Zach Bryan, Billie Eilish Lead Another Year of Soloist Domination on Year-End Rock & Alternative Charts
Written by djfrosty on December 13, 2024
In 2017, Imagine Dragons started a trend that has continued every year since on Billboard’s year-end Top Rock & Alternative Artists chart.
It’s never obvious at first. An act has a big year, big enough that they reign supreme above all other rock and/or alternative artists in the U.S. Well and good, but by the time they’re crowned atop Billboard’s year-end charts, the clock has reset anew, and there’s no guarantee they’ll end up on top of the fray yet again the following year.
Except that’s exactly what’s happened in every two-year period since, a trend that continues in 2024, with Zach Bryan the year’s No. 1 on Top Rock & Alternative Artists.
Explore All of Billboard’s 2024 Year-End Charts
After Imagine Dragons led in both 2017 and ’18, Panic! at the Disco followed in 2019-20. Glass Animals topped the list in 2021 and ’22, with Bryan ascending to the top in 2023, a spot he holds again this year.
Bryan, the folky troubadour whose music blurs the line between rock and country singer-songwriter fare, premiered a new album, The Great American Bar Scene, on July 4. Music from that set – including one-week Hot Rock & Alternative Songs No. 1 “Pink Skies” – certainly helped his fortunes on both the Top Rock & Alternative Artists and Top Country Artists (where he’s No. 2) for the year, but much like fellow country heavy-hitters Morgan Wallen and Chris Stapleton, it’s important to look beyond music that was released during the chart year.
Indeed, “I Remember Everything,” Bryan’s duet with Kacey Musgraves from his 2023 self-titled album, is No. 1 on a variety of year-end charts for 2024, including – but certainly not limited to – the Hot Rock & Alternative Songs and Hot Rock Songs lists, as well as the all-genre Streaming Songs survey. Released in September 2023, the song reigned on the weekly Hot Rock & Alternative Songs chart for 30 weeks through March of this year and didn’t fall off the survey until October. Even as The Great American Bar Scene’s tracklist roared onto the charts in July, “I Remember Everything” persisted; it’s only spent a handful of weeks outside Streaming Songs’ top 20 since release.
Bryan also notches multiple appearances on the year-end Top Rock & Alternative Albums chart; Zach Bryan leads the way at No. 2, followed by 2022’s American Heartbreak (No. 5), The Great American Bar Scene (No. 12), 2020’s Elisabeth (No. 20), 2022 EP Summertime Blues (No. 25) and 2023 EP Boys of Faith (No. 64). And on the year-end Rock Streaming Songs, he boasts the top two (“I Remember Everything” and 2022’s “Something in the Orange”) and 13 of the 50 total entries.
Bryan’s 2024 coronation continues another rising trend on Top Rock & Alternative Artists: the domination of soloists. After years of leads by bands, Bryan’s 2023 rule was the exclamation point on a year when the entire top 10 were solo acts, a first for the genre.
In 2024, soloists are still in vogue, but bands took back some territory, with two of the top 10 groups of two or more. One of those is Fleetwood Mac (No. 9), the classic rock act who remains a streaming force in the ‘20s, with “Dreams” No. 7 on the year-end Rock Streaming Songs survey. The other? Linkin Park (No. 8), which returns to the top 10 for the first time since 2017.
The story of Linkin Park’s resurgence began in 2023, when it vaulted to No. 16 on Top Rock & Alternative Artists after appearing at No. 50 in 2022, mostly on the strength of catalog sales and streams. The band was No. 3 in 2017, but it wasn’t for particularly celebratory reasons; longtime co-frontman Chester Bennington died that year, spurring an outpouring of streams and sales in remembrance of the late iconic singer. In 2023, the band found success via the 20th-anniversary reissue of its 2003 album Meteora, which spurred the year-end No. 1 on Mainstream Rock Airplay Songs and Alternative Airplay Songs in “Lost,” a previously unreleased cut featuring Bennington’s vocals.
A new greatest-hits package, Papercuts, followed this April, boasting a one-week No. 1 on Mainstream Rock Airplay in “Friendly Fire.” In September, Linkin Park officially reformed with a new vocalist in Dead Sara’s Emily Armstrong, with comeback single “The Emptiness Machine” topping both Mainstream Rock Airplay and Alternative Airplay for multiple weeks. Despite being released in the 11th hour of the 2024 chart year, the song appears on several year-end rankings, paced by its No. 4 arrival on Hot Hard Rock Songs.
What will 2025 have in store for Linkin Park? Stay tuned, with new album From Zero having been released on Nov. 15, whose chart performance will factor into the year-end 2025 charts.
