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To give you a sense of what 2006 looked like in terms of popular music, let us put it this way: the best-selling album of the whole year was none other than the soundtrack to the movie High School Musical, selling nearly four million copies.
It was also a great time for R&B and hip hop artists like Mary J. Blige (The Breakthrough), Nelly Furtado (Loose), Beyonce (B’Day), Ludacris (Release Therapy) and Jay-Z (Kingdom Come), to name a few. All of these albums spent time at No. 1 on the Billboard 200. There were some country releases in the mix that year, too, like Rascal Flatts‘ Me and My Gang and the Dixie Chicks‘ Taking the Long Way.
But in the middle of all of that, rock still managed to squeeze its way up to the top of the charts with a handful of releases. We’re taking a look at all 10 of them in the below list, in the chronological order they made the No. 1 spot in, but to be clear, we’re using a flexible definition of “rock” to account for all the worthy albums.
1. The Greatest Songs of the Fifties, Barry Manilow
The 2000s was when a number of older artists chose to look backward at the Great American Songbook, recording cover albums full of songs first made popular decades prior. Barry Manilow did it in 2006 with The Greatest Songs of the Fifties, a release that awarded him the second chart-topping album of his career (the first was back in 1997 with Barry Manilow Live).
Even Manilow was “shocked and delighted” by the success, he said at the time. “I think it has become so popular because the public is starved for a good melody and lyric.”
Listen to Barry Manilow’s Cover of ‘Beyond the Sea’ From ‘The Greatest Songs of the Fifties’
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2. 3121, Prince
In 2004, Prince made his “comeback” of sorts with Musicology, an album that won multiple Grammys, went to No. 3 on the U.S. chart and was, in effect, his most successful record in years — “his best since the symbol record,” Pitchfork wrote then. He followed up on that success with even more success: 2006’s 3121 went to No. 1, the only Prince album to debut at the top of the Billboard 200 while he was alive. It was 3121 that first knocked the High School Musical soundtrack off the No. 1 spot.
Watch the Music Video for Prince’s ‘Black Sweat’ From ‘3121’
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3. IV, Godsmack
Godsmack’sIV, reached No. 1 in May of 2006, less than a month after it came out. IV sold an impressive 211,000 copies in America in just its first week of release.
Here, they teamed up with producer Andy Johns, a man who worked with just about every big name in British rock music from Led Zeppelin to the Rolling Stones to Eric Clapton.
“There were a lot of things that happened on this record that were different than the way we worked in the past,” lead singer and primary songwriter Sully Ernasaid back then. “And one of those was me letting go of the steering wheel a bit, allowing the band control over the writing and me stepping away to an outside point of view and coming up with lyrics for what I viewed as another group entirely. … I knew this new year would be rocking for us.”
Listen to ‘Shine Down’ From Godsmack’s ‘IV’
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4. 10,000 Days, Tool
In addition to landing the No. 1 spot, Tool‘s 10,000 Days yielded not just one but three top ten rock singles: “Vicarious,” “The Pot” and “Jambi.” (And as it turned out, it was the last album they released for over ten years until Fear Inoculum arrived in 2019.) It also won a Grammy for Best Recording Package.
For 10,000 Days, Maynard James Keenan got personal with his songwriting and wound up regretting it, even with how well the album was received.
“I’ll never make that mistake again,” Keenan reflected after the album came out. “It just took too much out of me – too much emotionally, mentally, physically – all those manifestations. Those songs were exploited and misconstrued, people were flippant and dismissive. I won’t be doing that anymore.”
Listen to Tool’s ‘Vicarious’ From ‘10,000 Days’
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5. Stadium Arcadium, Red Hot Chili Peppers
Stadium Arcadium, a Red Hot Chili Peppers double album, was released in America on May 9, 2006. Within a few weeks, it was No. 1, making it their very first album to reach that spot. The following year came a whopping seven Grammy nominations, including one for Best Rock Album. (It won four of them.)
Rolling Stone called Stadium Arcadium the band’s “most ambitious work of its 23-year career — an attempt to consolidate everything that is Chili Peppers…a late-career triumph that could pass for another, lesser group’s greatest-hits collection.”
