Billboard Names Biggest Rock Band of 21st Century

You “never made it as a wise man” if you didn’t guess Nickelback as the Biggest Rock Band of the 21st Century, at least according to Billboard.

The weekly music magazine that keeps tracks of all the prominent charts recently counted down the Top 100 Artists of the 21st Century across all of their charting formats and Nickelback was the highest charting rock act on the list, coming in at No. 26 overall.

The band notably had the most played song at radio across all formats of the 2000s, the 2001 hit single “How You Remind Me,” plus have also scored Top 10 hits on the Hot 100 chart with “Someday” (No. 7), “Photograph” (No. 2), “Far Away” (No. 8), “Rockstar” (No. 6) and “Gotta Be Somebody” (No. 10). Plus they’ve had a wealth of Mainstream Rock, Pop, Adullt Alternative and Alternative Airplay singles as well.

Rock Is Dead? Hold On …..

While the narrative has been out of there of “rock” being dead, when Billboard gathered up the final tally across all charts for their Top 100 Artists of the 21st Century, “rock” was actually pretty well represented.

After Nickelback’s placement at No. 26, seven more core rock acts made the cut as well. Plus, there were an additional five acts that have found success in both the pop, alternative and rock worlds whose names often get mentioned in rock categories at award shows.

So who else made the cut?

Coming in at No. 37, Billboard named Linkin Park as the second biggest rock act of the 21st Century. The group scored Top 10 hits on the Hot 100 with “In the End” (No. 2), “What I’ve Done” (No. 7) and “New Divide” (No. 6), but had bigger successes on both the Alternative Airplay and Mainstream Rock charts.

Avril Lavigne was the top female rocker for the 21st Century, coming in at No. 47. Starting off with more rock cred, she soon found biggest success on the pop charts before reclaiming some of her rock edge in recent years. Top songs included “Complicated” (No. 2) “Sk8er Boi” (No. 10), “I’m With You” (No. 4), “My Happy Ending” (No. 9)” and “Girlfriend” (No. 1) on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.

Creed placed at No. 66 on the list as “With Arms Wide Open” (No. 1), “My Sacrifice” (No. 4), and “One Last Breath” (No. 6) carried over their streak of Hot 100 Top 10s into the 21st Century.

3 Doors Down also had a trio of Top 10 crossover hits on the Hot 100 with “Kryptonite” (No. 3), “When I’m Gone” (No. 4) and “Here Without You” (No. 5) on top of their alternative and mainstream rock radio hits.

Kid Rock made the cut at No. 83 with a broad reach. His duet with Sheryl Crow on “Picture” was his lone Top 10 Hot 100 hit, peaking at No. 4. But he scored Mainstream Rock, Alternative Airplay and Adult Pop Hits as well.

Daughtry claimed the No. 89 spot, finding Hot 100 Top 10 success with the tracks “It’s Not Over” (No. 4) and “Home” (No. 5) as well as songs on the Adult Pop, Adult Contemporary, Pop and Mainstream Rock charts.

And claiming the last spot on the list at No. 100 is emo powerhouse Fall Out Boy. Songs such as “Sugar, We’re Goin’ Down” (No. 8), “Dance, Dance” (No. 9), “This Ain’t a Scene, It’s an Arms Race” (No. 2) and “Centuries” (No. 10) all cracked the Top 10 of Billboard Hot 100. They also scored much of their success on the Alternative Airplay chart.

Others With Rock Ties

As stated, there were several other acts that have ties to the rock world. The legendary Santana are often mentioned among the classic rock greats, but took a poppier turn toward the start of the century that helped them to the No. 98 spot.

Likewise, Gwen Stefani was known for being the frontwoman for one of alt-rock’s biggest ’90s bands No Doubt, but much of her output in the 2000s has been more pop leaning and has garnered enough success in the pop world to rank at No. 97.

READ MORE: 33 Most Prolific Rock + Metal Artists of the 21st Century

Twenty One Pilots have dominated the Alternative Airplay chart in recent years while parlaying that success into quite a bit of pop crossover and that helped them to a No. 84 position on the list.

Coldplay were one of the 2000s biggest alternative airplay chart bands, but have seemingly moved more pop in recent years. The combined audience helped pushed them to No. 53.

And finally, Imagine Dragons started more in the alternative rock world and even had a No. 1 Rock Airplay song in “Radioactive,” but have veered more to pop music on subsequent albums. They placed at No. 38 on the list for the 21st Century.

What other acts made Billboard’s Top 100 Artists of the 21st Century? Who hit No. 1? The full list can be found at Billboard.