CSPC: Linkin Park Popularity Analysis

Linkin Park Career CSPC Results

So, after checking all the figures, how many overall equivalent album sales has each Linkin Park album achieved? Well, at this point we hardly need to add up all of the figures defined in this article!

In the following results table, all categories display figures in equivalent album sales. If different, pure sales are listed between parentheses.

artist_spotify_id	#	Cover	Album	Studio albums (EAS)	sales_update_date	Other LPs (EAS)	Physical singles (units sold)	Digital singles (units sold)	Streams	Streams increase	Total EAS	valid_as_of	streams_updated_value	album_id
6XyY86QOPPrYVGvF9ch6wz	1		Hybrid Theory	20,800,000	04.06.17	6,762,000	480,000 (1,390,000)	2,127,000 (14,180,000)	5,299,000 (05/31/23)	Av.: 2,070 LD: 3,440	35,468,000	20,230,531	5,299,000	1,252
6XyY86QOPPrYVGvF9ch6wz	2		Meteora	13,300,000	04.06.17	1,913,000	485,000 (920,000)	1,614,000 (10,760,000)	4,307,000 (05/31/23)	Av.: 1,650 LD: 3,260	21,619,000	20,230,531	4,307,000	1,253
6XyY86QOPPrYVGvF9ch6wz	3		Minutes To Midnight	7,800,000	04.06.17	380,000	372,000 (233,000)	2,355,000 (15,700,000)	2,573,000 (05/31/23)	Av.: 960 LD: 1,940	13,480,000	20,230,531	2,573,000	1,254
6XyY86QOPPrYVGvF9ch6wz	4		A Thousand Suns	2,700,000	04.06.17	16,000	0 (0)	570,000 (3,800,000)	806,000 (05/31/23)	Av.: 280 LD: 380	4,407,000	20,230,531	806,000	1,255
6XyY86QOPPrYVGvF9ch6wz	5		Living Things	2,250,000	04.06.17	445,000	0 (0)	825,000 (5,500,000)	1,676,000 (05/31/23)	Av.: 570 LD: 870	5,496,000	20,230,531	1,676,000	1,256
6XyY86QOPPrYVGvF9ch6wz	6		The Hunting Party	1,100,000	04.06.17	0	0 (0)	375,000 (2,500,000)	521,000 (05/31/23)	Av.: 160 LD: 190	1,996,000	20,230,531	521,000	1,257
6XyY86QOPPrYVGvF9ch6wz	7		One More Light	400,000	04.06.17	0	0 (0)	68,000 (450,000)	1,558,000 (05/31/23)	Av.: 670 LD: 520	2,026,000	20,230,531	1,558,000	1,258
6XyY86QOPPrYVGvF9ch6wz	8		Orphan	0	04.06.17	4,984,000	512,000 (660,000)	1,622,000 (10,810,000)	464,000 (06/04/17)	N/A	7,581,000	20,230,531	464,000	1,693

As a reminder:

• Studio Album: sales of the original album
• Other Releases: sales of compilations generated thanks to the album
• Physical Singles: sales of physical singles from the album (ratio 3/10)
• Download Singles: sales of digital singles from the album (ratio 1,5/10)
• Streaming: equivalent album sales of all the album tracks (ratio 1/1500 for Audio stream and 1/6750 for Video stream)

See where the artist ranks among remaining singers

During this article, several questions emerged. The first one was how big their early albums really were. At 30,95 million, Hybrid Theory is pretty impressive, undoubtedly one of the biggest albums of the millennium. At 18 million and 11,4 million respectively, both Meteora and Minutes To Midnight are very solid successes to the surprise of nobody.

A second observation was about the downward spiral the band was facing album after album. While their popularity is clearly going down, CSPC figures tell us Living Things was actually a rebound from A Thousand Suns. As Streaming is clearly favorable to the later album, the gap is only going to grow. There is not much left to defend The Hunting Party though. At 1,5 million overall, the album is weak in all fronts with very low download sales and streaming appeal for a 2014 record.

One More Light isn’t starting strongly, but the immense popularity of the band in the streaming arena may help it top its predecessor in the long run.

A third question we raised in the past was the Coldplay vs Linkin Park debate. As a reminder the Yellow band generated 60,4 million equivalent album sales for their 00s outputs – with four albums – and 85,1 million in total. With only three albums in the 00s, Linkin Park top them at 60,3 million. The large majority of their Orphan Album sales came from their 00s material as well, thus pushing the group total for the decade to more than 66 million. Maybe surprisingly, those figures make Linkin Park the biggest band of the 00s, ahead of Coldplay.

At 78,2 million album sales equivalent, Linkin Park’s career total is quite solid as well, although their later material is increasing the cumulative number quite slowly. In any case, their catalog is going strong on streaming platforms. A situation poised to last for many years to come.

The following pages list the most successful songs by Linkin Park, as well as the full listing of all CSPC results compiled so far, to better gauge their position in the history of the music industry.

As usual, feel free to comment and / or ask a question!

Sources: IFPI, Spotify, YouTube, Chartmasters.org.