The 20 Best Rock/Alternative Radio Hits of 2023
For most of these genre lists I do every year, I see new artists competing with artists that have been around for 5-10 years with the occasional veteran act still hanging on. So it's a big contrast to look at mainstream rock and see bands from every generation since the '60s competing with each other, to see the Rolling Stones, Depeche Mode, Blink-182, The 1975, and Maneskin all on the same playing field. It's bizarre but kind of fun. Here's the lists I posted earlier in the week for rap, pop and R&B, and the Spotify playlist for the rock list:
1. White Reaper - "Pages"
#4 Alternative Airplay, #6 Rock & Alternative Airplay
I love '70s hard rock, but it's very hard for contemporary bands to pay homage to it without becoming bellbottom-wearing cartoon characters, so I really appreciate White Reaper's sort of unique place in the mainstream rock landscape, "Pages" doesn't go all-in on Thin Lizzy-style twin lead guitars like some of their songs, but their second top 10 radio hit is really catchy.
2. Fall Out Boy - "Love From The Other Side"
#1 Alternative Airplay, #23 Mainstream Rock Airplay, #2 Rock & Alternative Airplay
As a weirdo who thinks Folie a Deux is Fall Out Boy's best album, I couldn't have been happier with So Much (For) Stardust and its lead single, at least until they abruptly stopped promoting the great songs on the album to spend the rest of the year pushing an embarrassing Billy Joel cover.
3. Des Rocs - "Never Ending Moment"
#29 Mainstream Rock Airplay
This completely blew me away when I heard it on the radio over the summer -- apparently Des Rocs was in a next-big-thing band called Secret Weapons in the 2010s, and none of his other solo stuff hits me the same way, but I still really love "Never Ending Moment."
4. Cannons - "Loving You"
#6 Alternative Airplay, #11 Rock & Alternative Airplay
The L.A. trio Cannons make slightly dreamy, slightly nightmarish Lynchian synth pop, and I'm pleased that they're becoming alt-rock radio fixtures with their third top 10 hit this year, "Loving You" was the #1 song on my Spotify Wrapped.
5. Paramore - "Running Out of Time"
#8 Alternative Airplay, #32 Rock & Alternative Airplay
Every time Paramore releases an album, there's one song I get obsessed with and look forward to getting a single push until it does, and "Running Out of Time" joined the tradition alongside classics like "Ain't It Fun," "That's What You Get," "The Only Exception," and "Fake Happy."
6. Foo Fighters - "Rescued"
#1 Alternative Airplay, #1 Mainstream Rock Airplay, #1 Rock & Alternative Airplay
Foo Fighters is just about the last band people associate with taking creative risks or challenging their fans, but I think they deserve a little more credit for the way most of their later lead singles ("Rope," "Shame Shame," "Run") presented pretty interesting, novel arrangements that felt like they were willing to toy with the Foo Fighters formula. That being said, after the death of Taylor Hawkins, it feels appropriate for Foo Fighters to come out with something that's so comfortingly reminiscent of so many older songs by the band.
7. Depeche Mode - "Ghosts Again"
#9 Alternative Airplay, #9 Rock & Alternative Airplay
Depeche Mode also returned this year after the 2022 death of a key member of the band, Andy Fletcher. And while it hasn't felt like Depeche Mode has needed American radio support to continue being a huge band with successful new albums for the last couple decades, it was cool to see them embraced with their biggest alternative radio hit since 1997's "It's No Good."
8. The Beaches - "Blame Brett"
#21 Alternative Airplay, #39 Rock & Alternative Airplay
Last year I was in Milwaukee visiting my brother and we went to see the New Pornographers at Summerfest. And the band that played before them that day, another Canadian power pop band of sorts, The Beaches, was really a pleasant surprise and made me a fan. Definitely the kind of thing I wish I heard on the radio more often, so I'm glad to see them start to break through on the charts.
9. Hozier - "Eat Your Young"
#13 Alternative Airplay, #7 Rock & Alternative Airplay, #67 Hot 100
My wife is a big Hozier fan and his stuff has been really growing on me, I kinda assumed all his stuff was gonna sound like "Take Me To Church" so I'm impressed with his range.
10. Mitski - "My Love Mine All Mine"
#37 Rock & Alternative Airplay, #26 Hot 100
I have felt very out of touch with NPR/Pitchfork zeitgeist for the last 10 or 20 years, all this super sensitive indie rock stuff where I see the names over and over and occasionally hear the songs but it just leaves absolutely no impression on me or fills me with any curiosity to hear more. Mitski was one of those year end list staples that I never got a handle on, but her first real viral hit is a pretty beautiful, poignant song, it came on WXPN maybe a month ago and I had to Shazam it, I was like "Oh, OK, I get why everyone's talking about this song.