“It wasn’t a shock, but it’s always a pleasant surprise,” drummer Chad Smith said of the success back then, speaking with The Salt Lake Tribune. “You never know. You work so hard on this music, and you’re just so focused on writing the songs and playing them and recording them and mixing them; everything that goes into making an album takes about a year. And finally, you’re like ‘OK, it’s finished. Here you go.’ “Now this little, private thing that we’ve had this long time with us is all of the sudden released on the world. It’s kind of scary, but we were excited about it. We worked really hard and this is some of the best music we’ve ever done.”
Watch the Music Video for the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ ‘Dani California’ From ‘Stadium Arcadium’
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READ MORE: 15 Chad Smith Collaborations Outside the Red Hot Chili Peppers
6. American V: A Hundred Highways, Johnny Cash
Sure, Johnny Cash might not be the name that comes immediately to mind when one thinks of rock music, but we’d argue that when your album is produced by Rick Rubin and features the work of Heartbreakers Benmont Tench and Mike Campbell, that warrants some attention here. (“We really tried to step up for Johnny Cash,” Tench later recalled to jambands.com, “even above and beyond the usual call.”)
This was the case for Cash’s 2006 album American V: A Hundred Highways, a No. 1 hit that summer, which made it Cash’s first No. 1 album in nearly 40 years. Of course, Cash never got to see this success — American V: A Hundred Highways had been recorded prior to his death in 2003.
Listen to Johnny Cash’s Cover of ‘If You Could Read My Mind’ From ‘American V: A Hundred Highways’
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7. Modern Times, Bob Dylan
Here’s quite the fact: when Bob Dylan‘s Modern Times hit No. 1 in 2006, it was his first album to grab that spot since he released Desire 30 years prior in 1976. On top of that, Dylan was 65 years old, making him the oldest living person at the time to have an album enter the Billboard charts at No. 1. (Tony Bennett would break that record at 88 years old in 2014.)
Critics nearly unanimously loved Modern Times. Even the notoriously sour Robert Christgau admitted in his review admitted: “Yep, rock’s greatest songwriter.” Not that Dylan was all that concerned with what the industry was saying.
“You just released this amazing new record,” Rolling Stone said to him in 2007. “The title, Modern Times, seems to be a very deliberate statement.” Dylan’s reply: “Well, I don’t know. Can you think of a better title?”
Watch the Music Video for Bob Dylan’s ‘Thunder on the Mountain’ From ‘Modern Times’
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8. The Open Door, Evanescence
No one can say that Evanescence’s debut album, 2003’s Fallen, did poorly — it went to No. 3 on the Billboard 200. But their second album, 2006’s The Open Door, effectively finished the job and claimed the No. 1 spot in October of that year.
“I’m proud of that album,” lead singer and songwriter Amy Lee said of the LP in 2025, speaking with Buzzfeed. “That album came out of a time that was a coming-of-age moment for me. And it’s right there in the title, like it was time to go out on my own, show what I could do and prove some things. It was liberating and fun, and I also put a lot of pressure on myself. So the fact that people think of The Open Door as their favorite album, it means so much to me.”
Watch Evanescence’s Music Video for ‘Sweet Sacrifice’ From ‘The Open Door’
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9. Still the Same… Great Rock Classics of Our Time, Rod Stewart
The only thing better than Rod Stewart singing his own rock ‘n’ roll is him singing the rock ‘n’ roll of others.
That’s exactly what Still the Same… Great Rock Classics of Our Time was, a No. 1 hit for Stewart. It featured 13 covers, ranging from Bob Seger‘s “Still the Same” to Badfinger‘s “Day After Day” to Eagles‘ “Best of My Love.”
“There are certain songs you have to leave alone and certain songs that can be revisited,” Stewart explained toCBS News at the time. “And I think we’ve chosen the ones that needed revisiting. And not everybody’s gonna feel that. But these are the ones I thought maybe I could add something vocally to them, you know, make a little bit more interesting.”
Listen to Rod Stewart’s Cover of ‘Crazy Love’ From ‘Still the Same… Great Rock Classics of Our Time’
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10. Light Grenades, Incubus
Before the year was out, Incubus landed their own No. 1 album (their first ever) with Light Grenades, which sold 359,000 copies around the world in its first week of release. Interestingly, Incubus would not release another album for over five years, finally returning in 2011 with If Not Now, When?
Listen to the Title Track of Incubus’ ‘Light Grenades’
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