American IV: The Man Comes Around is the fourth album in the American series by Johnny Cash, released in 2002. The majority of songs are covers which Cash performs in his own spare style, with help from producer Rick Rubin. For instance, for the song "Personal Jesus", Rubin asked Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist John Frusciante to re-work an acoustic version of Martin Gore's song, which featured a simple acoustic riff that stripped down the song to a blues style. He receives backing vocal assistance from various artists, including Fiona Apple, Nick Cave, and Don Henley. American IV was the final Cash album released during his lifetime; though the Unearthed Box Set was compiled prior to his death, it was not released until two months later. It was also his first non-compilation album to go gold (selling over 500,000 copies) in thirty years. Additionally, the album won "Album of the Year" award at the 2003 CMA Awards. The video for "Hurt", a song written by Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails in 1994, was nominated in seven categories at the 2003 MTV Video Music Awards and won the award for Best Cinematography. In February 2003, mere days before his 71st birthday, Cash won another Grammy Award for Best Country Male Vocal Performance for "Give My Love To Rose," a song Cash had originally recorded in the late 1950s. The music video for "Hurt" also won a Grammy for Best Short Form Video at the 2004 Awards. Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor admitted that he was initially "flattered" but worried that "the idea [of Cash covering "Hurt"] sounded a bit gimmicky," but when he heard the song and saw the video for the first time, Reznor said he was deeply moved and found Cash's cover beautiful and meaningful. Read more on Last.fm.

The Legend of Johnny Cash is a single-disc compilation album of country music legend Johnny Cash's career. It is the first such album to contain material from Cash's American Recordings era in addition to songs from his time at Sun and Columbia. It was released on October 25, 2005 on the Island/American/Columbia/Legacy record labels and tied to the release of the Cash biopic Walk the Line. In the wake of that film's success its sales made the compilation an overwhelming success, selling over two million copies. Read more on Last.fm.