are the most listened to by country.
When it comes to the world’s most listened to artists of all genres, rock doesn’t make the cut. Indian playback singer Alka Yagnik is the world’s number one streamer with a total of 14.8 billion YouTube plays for the year, followed by rapper Bad Bunny, Korean pop idols BTS and K-pop girl group Blackpink.
.
