Linkin Park News Round-Up: Sales and Streams Skyrocket, Band Unveils New Logo, Tour Officially Canceled

This past weekend saw several developments surrounding the death of Linkin Park frontman Chester Bennington last Thursday. Rather than clog your feeds with multiple updates, here’s everything we know all at once.

Unsurprisingly, streams and sales of the band’s music have soared as is characteristic after a high profile musician death. According to Billboard, the band’s catalog of songs received a total of 12.6 million on-demand audio streams on July 20, the day of Bennington’s death, compared to 1.5 million streams on July 19th, accounting for a 730% increase. “In the End,” from their debut album Hybrid Theory, was the most streamed track, with 923,000 streams that day (compared to 107,000 the day before). It certainly speaks to Bennington and the band’s legacy how impressive those numbers were even before his death.

Here were the most streamed tracks on July 20th:

“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

Album sales were way up, too. Billboard reports that on July 20, the band’s albums sold 21,000 copies (up from less than 1,000 on July 19), with individual tracks garnering 90,000 downloads (up from 2,000 the previous day). That’s good for an increase of 5,332%. Interestingly, their most recent album One More Light — which was rejected by fans upon release — shifted 6,000 units on July 20th, up from what Billboard describes as a “negligible figure” the day before. Perhaps those who’d lost track of the band in recent years wanted to hear what their newer output sounded like? Hard to say.

Meanwhile, the band has officially canceled their North American tour, which was scheduled to begin on July 27 in Mansfield, MA… as if there was any doubt they would. Ticket holders have been contacted by the tour’s promoter and offered refunds. Here is the official statement from Live Nation on the matter:

“We are incredibly saddened to hear about the passing of Chester Bennington. The Linkin Park One More Light North American Tour has been cancelled and refunds are available at point of purchase. Our thoughts go out to all those affected.”

While the band has yet to issue any formal statement since Chester’s death, co-vocalist Mike Shinoda updated his social media accounts over the weekend with a modified version of their logo. The new logo has one of the six edges missing (one for each member — new logo on the left, old one on the right):

Finally, the band has launched an official tribute site for Bennington. The site loads in fan comments from social media by pulling in anything tagged #RIPChester, and also offers instructions for those seeking support for mental health issues.

We will continue to keep you updated as news surrounding Bennington’s death continues to break.