Here is what most music fans assumed and what turned out to be true. Taylor Swift rules the universe with an iron fist. On Billboard's year-end Top 200 albums chart, Swift has four of the top 10 records with her 2024 release, The Tortured Poets Department, ranking number one. Country superstar Morgan Wallen has two of his own LPs in the top 10.
Here is something else we all might have assumed: No rock records were going to sniff the top of the charts. But it gets even worse. No 2024 rock release appeared anywhere near the top 200. And wait because it gets worse. Though 30 rock albums on in the top 200, 24 of them are greatest hits collections.
The most recent studio rock LP to show up on the chart is Arctic Monkey's album, AM, which came out in 2013 and ranked at 105. In other words, in the last 11 years, no "new" studio album enticed the 2024 record-buying public to purchase a bunch of the records. Rock. Is. Dead.
Billboard might have just proven rock is dead for good
The top-selling album of the genre was Fleetwood Mac's Rumours, which was released in 1977. It still has enough draw to appear at number 34 on Billboard's year-end chart. That is followed immediately by Diamonds, an Elton John greatest hits package. One could argue, though, that John falls more into the pop genre than rock over the last four decades.
Besides Rumours and the Arctic Monkeys album, the other four studio rock records to show up on the chart were Nirvana's Nevermind from 1991, AC/DC's Back in Black from 1980, Sublime's 1996 self-titled, and Linkin Park's Hybrid Theory from 2000. Those records ranked 93, 162, 197, and 180, respectively.
So what does this mean? Has rock fragmented into so many subgenres that knowing what rock sounds like anymore is simply impossible? Has country music been on the upswing over the last decade because it fills a void left by no modern "classic" rock bands putting out important records? Let's hope not.
Maybe rock is just in a lull. After all, the Black Crowes released their latest album, Happiness Bastards, in 2024 and it was fantastic and worthy of a large audience. Maybe music lovers just need to fall in love with rock and roll all over again.