Entertainment

Hip-hop beats rock to become America’s favorite music genre

Kendrick Lamar’s “Damn” was the second most-popular album in 2017.
Getty Images | Chris Weeks

Hip-hop/R&B overtook rock as the most popular music genre in the United States during 2017, according to a year-end report.

Media analysts Nielsen Music found that hip-hop and R&B represented 24.5 percent of all music consumption in the U.S. last year. Additionally, nine out of the 10 most-consumed songs came from the genre.

Rock came second, accounting for just shy of 21 percent of all 2017 music purchases in the U.S.

Eight out of 10 of the most-listened-to artists of the year also fell into the hip-hop/R&B category, as did seven out of 10 of the top albums.

The most popular album for the year, however, was "Divide" by Ed Sheeran, which sold 2.764 million copies when streaming and individual track purchases are factored in.

Ed Sheeran at Worthy Farm, Pilton on June 25, 2017 in Glastonbury, England.
Getty Images

Kendrick Lamar's "Damn" was the second most-popular, with 2.747 million album-equivalent sales.

When measured on a "whole album purchase" basis, Taylor Swift's "Reputation" topped the list with 1.9 million sales.

In the top 10 list of total consumption of artists, Drake came first, with Kendrick Lamar, Ed Sheeran and Taylor Swift following in that order.

Group shot of the Beatles.
Fox Photos | Hutton Archive | Getty Images

The nostalgic yearn for vinyl continued unchecked with the format's 12th straight year of sales growth, in which LPs comprised 14 percent of all physical album sales in the U.S.

Evidence that the older generation is driving sales of LP records came in the form of 2017's most popular vinyl album – "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band", first released by The Beatles in 1967, and reissued in 2017 to mark its 50th anniversary.