Billboard Hot Rock Songs data is based on a combination of downloads, streaming, radio plays, before 2012 it was based mainly on the radio plays before incorporating the digital side of things. The longest a song has been at number-one continually has been a staggering 34 weeks.
This was the first single released from their eighth album 21st Century Breakdown. The song has been certified Gold since its release. Of the songs meaning frontman Billie Joe Armstrong said “It’s a rallying song. It’s about liberating yourself from a lot of bullshit that you see on TV.”.
Number 1: (June 20, 2009, 1 Week)
Linkin Park – New Divide
The song was recorded specifically for the movie, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. The song remains one of the most acclaimed songs of Linkin Park’s discography. The video sees the band performing in a cave & employs many special visual effects.
Number 1: (June 27, 2009, 12 Weeks)
Alice in Chains – Check My Brain
Released as the 1st single from their fourth studio album Black Gives Way to Blue. The song is one of their most successful singles of their career along with the 1994 song No Excuses. Having lost their frontman Layne Staley in 2002 many thought they were done but they manage to deliver a sound reminiscent of their earlier years.
Number 1: (September 19, 2009, 8 Weeks)
Foo Fighters – Wheels
The song was recorded for the band’s Greatest Hits album with producer Butch Vig. Butch vig having previously worked with Nirvana (Foo Fighter frontman Dave Grohl’s former band). In terms of the Foo Fighters back catalogue this song is relatively weak but even a weak Foo song manages to top charts!
Number 1: (November 14, 2009, 2 Weeks)
Breaking Benjamin – I Will Not Bow
This was the first single from Breaking Benjamin’s 4th album Dear Agony. The song features during the end credits of the Bruce Willis movie Surrogates.
Number 1: (November 28, 2009, 2 Weeks)
Three Days Grace – Break
This was the 1st single released from Three Days Grace’s third album, Life Starts Now. The songs meaning is about breaking away from undesirable situations you might find yourself in. The video sees the band in various rooms with giant fans in the walls which serve to blow paint all over the band.
The song is the second single from their fourth album Black Gives Way to Blue. Having previously hit a number one with the 1st single in Sept 2009. The song touches on choices we make & their consequences with lyrics like “No one plans to take the path that brings you lower”.
Number 1: (March 6, 2010, 6 Weeks)
Stone Temple Pilots – Between the Lines
This is the 1st single released from the bands sixth studio album. The song deals with former front-man Scott Weiland’s (Died December 2015) past history of drug use. Highlight of the song is guitarist Dean DeLeo’s guitar solo.
Number 1: (April 17, 2010, 7 Weeks)
Three Days Grace – The Good Life
This was the second single from Three Days Grace’s 2009 album Life Starts Now. The opening & main guitar riff of the song sounds badass.
Number 1: (June 5, 2010, 6 Weeks)
Shinedown – The Crow & the Butterfly
Late bloomer this one, having been released 2 years prior on their album The Sound Of Madness. This was the 5th single released from that album. The song is open to interpretation but the general consensus is the song is about losing someone close to you.
The Dirty Heads featuring Rome Ramirez – Lay Me Down
Rather than being a single released from an album this song was a single later included as a bonus track on the bands debut album Any Port in a Storm. Not as rock orientated as others on this page, more reggae/ska in style. Those familiar with bands like Sublime (This song features the Sublime guitarist/vocalist Rome Ramirez) will feel right at home with this one.
Number 1: (July 24, 2010, 1 Week)
Linkin Park – The Catalyst
This was the first single released from their fourth album, A Thousand Suns. The song is lyrically sparse with most parts repeated 2 or more times delivered in an somewhat anger laced anthem fashion.
Number 1: (August 21, 2010, 5 Weeks)
Disturbed – Another Way to Die
This was the first single from their fifth studio album, Asylum. The song focuses on our insatiable appetites & how the unseen destruction it is causing to the planet is a ticking time-bomb that will reveal itself shortly. The title of the song is Another way to die but the message here is that we don’t need another way to die.
Vocalist David Draiman’s distinctive vocal delivery during the chorus saves this song from sounding rather drab & the video helps convey the important message in the song.
Number 1: (September 25, 2010, 1 Week)
Stone Sour – Say You’ll Haunt Me
This was the second single from the bands third album Audio Secrecy. If you’re familiar with Slipknot, Corey Taylor, Slipknot’s front-man is at the helm of Stone Sour. The lyrics of the song are about his then wife & how he felt about her.
This was the first single released from the bands album Brothers. The songs whistling melody has put the song amongst some of the best whistling songs of all time.
This was the first single from the bands second album Thank You, Happy Birthday. The song deals with many of life’s depressing aspects with the chorus offering a glimmer of optimism.
Number 1: (February 26, 2011, 2 Weeks)
Foo Fighters – Rope
This was the first single released from their seventh studio album Wasting Light. The song & rest of album were recorded in front-man Dave Grohl’s garage using only analogue equipment. The song is the 2nd song in the Hot Rock Songs chart history to debut at the number 1 spot. “The Catalyst” by Linkin Park in 2010 was the 1st.
Number 1: (March 12, 2011, 20 Weeks)
Foo Fighters – Walk
This was the second single released from their seventh studio album Wasting Light. The song won a Grammy Award for Best Rock Performance at the 54th GRAMMY Awards. The album this & the previous song Rope are from was produced by Butch Vig who produced front-man Dave Grohl’s previous band Nirvana’s famous album Nevermind 20 years earlier.
Red Hot Chili Peppers – The Adventures of Rain Dance Maggie
This was the 1st single released from their album I’m with You. The video sees the band using the roof of a building in Venice Beach, California for their stage & performing as they would in a concert. The video the song ended up with wasn’t the original as they had filmed an earlier one which ended up not aligning with the meaning of the song. The song is a good chill out song with a groovy beat.
