Say what you wanna say about Gene Simmons, he's not totally wrong about rock being dead, especially when you look at the Billboard charts.
Billboard released it's yearly Top 200 albums of 2024, and the highest charting rock album is 47 years old! Fleetwood Mac's Rumours is the highest-charting rock album on Billboard's 2024 year-end chart. The 1977 classic landed at No. 34, one spot ahead of Elton John's 2017 greatest hits album Diamonds.
Yep, a classic album old enough to be a person claiming early retirement, and a greatest hits album, from a man who hasn't really released a true rock album in almost as long a time. Only 29 of the Top 200 albums were rock albums and NONE of them were released this year, with five of them being greatest hits collections. The other albums to make the chart were Nirvana's Nevermind, AC/DC's Back in Black, Linkin Park's [Hybrid Theory] and Sublime's self-titled album. Taylor Swift earned four of the Top 10, hitting No. 1 with her latest album The Tortured Poets Department, and landing at 2 was 1989 (Taylor's Version).
Despite putting on some of the biggest tours and festivals, rock has yet to crack the code when it comes to charting music in this new generation of the music business. Rock may not be completely deed, but it's definitely looking out of shape lately. Hopefully we can rebound in 2025.