Top Alternative Rock Songs of 2025 (Full Billboard List)

The big problem with this year is a lack of artists that are both good and new. Not many in the top 50. Seems like there's so much old blood on this list compared to other years. Next year might be better though! I'm noticing that a lot of older acts are having diminishing returns in terms of chart performance. Some good new stuff charting too, namely Geese, Hayley Williams, the second radio single from Wolf Alice's new album, and Deftones' first big alt radio hit in years. Words can't describe how tired I am of boring guys with acoustic guitars singing the blandest schlock ever. Nobody wants to listen to that junk with no substance anymore. I'm confident 2026 can be a good year. Maybe that's just a cope to keep me interested in the charts, but I'll keep it. This video counts down the top songs played on alternative rock (also known as modern rock) radio stations in the United States in 2025, as tracked by Billboard's Modern Rock/Alternative Airplay chart. The card at the beginning of the video shows what is defined as the "chart year". It's a little different from the typical calendar year. Billboard probably stated the chart year on a tweet or something. I don't feel like looking for it right now but I'll fill this in later with a link or something. The labels "alternative" and "modern" can mean just about anything in the context of a corporate and ever-changing entity like radio. Think of it as a sort of redundancy, whatever's hot one year might not be played the next year. Whatever radio stations across the country played in large during the year is what's present here. You'll hear a lot of sounds, some of which may not even necessarily relate to rock music. This chart is ranked weekly by the amount of spins accrued each week, from 1-40, 1 having the most spins and 40 having the least. This list would usually be compiled using spin data, but Nielsen BDS went out of business in 2022 and the new company that provides spin data doesn't provide it to the public. This list was compiled throughout the 2025 chart year by AAACharts, whose channel can be found here on YouTube. He compiled the list using his own estimates from research. PK = peak, or the highest a song got on the weekly ranking in a chart year WKS = weeks, or the amount of time a song spent in weeks in a chart year