Number 1: (August 6, 2011, 8 Weeks)
Bush – The Sound of Winter
The song was the second single released from the band’s fifth studio album The Sea of Memories. The band had been inactive for 8 years previously following a split & returned to renewed success.
Number 1: (November 19, 2011, 5 Weeks)
The Black Keys – Lonely Boy
This was the 1st single released from the bands album El Camino. The band won awards at the 55th Annual Grammy Awards with the song winning awards for Best Rock Performance and Best Rock Song. The video originally had a cast of more than 40 people but the band weren’t happy with it & ended up using 1 scene from the footage featuring Derrick T. Tuggle dancing who was just there as an extra for the entire video.
Gotye featuring Kimbra – Somebody That I Used to Know
This was the second single from Gotye’s third studio album, Making Mirrors. The song won a Grammy for Record of the Year. Gotye described the song as “a curated reflection of multiple past relationships” in an interview with Rolling Stone (Australia).
This was the 1st single released from their second studio album, Some Nights. Nate Ruess said the song is about “my worst drinking night of all time.”. The song won a Grammy Award for Song of the Year at the 2013 Grammy Awards.
Number 1: (April 28, 2012, 1 Week)
Linkin Park – Burn It Down
This was the 1st single from the bands fifth studio album Living Things. The song deals with the hardships faced by people who are built up into big celebrities only to be torn down the next week over a stupid rumour or something they said or did.
This was the 1st single released from their ninth studio album, ¡Uno! The song debuted at the number-one spot on this chart, their only song to do so. More power pop & reminiscent of the bands earlier sound. The song wouldn’t feel out of place on the bands earlier 1997 album Nimrod or even on 2000’s Warning.
The 1st single released from their debut self-titled studio album. The song was a breakthrough hit for the band & has been used in multiple TV shows such as Bones & X-files & used in advertisements for the search engine Bing amongst others. The song has a continuous “Ho!”, “Hey!” being chanted in the background to begin each line of the verses then you get to the catchy chorus “I belong with you, you belong with me, you’re my sweetheart”. You couldn’t not win with a song like this.
The 1st single released from the band’s second studio album, Babel. The video sees the band performing the song at a show in a massive auditorium style venue.
Number 1: (October 13, 2012, 1 Week)
Fun – Some Nights
The second single released from their 2nd album which is also titled Some Nights. Folk rock influenced & has been compared to music by Simon and Garfunkel. The video sees the band performing the song alongside a fictional war scene set around the American Civil War.
This song was from their 1st major label EP & later released on their debut album. Having a slow rise to the top over several months, the song has since seen ridiculous level of continued success with the video above on Youtube surpassing over 1 Billion views recently. On this chart the song managed a record-breaking 23 weeks at the time. The song won a Grammy Award for Best Rock Performance at the 56th Grammy Awards.
Number 1: (April 6, 2013, 23 Weeks)
Lorde – Royals
This was the debut single from the New Zealand singer Lorde. The song won awards for Song of the Year as well as Best Pop Solo Performance at the 56th Grammy Awards. Only 16 at the time of release, she wrote the song in 30 minutes in her Kitchen a year earlier. The songs lyrics deal with the disapproval of certain music genre’s lavish lifestyles, namely hip-hop artists.
Released as the second single from Passenger’s fourth album, All the Little Lights. The song has a ridiculous 2.4 Billion views on Youtube as of Aug 2019. The songs lyrics deal with regrets after a breakup & how we don’t realise what we had until it’s gone.
Number 1: (January 25, 2014, 5 Weeks)
Bastille – Pompeii
This was the 4th single from their debut album Bad Blood. Despite being a later single to be released it was this song that became the bands breakthrough.
Number 1: (March 1, 2014, 12 Weeks)
Paramore – Ain’t It Fun
The song was the 4th single from the bands self-titled 4th studio album self-titled Paramore. At the 57th Grammy Awards the song won a Grammy Award for Best Rock Song.
Released as the 3rd single from the bands 6th album, Ghost Stories. The song was co-written & produced with Avicii (real name Tim Bergling) who sadly passed away in 2018. The video sees the band wearing multiple instruments one-man band style while wandering Sydney’s streets with hoards of fans following.
The song is from their 4th album Blurryface. Stressed Out won a Grammy Award at the 59th Grammy’s for Best Pop Duo/Group Performance. The songs lyrics deal with the transition from adolescence into adulthood & the pressures & the longing to turn back time to when life was simpler. Most of the video was recorded at Josh Dun’s childhood home in Ohio.
Following the unexpected death of musical legend & icon Prince in April 2016, one of his most famous songs made a return to the top. The song was a hit for Prince originally in 1984.
Number 1: (May 14, 2016, 1 Weeks)
Twenty One Pilots – Ride
The song is from their 4th album Blurryface.
Number 1: (June 25, 2016, 9 Weeks)
Twenty One Pilots – Heathens
Released as the lead single for the soundtrack of the film Suicide Squad.
The song was the 1st single released from the band’s 3rd album Evolve. The song was used in advertisements for the Nintendo Switch & in movie trailers for Murder on the Orient Express.
This is 1st single from the band’s fourth studio album Origins. The song was co-written with Justin Tranter who has worked with many famous artists such as Linkin Park, Fallout Boy & Ariana Grande.
Number 1: (August 21, 2018, 11 Weeks)
Panic! at the Disco – High Hopes
The song is from their 6th album, Pray for the Wicked. Currently only 1 member of the original band remains & he choose to continue on with the name.
The song is from their 6th album, Pray for the Wicked. The video follows a puppet version of Brendon Urie on his journey to fame & then the downfall as he spirals into drug addiction before hitting bottom & recovering.