Top Ten Worst Rock & Alternative Songs of 2021

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Hello everyone, I’m Dr. Nelson Winston. And… uh… what a year.

2021. Well, I guess it was better than 2020. I mean, anything had to be.

But there was quite a bit bad with this year. As if we didn’t think anything could get any worse, it almost did when thousands attacked the Capitol building in a separate attempt to overturn the election of Joe Biden to the presidency. And oh yeah, COVID is still a thing. With millions stubbornly refusing to get their vaccine so we can get overcome this pandemic and get on with life, the COVID death toll surpassed that of 2021 in November, with the number now standing at over 800,000 deaths since the pandemic started.

It was a busy year for me too. For likely the last time, I moved away from Upstate New York. On June 11th, I packed my bags for the third time in two years and decamped to Toledo, Ohio. Aside from the fact that I will now forever associate that day with that stupid Bay City Rollers disco song from 1977 getting stuck in my head while I was driving on the endless Ohio Turnpike, life has become different. I had to say goodbye to Tom Wahl’s and hello to Tony Packo’s. An amazing classic theater at the George Eastman House has been replaced by an outstanding art museum. I’m still getting used to the Heartland, but hopefully it will go well.

For the first year of music blogging, I’ve focused on past years of the Billboard charts, specifically 1963 and 1977 for the Hot 100, and 1992 for rock music. But then November came along and I realized I would have to start listening to what the cool kids were listening to this year when I was busy listening to “Outshined” and “What A Fool Believes.” The result?

First off, let me say something positive. There wasn’t a whole lot in rock and alternative music that I truly hated from this year. I gotta be honest, out of the fourteen songs I’ll be going over in 2021, I only truly hated three, maybe four of them (as in, they got a 2/10 or worse). The other songs I’m listing today just didn’t work, whether it was misguided music or poor lyrics, or just what it represented. So good job America. You did a good job weeding out the bad stuff this time out.

And the other positive. Remember last year when I whined and complained about how bad the Mainstream Rock chart was, especially the top 10 where it seemed like Billboard couldn’t play a good song to save their life? Well, Mainstream Rock did a MUCH better job this time out. Last year, I listed at least four songs from the top ten of the chart on the worst list or the dishonorable mentions. But this time, there was only one song from the top ten nominated for the worst list. While “Teardrops” by Bring Me The Horizon, the number one song of the year on the Mainstream Rock Charts, was meh, at least three songs on the list were jams, and much of the rest was at least ok. Overall, the worst list will be a lot more balanced, with fewer rock songs to counterbalance the alternative songs.

But the alternative songs… about that. They slumped. I don’t know if it’s just me, but alternative music failed to stand out the way it did in 2020. The score isn’t that much worse for what I rated, with a 6.3 average instead of the 6.8 Alternative music had last year, but overall Alternative music seemed to take less chances, rely more on longstanding artists, and take steps further from the genre’s rock roots and back into bland, characterless car commercial music. Most years, it is Alternative music doing a better job than Mainstream Rock, with the genre’s music being more forward-thinking than Mainstream Rock playing the same loud songs with big hooks and edgy subject matter. In 2020, Alternative music had seven songs on my best list, compared to the mere three from Mainstream Rock, with 6 of the top 7 coming from the Alternative side. In 1992, Alternative also had a better year, as it was Mainstream Rock that was force-feeding us mountains of over-the-hill glam rock and blues rock bands while Alternative music pushed us further and further into grunge. This year, I have to be honest with you all… I think Mainstream Rock had Alternative beat this year. There were more songs I outright loved from the Rock chart, and most of the songs I hated were, in one way or another, on the Alternative charts.

