Last week on the Billboard 200, hard rock-turned-adult pop band Linkin Park debuted at No. 1 with their latest album One More Light. The title started at the top thanks to an especially quiet week (in terms of newly-released records), giving the outfit its sixth chart-topper on the all-encompassing tally. By hitting No. 1 on the Billboard 200 for a sixth time, Linkin Park has become the latest group to join a club of rock bands that have managed at least half a dozen leaders, and they are in some pretty good company.
According to Billboard, only nine rock bands in history have placed at least six different titles at the peak of the albums ranking, and six seems to be the magic number, as there are only a few that have topped that figure. Linkin Park joins The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, U2, Bon Jovi, The Eagles, Dave Matthews Band and Metallica as the latest rock act to score six No. 1 albums.
The Beatles are still in a very distant first place, as they have hit No. 1 19 times in the U.S., with their last chart-topper owning the listing just 17 years ago, even though they had been apart for decades by that point. The Beatles remain the only group filed under the rock genre that can claim double-digit No. 1 albums.
The Rolling Stones have hit No. 1 nine times, while both Led Zeppelin and U2 have done so seven times. The other four names in this club, Bon Jovi, The Eagles, Dave Matthews Band and Metallica, are all on par with Linkin Park with half a dozen leaders.
When all musical acts are included, Linkin Park falls further down the list when it comes to who has hit No. 1 most frequently. The Beatles are still in first, followed by Jay Z, who has 13 chart-topping albums and Barbra Streisand, who has collected 11. Fellow rockers Bruce Springsteen and Elvis Presley both have 10, but they are considered solo artists (even though Springsteen often releases music under the moniker Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band), and this part in charting history looks specifically at rock bands.