ROCK RESURGENCE: Having withstood persistent challenges in...

ROCK RESURGENCE: Having withstood persistent challenges in recent years from country, rap and other genres as the most popular music style, rock experienced a great surge of market share last year. In figures researched by the Recording Industry Assn. of America, rock’s share of total record sales increased 5 percentage points in 1994, to 35.1%, reflecting the multimillion-sales successes of albums by Green Day, Offspring, Nirvana, Pearl Jam and others.

Country, the closest competitor, dropped almost 2 1/2 points from its 1993 peak of 18.7%. Pop, urban contemporary and rap each fell 1 or 2 points as well.

Curiously, at the same time rock rose, the biggest increase of record buyers occurred in the non-rock 50- to 54-year-old demographic, rising from 2.7% of the market to 4.2%. The largest group is the 15- to 19-year-olds, with 16.8% of all record sales.