When did my list of the best rock/alternative singles of the 2010s a few months ago, I felt a little caught between all the different generations that share the rock airwaves now. Older artists don't get cycled out as quickly as they do on rap or pop radio, so we've still got the occasional Pearl Jam or Foo Fighters song alongside the latest Billie Eilish, and the generation gap can be awkward but also interesting to observe. I recently wrote a piece for Spin about how fusions of punk pop and hip hop were kind of the defining trend of alternative radio in 2020, but there's just a huge mix of sounds on the charts. Here's the Spotify playlist, and the other lists I've done for rap, R&B, country, and pop. 

1. The 1975 - "If You're Too Shy (Let Me Know)" 
#14 Alternative Airplay, #21 Rock Airplay
How much do I love this song? Well, it was my most played track on Spotify in 2020 despite the fact that I mostly listened to it on YouTube, since I prefer their live performance in the video to the studio version. The 1975 have a lot of great songs but this may go down as their very best, and appropriately was their highest charting song in the UK, although it’s tied for their third-biggest song on American alternative radio. But really, so much of alt-rock radio right now is bleary faux-‘80s synth rock that I’m surprised they’re not totally running shit.
 
2. Cannons – “Fire For You”
#6 Alternative Airplay, #4 Rock Airplay
I don’t know much about the L.A. trio Cannons, but “Fire For You” was released on their first major label EP back in 2019, and just entered the charts in September, and it’s really quickly grown on me and kept getting higher on this list as I was drafting it. Plus a song called “Fire For You” by a band called Cannons is kind of funny (incidentally, there was a band called The Cannons that had a country radio hit called “Love’ll Come Looking For You” in 1987).
 
3. Billie Eilish - "My Future" 
#15 Alternative Airplay, #18 Rock Airplay, #6 Hot 100
This made the least noise of Billie Eilish’s four post-When We All Fall Asleep singles (I mean “No Time To Die” charted lower but will leave a bigger cultural footprint – Bond themes are forever). “My Future” even fizzled on alternative radio, where she’d already had five top 10 hits. But I really think this song is special, the way the first minute and a half set it up like another airy Eilish ballad in the style of “When The Party’s Over” and then the crisp drums and funky guitar drop in and it becomes something else entirely.
 
4. Chaz Cardigan - "Not OK!"  
#18 Alternative Airplay, #39 Rock Airplay
The best rock radio breakthrough about not being okay since My Chemical Romance (I promise). Chaz Cardigan has also made some really entertaining TikToks this year.
 
5. AC/DC - "Shot In The Dark"
#1 Mainstream Rock Songs, #3 Rock Airplay
The Mainstream Rock chart is perennially full of bands that are trying to recapture the glory of their creative peak two or three decades ago, and often struggling to do so. AC/DC weren’t the oldest guys on the chart this year (Ozzy released an album), but even with the loss of Malcolm Young and assorted other trials of the past few years, their sound remains frozen in amber, and they can recapture what they sounded like four decades ago better than almost any rock relic still going.
 
6. Royal Blood - "Trouble's Coming"  
#8 Mainstream Rock Songs, #12 Alternative Airplay, #6 Rock Airplay
The British duo Royal Blood probably didn’t realize their new ‘disco AC/DC’ sound would be competing on the charts with the real AC/DC, but they sound pretty good next to each other.
 
7. The HU f/ Jacoby Shaddix - "Wolf Totem" 
#5 Mainstream Rock Songs, #17 Rock Airplay
One of the coolest things that happened on hard rock radio is that the Mongolian band The HU, who combine traditional bowed instruments and throat singing with modern metal, started getting a lot of airplay in America with two of their singles. They had to link up with members of established bands who add some English lyrics to their songs to get U.S. airplay (their other hit, “Yuve Yuve Yu,” features From Ashes To New). And I prefer the version of “Wolf Totem” without the guy from Papa Roach, but it’s pretty awesome either way.
 
8. Beabadoobee - "Care"
#18 Alternative Airplay, #27 Rock Airplay
I left Canadian rapper Powfu’s “Death Bed (Coffee For Your Head)” off the worst list at the bottom of this post, even though it annoyed me more than almost any alternative radio hit this year, because I’m grateful to it for helping boost the career of London-based singer/songwrite Beabadoobee. “Death Bed” sampled one of her early lo-fi acoustic songs, but for her debut album Fake It Flowers, she added big fuzzed out riffs and crashing drums to her songs to great effect.
 
9. Hayley Williams - "Simmer" 
#21 Alternative Airplay, #30 Rock Airplay
Hayley Williams hasn’t touched the alternative radio top 10 in over a decade now – Paramore’s “Now” and “Hard Times” both peaked at #13, and her solo debut was a little more leftfield than those songs. But Petals For Armor is a great album and "Simmer" was a great way to introduce this very different sound. 
 
10. Peach Tree Rascals – “Mariposa”
#2 Alternative Airplay, #3 Rock Airplay
Easily my favorite alt-rock hit this year that was boosted to radio airplay via TikTok popularity, a gentle little groove with a beautiful melody from a San Jose collective of rappers, singers and producers.
 