11. Boygenius - "Not Strong Enough"
#11 Alternative Airplay, #12 Rock & Alternative Airplay
Phoebe Bridgers, Julien Baker, and Lucy Dacus are three more big NPR/Pitchfork staples who decided to band together and actually became the rare "supergroup" that's actually bigger than any of its members' other projects. Given the way mainstream rock is still kind of bafflingly male-dominated, I respect that Boygenius spent all of 2023 making big unsubtle gestures towards claiming rock stardom for themselves (dressing up like Nirvana on the cover of Rolling Stone, dressing up like The Beatles on "Saturday Night Live," etc.). I prefer the actually-kinda-rocking songs like "$20" and "Satanist" to their album's biggest single, though.
12. The 1975 - "About You"
#13 Alternative Airplay, #28 Rock & Alternative Airplay
The 1975 toe the line between great and embarrassing like no other band in the world today, and lately they've been at their very best and at their most embarrassing. A few years ago The 1975 made a good but embarrassingly self-important song that featured a lyric that quoted Donald Trump addressing Kanye West, and Matty Healy has done a Nazi salute while singing that line, which is a stupid little joke. And this year, when Healy briefly dated Taylor Swift and appeared on a podcast that goes heavy on hipster racism, it all snowballed into "Taylor Swift is dating a literal Nazi" social media hysteria. Healy continued to be an absolute fucking moron on Twitter, but The 1975's latest album had four singles on alternative radio and recently did their first arena tour in America, so I don't know, no lessons learned I guess?
13. Lovejoy - "Call Me What You LIke"
#7 Alternative Airplay, #14 Rock & Alternative Airplay
It's interesting how rock music is still pop music in England, it means I will often hear a band on the radio here once or twice, and then google them and realize they have a top 5 album in the UK and the song I heard was a top 40 hit over there.
14. Blur - "The Narcissist"
#26 Alternative Airplay, #34 Rock & Alternative Airplay
The latest Gorillaz album had two garbage singles that both peaked at #2 on alternative radio, and it's a shame that the continued baffling popularity of Gorillaz didn't seem to have much effect on the American profile of Damon Albarn's actual good band.
15. Pierce The Veil - "Emergency Contact"
#1 Alternative Airplay, #10 Rock & Alternative Airplay
I wrote a song called "Emergency Contact" a few years ago that I tried to finish for my last two albums and just didn't quite get it done, and now I'm annoyed with myself that I didn't get it out there before someone else had a #1 song with the same title. Oh well! The first single from Pierce The Veil's latest album was a song called "Pass The Nirvana" that I completely fucking hated, but the more successful follow-up was pretty catchy.
16. 100 Gecs - "Hollywood Baby"
#18 Alternative Airplay, #46 Rock & Alternative Airplay
Four years ago, music critics completely freaked out about 100 Gecs being the future of music, and then in 2023 they made pretty much the same wacky little record and critics continued to act like they reinvented the wheel. It's adorable, like if magazines had decided that Ween was important. 100 Gecs started to get some radio play this year, I think it'd be cool if they got wound up with a giant novelty hit at some point.
17. Avenged Sevenfold - "Nobody"
#2 Mainstream Rock Airplay, #5 Rock & Alternative Airplay
Avenged Sevenfold have dominated hard rock radio and headlined arenas since 2006's "Bat Country," but this is damn near the first song since "Bat Country" that I have chosen to listen to more than once and can actually recall anything about.
18. Iggy Pop - "Frenzy"
#40 Alternative Airplay, #27 Mainstream Rock Airplay, #26 Rock & Alternative Airplay
My favorite late period Iggy Pop album is 2019's downtempo, experimental, surprising Free, but I love that he can actually get some radio play in 2023 making the kind of punk rock that he helped invent half a century ago.
19. The Beatles - "Now And Then"
#23 Rock & Alternative Airplay, #7 Hot 100
The actual still existant Rolling Stones made a pretty good album (and pretty lousy lead single) this year, but their '60s rivals The Beatles stole their thunder one more time with a "final" song cobbled together by the half of the band that's still alive. I would be fine with none of these post-Lennon songs not existing, but I like "Now And Then" fine, it's at least better than "Free As A Bird."
20. Linkin Park - "Lost"
#1 Alternative Airplay, #1 Mainstream Rock Airplay, #1 Rock & Alternative Airplay, #38 Hot 100
The biggest song on alternative radio this year was another posthumous track from a huge band that's no longer active. Meteora is easily my favorite Linkin Park album and "Lost" isn't quite up to the high standard of the five hits from the original album, but I love that they found a pretty good outtake to release for the album's 20th anniversary reissue, their stuff definitely hits a little differently now that Chester Bennington is gone.
The 10 Worst Rock/Alternative Radio Hits of 2023:
1. Thirty Seconds To Mars - "Stuck"
2. Fall Out Boy - "We Didn't Start The Fire"
3. Lovelytheband - "Sail Away"
4. Dirty Heads - "Rescue Me"
5. Portugal. The Man - "Dummy"
6. AJR - "The Dumb Song"
7. Weezer - "Records"
8. Ghost - "Mary On A Cross"
9. David Kushner - "Daylight"
10. Gorillaz f/ Thundercat - "Cracker Island"
Previously: The 20 Best Rock/Alternative Radio Hits of 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022.
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on Friday, December 08, 2023 at 11:21 AM.
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