Streams of Rush songs and albums surge after death of drummer Neil Peart

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Kevin Winter/Getty Images

Kevin Winter/Getty ImagesFollowing the January 10 announcement of Rush drummer Neil Peart‘s death, streams of the Canadian prog-rock trio’s songs experienced a huge surge in the U.S., according to reports from Nielsen Music/MRC Data.

During the period of January 10 through January 13, on-demand audio and video streams of Rush songs increased by more than 776% from the previous four-day period, and spiked to a combined total of 24.5 million from 2.8 million.

The Rock & Roll Hall of Famers’ most-streamed track was their 1981 classic “Tom Sawyer,” which garnered 28 million streams during the January 10-13 period.  By comparison, it was only streamed 698,000 times from January 6 to January 9.

Sales of Rush songs from January 10 through January 13 jumped to 19,000, up from just 1,000 during the previous four days — an increase of just over 2,300%. The band’s albums sales surged 1,820% during that same period, from what Billboard says was “a negligible figure” to six thousand.

Rush’s songs and albums are expected to make an impact on next week’s Billboard charts, which are dated January 25.

Peart died on January 7 at the age of 67 after a three-year battle with brain cancer.

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