Before we begin, here are the house rules:

The song must have made the year-end chart for either:
- The Alternative Airplay chart
- The Mainstream Rock chart
The song must not have made a previous year-end chart for either the Alternative Airplay or Mainstream Rock charts. This eliminates four songs:
- Alternative Airplay:
- “Monsters” – All Time Low feat. Blackbear (#1, #9 in 2020)
- “Bloody Valentine” – Machine Gun Kelly (#13, #14 in 2020)
- “Level Of Concern” – Twenty One Pilots (#27, #1 in 2020)
- Mainstream Rock:
- “Every Time You Leave” – I Prevail feat. Delaney Jane (#34, #38 in 2020)
Six songs were featured on the year-end lists for both Alternative Airplay and Mainstream Rock, eliminating six possible songs from the countdown. They are:
- “Shame Shame” – Foo Fighters (#40 Alternative, #6 Rock)
- “Waiting On A War” – Foo Fighters (#29 Alternative, #11 Rock)
- “Making A Fire” – Foo Fighters (#31 Alternative, #10 Rock)
- “Let The Bad Times Roll” – The Offspring (#28 Alternative, #22 Rock)
- “Nowhere Generation” – Rise Against (#18 Alternative, #4 Rock)
- “Trouble’s Coming” – Royal Blood (#33 Alternative, #7 Rock)
During the lead-up to the Billboard year-end list release, I constructed my own chart using the same inverse methodology I used for my 1992 lists, to list what I consider to be the 50 biggest songs of the year on both charts. As a result of several songs reaching the top 50 despite failing to make the top 50 based on my calculations, I will be providing the songs that made the top 50 based on my inverse calculations an opportunity to be eligible for both the worst and best lists. These songs are:
- Alternative Airplay:
- “Sticky” – The Maine (#45 on the Winston List)
- “A-OK” – Tai Verdes (#48 on the Winston List)
- “He Said, She Said” – Chvrches (#50 on the Winston List)
- Mainstream Rock:
- “Again” – Black Stone Cherry (#46 on the Winston List)

For those of you who are new to reading these lists of mine, let me state firmly and for the record… not all of these songs are hits, and not all of these songs are technically rock songs. As with the Billboard Hot 100 and pop music, the Alternative Airplay and Mainstream Rock charts are not the end-all, be-all source for the biggest rock songs of the year, and are merely the standard source. A few examples.

In 2021, one of the biggest songs of the year was Olivia Rodrigo’s “Good 4 U,” which became the first song with rock elements to become a number one hit since 2012 (by my recollection) and the fifth biggest song of the year. Well, if you expected me to discuss the song here, too bad. It didn’t chart on either the Mainstream Rock or Alternative charts, with only a single Olivia Rodrigo song charting briefly on the Alternative chart, far short of the Top 50. Similarly, the big story of the year in rock music was Måneskin, the Italian glam rock band who took the world by storm with their cover of the Four Seasons’s “Beggin’” becoming a smash hit on TikTok. Other than “Beggin,’” they are not eligible for this list either. Their follow-up single “I Wanna Be Your Slave” has nearly 500 million Spotify plays to date, but barely scraped either the Alternative or Mainstream Rock charts. Guys and gals, I don’t make the rules, I just collect the data.

With all that said, 93 songs were eligible for today’s countdown. It’s time to go over the songs that refused to get their vaccine! I’m Dr. Nelson Winston, and today we’re counting down…

THE TOP TEN WORST ROCK & ALTERNATIVE SONGS OF 2021

Today’s transition music: “F**k The World” – Badflower
Say goodbye to you and I
F**k the world
And all the wrong they all put onto me
‘Cause they’re to blame for everything
We’ll leave tonight
Before the ice is gone
We won’t survive

DISHONORABLE MENTIONS

#10 – “Everything We Need”

#9 – “Living The Dream”

#8 – “Mood”

#7 – “Love Race”

#6 – “The Ending”

#5 – “Somebody That I Used To Know”

#4 – “Let The Bad Times Roll”

#3 – “Shame Shame”

#2 – “Way Less Sad”

#1 – The Worst Song of 2021

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