Billie Eilish, Zach Bryan, Sleep Token & The Marías Lead Year-End Rock & Alternative Charts

The year in rock and alternative music on the Billboard charts is a story of two intriguing themes.

The first is, as ever, linked to the year’s No. 1 artist, which is, for the first time in over a decade, a woman.

That’s Billie Eilish, who follows Lorde as the second woman to achieve the feat since its inception in 2011, Lorde having earned top honors in 2014.

The other? If you’re looking for new blood atop a year-end ranking, look no further than 2025’s Top Rock & Alternative Artists chart, on which four of the top 10 artists are also on the year’s Top New Rock & Alternative Artists ranking.

Explore All of Billboard’s 2025 Year-End Charts

First, Eilish. Despite not releasing a new album in 2025, the alt-pop superstar crowned Top Rock & Alternative Artists for the year thanks to the continued success of her 2024 chart topper Hit Me Hard and Soft, which debuted at No. 1 on the Top Rock & Alternative Albums tally dated June 1, 2024.

In the 2025 chart year alone (Oct. 26, 2024-Oct. 18, 2025), Hit Me Hard and Soft ruled the weekly ranking for 29 weeks and never departed the top six. The set now boasts the most weeks at No. 1 in the list’s nearly two-decade history at 45, 15 more than Queen’s Greatest Hits, the previous record holder. It’s led the Top Alternative Albums chart for even longer (55, one off her own record of 56 she achieved with 2019 debut When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?).

It’ll surprise no one, then, that Hit Me Hard and Soft is also 2025’s No. 1 on the Top Rock & Alternative Albums and Top Alternative Albums rankings, while a pair of songs from the release are in the top four of the year-end Hot Rock & Alternative Songs list.

One of those tracks, “Birds of a Feather,” is No. 1, rising from the No. 3 spot on the year-end 2024 tally. It’s the first time a woman has led the chart as a lead act since the year-end ranking began in 2009 (in 2014, the year Lorde topped the artist list, Bastille’s “Pompeii” was the No. 1 song). “Wildflower” follows at No. 4.

“Birds of a Feather” first topped the weekly ranking in August 2024 and has led the chart for 55 weeks in all, 10 behind the all-time record (Panic! at the Disco’s “High Hopes”). What’s more: it’s never dropped below No. 4 and is still on the survey as of December 2025. The track also peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 in October 2024 and was a consistent presence in its top 10 until April.

Eilish’s standing as the top rock and alternative artist of the year is concurrent with being top alternative artist for the third time in five years of the year-end Top Alternative Artists chart’s existence, including the last two years in a row. Last year’s top rock and alternative artist, Zach Bryan, is down to No. 2 on the 2025 tally, but he holds top rock artist honors for the third straight year.

As for No. 1 on the fourth rock-related year-end artists chart, Top Hard Rock Artists? Let’s circle back to the second point: newcomers to Top Rock & Alternative Artists’ top 10.

The Top New Rock & Alternative Artists chart also debuted in 2011, coinciding with the overall ranking’s premiere. Its No. 1s have been a who’s who of future genre stars over the years — Foster the People, Lorde, Bryan, Noah Kahan. And while it’s still too early to tell what will come of this year’s crop, one thing’s for certain: it’s the top-performing rookie class yet.

Nos. 5-7 on Top Rock & Alternative Artists coincides with Nos. 1-3 on Top New Rock & Alternative Artists: The Marías, sombr and Lola Young, in that order. Sleep Token follows (No. 10; No. 4), while Gigi Perez (No. 12; No. 5) rounds out the group.

Only one other time did four of the year’s top new artists also reach the top 10 of the main chart — surprise, surprise, it’s 2014 again. In a year when Lorde rose to No. 1 after crowning the Top New Rock & Alternative Artists ranking the year before, Bastille (No. 3), American Authors (No. 4), KONGOS (No. 9) and Hozier (No. 10) dotted the top 10 of Top Rock & Alternative Artists amid their breakout 2014. The fifth act on the five-position Top New Rock & Alternative Artists survey that year, Vance Joy, bowed at No. 14 on the overall list.

With its top five within the top 12 versus 2014’s mark of the top 14, give the edge to 2025, whose class features a combination of total industry newcomers and acts with major breakthroughs this year alike. The Marías come out on top thanks to music from Submarine, the band’s 2024 sophomore effort, plus additional non-album singles like “Back to Me” and “Nobody New.” Submarine ranks at No. 12 on the year-end Top Rock & Alternative Albums chart after reaching a peak of No. 5 this May, nearly a year after the set’s initial release, and runaway hit “No One Noticed” is No. 6 on the year-end Hot Rock & Alternative Songs following a year that saw it peak at  No. 4 on the weekly tally and become the band’s first solo Hot 100 appearance at No. 22.

Sombr, Young, Sleep Token and Perez were no slouches themselves, of course, and Sleep Token even takes the title of the year’s top hard rock artist thanks to a monster year from its first Billboard 200 No. 1, Even in Arcadia, which reigned on Top Hard Rock Albums for six weeks and is the only LP released in 2025 to reach the top 10 of that ranking’s year-end version.

What’s more: Sleep Token claimed the top two positions on the year-end Hot Hard Rock Songs tally, led by “Emergence,” and five of the top 10, by far the most for a single act since the first edition in 2021.

Add in Myles Smith, the previous year’s No. 4 on Top New Rock & Alternative Artists, trading in that No. 4 for the same position on Top Rock & Alternative Artists this year, and one thing’s clear: in the world of rock and alternative music in 2025, the genres were more than willing to welcome in fresh blood.

Billboard’s year-end music charts represent aggregated metrics for each artist, title, label and music contributor on the weekly charts from Oct. 26, 2024, through Oct. 18, 2025. Rankings for Luminate-based recaps reflect equivalent album units, airplay, sales or streaming during the weeks that the entries appeared on a respective chart during the tracking year. Any activity registered before or after a title’s chart run isn’t considered in these rankings. That methodology detail, and the October-October time period, account for some of the difference between these lists and the calendar-year recaps that are independently compiled by Luminate.