11. The Backseat Lovers - "Kilby Girl" 
#31 Alternative Airplay
Maybe it’s because most places called Kilby are in England or because this song vaguely reminds me of His ‘n’ Hers-era Pulp, but I was shocked that this band is from Utah after listening to “Kilby Girl” a few times and kind of assuming they were British.
 
12. Pearl Jam - "Dance Of The Clairvoyants"
#15 Alternative Airplay, #17 Mainstream Rock Songs, #8 Rock Airplay
Pearl Jam struck gold on their first album with a sound that made themselves and many other bands very rich. But to their credit, they’ve always toyed with the formula, especially on lead singles, with songs that are much heavier or much slower or much weirder than anything on Ten. And they truly surprised me with “Dance Of The Clairvoyants” – I never thought a Pearl Jam song would remind me of Talking Heads circa Fear Of Music. Eddie Vedder’s delivery gets especially David Byrne on the second verse: “It’s not a negative thought! A positive! Positive!”
 
13. Foo Fighters – “Shame Shame”
#2 Mainstream Rock Songs, #11 Alternative Airplay, #1 Rock Airplay
Foo Fighters have always favorite a more modest amount of experimentation than Pearl Jam, but they changed things up more than usual with their last Greg Kurstin-produced album. And “Shame Shame,” with its slow, deliberate, percussion-driven groove, is an interesting step forward for their next album with Kurstin, due out in February.
 
14. Bastille f/ Graham Coxon - "What You Gonna Do???"
#8 Alternative Airplay, #12 Rock Airplay
3 of the 4 members of Bastille play guitar, but most of their songs are pretty synth-driven. And perhaps their most guitar-heavy single to date gets an assist from Blur’s Graham Coxon, a brash little 2-minute blast, not as loud as “Song 2” but only 9 seconds longer.
 
15. System Of A Down – “Protect The Land”
#24 Mainstream Rock Songs
In the 15 years since their last album, System Of A Down have been in an odd, frustrating stalemate where the band members remain friends and occasionally tour, but haven’t been able to agree on how to make a new record. And then out of nowhere, a month ago, SOAD released a double A-side single to raise funds and awareness about the dire situation in the Armenian-American band’s homeland. The songs have already raised half a million dollars for the Armenia fund, and the heavier flipside “Genocidal Humanoidz” is good too, I hope that also gets a radio run in 2021.
 
16. The Blue Stones – “Shakin’ Off The Rust”
#5 Mainstream Rock Songs, #32 Alternative Airplay, #24 Rock Airplay
The Blue Stones are a hard rock duo that kind of remind me a bit of Royal Blood, my wife loves them and kind of turned me onto this song, it’s been growing on me a lot lately.
 
17. Chris Cornell – “Patience”
#1 Mainstream Rock Songs, #25 Alternative Airplay, #4 Rock Airplay
In his final years, Chris Cornell seemed to really embrace his status as one of the great rock vocalists of his generation and became a voracious interpreter of classic songs, from “Billie Jean” and “Nothing Compares 2 U.” I don’t think he would’ve ever gone all the way to the Rod Steward/Michael McDonald career model of covering oldies all the time, but it was fun to hear him try on songs. And his latest posthumous single is a pretty good take on one of the best ballads by his buddies in Guns N’ Roses. Sevendust’s cover of Soundgarden’s “The Day I Tried To Live” overlapped on the rock charts with “Patience” a little this year as well.  
 
18. Billie Eilish - "Everything I Wanted" 
#1 Alternative Airplay, #1 Rock Airplay, #8 Hot 100
A really haunting song, and an interesting sort of statement to make just as Billie Eilish was all over the charts and about to win a ton of Grammys. I’m glad she’s been releasing singles steadily since her album so we really get to see her continue to expand and develop her sound.
 
19. Neon Trees - "Used To Like"
#4 Alternative Airplay, #8 Rock Airplay
I miss the days when Neon Trees were one of the bigger crossover acts on both alternative and Top 40 radio, but I’m glad they came back with an alternative hit this year. Frontman Tyler Glenn suffered a stroke a couple weeks ago, so I hope he’s recovering well.
 
20. All Time Low f/ Blackbear – “Monsters”
#1 Alternative Airplay, #1 Rock Airplay
All Time Low are from a suburb of Baltimore, and I once wrote a piece for Baltimore City Paper about how they’ve carved out an unusually resilient career for a Warped Tour band who never got a lot of mainstream radio play. Five years later, they’re getting even bigger, and finally got their first huge radio hit. I wish Blackbear of "Hot Girl Bummer" fame wasn’t on this song, but the rest of it is pretty catchy.
 
The 10 Worst Rock/Alternative Radio Hits of 2020:
1. AJR – “Bang!”
2. The Unlikely Candidates – “Novocaine”
3. Oliver Tree – “Let Me Down”
4. Machine Gun Kelly – “Bloody Valentine”
5. Ritt Momney – “Put Your Records On”
6. Royal & The Serpent – “Overwhelmed”
7. Grandson – “Dirty”
8. Smashing Pumpkins – “Cyr”
9. Major Lazer f/ Marcus Mumford – “Lay Your Head On Me”
10. Twenty One Pilots – “Level Of Concern

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