Further up Top Rock & Alternative Artists, Billie Eilish rises to the highest point she’s ever been on the ranking since the weekly Hot Rock & Alternative Songs and Top Rock & Alternative Albums charts changed from their previous iterations to allow alternative-leaning music not necessarily within the rock genre in 2020. Eilish ends the year at No. 2, the highest rank for a woman since Lorde was No. 1 on the year-end tally in 2014. She’s also No. 1 on Top Alternative Artists, a return for Eilish after she also reigned in 2022.
As in 2022, Eilish released a new album, this time Hit Me Hard and Soft. The set has reigned on Top Rock & Alternative Albums for 18 weeks so far since debuting atop the June 1 list and has paced Top Alternative Albums for even longer (22 frames); though she misses out on the distinction of the No. 1 Top Alternative Albums year-end entry in 2024 (that goes to Noah Kahan’s Stick Season), Hit Me Hard and Soft still ranks at No. 2, while Eilish is the No. 1 Top Alternative Albums Artist in 2024 thanks to a flurry of appearances on the year-end ranking (When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? at No. 11, Happier Than Ever at No. 14 and Dont Smile at Me at No. 47).
Eilish also boasts a coronation as the No. 1 on Hot Alternative Songs Artists in 2024, accumulating 11 songs on the 50-position year-end Hot Alternative Songs list. That includes the Nos. 2 and 3: “Birds of a Feather,” from Hit Me Hard and Soft, and “What Was I Made For?,” off the 2023 Barbie film soundtrack.
Neither song could hold a candle to Hozier’s “Too Sweet,” No. 1 on the year-end Hot Alternative Songs. The viral success of the tune fuels Hozier’s appearance at No. 4 on Top Rock & Alternative Artists, an impressive comeback for the Irish singer-songwriter after having last reached the top 10 in 2015, when he was No. 2. “Too Sweet” was a force across all metrics; the song ends 2024 as the No. 1 on the year-end Adult Alternative Airplay Songs, Alternative Streaming Songs and Rock Digital Song Sales lists, while other notable accolades include No. 2 on Hot Rock & Alternative Songs, No. 4 on Alternative Airplay Songs and No. 4 on Rock & Alternative Airplay Songs.
Hozier’s influence even extended outside the rock and alternative genres, much like his breakout 2014 hit, “Take Me to Church.” “Too Sweet” ends the year at No. 10 on Hot 100 Songs, as well as at No. 4 on Adult Pop Airplay Songs and No. 7 on Pop Airplay Songs.
The year’s No. 1 on Top New Rock & Alternative Artists illuminates TikTok’s continued influence on all charts: Djo, whose “End of Beginning,” originally released in 2022, went viral via multiple trends on the social media app earlier this year. The project of actor Joe Keery also finds its way to No. 10 on Top Rock & Alternative Artists, while “End of Beginning” is the year-end No. 6 on Alternative Streaming Songs and No. 7 on Alternative Airplay Songs.
And Hozier’s not the only resurgent act to top a year-end radio ranking; Sum 41’s “Landmines” leads the Alternative Airplay Songs list, while Daughtry crowns the Mainstream Rock Airplay Artists ranking.
Sum 41 (which relents the Alternative Airplay Artists No. 1 to usual format stalwart Green Day) topped the weekly Alternative Airplay chart for two weeks but ultimately remained on the ranking for 51 weeks from October 2023 to October 2024. The Deryck Whibley-fronted band’s reign was its first since 2001’s “Fat Lip,” marking the longest break between rulers in the chart’s 36-year history.
Daughtry’s Mainstream Rock Airplay Artists coronation is thanks to a pair of one-week No. 1s on the weekly Mainstream Rock Airplay. This is former American Idol contestant Chris Daughtry’s first time topping the chart. “Pieces” ends up at No. 3 on Mainstream Rock Airplay Songs, followed by “Artificial” at No. 5; Nothing More’s “If It Doesn’t Hurt” is No. 1, the rockers’ first time as the biggest song of the year, eclipsing the No. 3 rank of “Ballast” all the way back in 2014.
Billboard’s year-end music recaps represent aggregated metrics for each artist, title, label and music contributor on the weekly charts dated Oct. 28, 2023, through Oct. 19, 2024. The rankings for Luminate-based recaps reflect equivalent album units, airplay, sales or streaming during the weeks that the titles appeared on a respective chart during the tracking year. Any activity registered before or after a title’s chart run isn’t considered in these rankings. That methodology details, and the October-October time period, account for some of the difference between these lists and the calendar-year recaps that are independently compiled by Luminate.