In the days following the death of Rush drummer Neil Peart, streams of the band’s songs surged by 776% in the U.S., according to initial reports to Nielsen Music/MRC Data.
News of Peart’s death was first reported on Jan. 10, though the founding member of Rush died on Jan. 7.
Jan. 10-13, on-demand audio and video streams of Rush’s catalog of songs increased to a combined 24.54 million -- up 776.4% as compared to the previous four days (2.8 million on Jan. 6-9). The act’s most-streamed tunes during the Jan. 10-13 period was the 1981 hit “Tom Sawyer,” with 2.82 million streams (up 305% as compared to the 698,000 streams it registered Jan. 6-9).