2026 MTV VMAs Don’t Even Have a Rock Award Now (Wait Til You See the Alternative Nominees)

The list of award categories and nominees for the 2026 MTV Video Music Awards (VMAs) has been revealed and, in what appears to be a big change, there is no longer a category for rock music. Alternative, however, remains, but even those nominees are rather distant from anything heavy and loud that's associated with rock.

Loudwire has reached out to a pair of representative under the umbrella of MTV's parent company Paramount inquiring about the removal of the longstanding rock category. The inquiry was acknowledged, but no explanation was provided.

About the Best Rock Category at the MTV VMAs

Representation for heavy music began when the Best Heavy Metal Video award category was added to the MTV VMAs in 1989, just a few years after the annual event launched in 1984. Despite undergoing some name changes to the category, it's been a fixture of the awards show ever since, meaning that an omission in 2026 ends a nearly four-decade run for the category that's been won by the likes of Guns N' Roses, Aerosmith, Metallica, Korn, Limp Bizkit, Pearl Jam, Linkin Park and others.

Many will note that, since roughly 2010, the Best Rock category has been filled with nominees that lean into the alt-rock and pop-rock spaces with Coldplay and Imagine Dragons being frequent nominees, as well as a spate of mainstream pop-punk acts. Modern hard rock has been mostly absent from the slate of nominees for quite some time.

Now, the closest rock fans will get is the Best Alternative category for 2026. Those nominees can be seen below.

To see all of the 2026 categories and nominees, head to the MTV VMA voting website.

2026 MTV VMAs — Best Alternative Nominees

• Geese – “Taxes” – Partisan Records/Play It Again Sam
• mgk & Fred Durst – “FIX UR FACE” – EST 19XX LLC/Interscope Records
• Noah Kahan – “The Great Divide” – Mercury Records
• Olivia Rodrigo – “the cure” – Geffen Records
• SOMBR – “Homewrecker” – SMB Music/Warner Records
• Tame Impala – “Dracula” – Columbia Records
• twenty one pilots – “Drag Path” – Fueled By Ramen

Who Was Nominated for the 2025 MTV VMAs Best Rock Award?

Last year's Best Rock award went to Coldplay for the song "All My Love." The pop-rock veterans bested efforts by Evanescence, Green Day, Lenny Kravitz, Linkin Park and Twenty One Pilots.

• Coldplay - "All My Love" (WINNER)
• Evanescence – "Afterlife" (From the Netflix Series Devil May Cry)"
• Green Day – "One Eyed Bastard"
• Lenny Kravitz – "Honey"
• Linkin Park – "The Emptiness Machine"
• Twenty One Pilots – "The Contract"

Rock was also one of the feature attractions of the 2025 VMAs with a star-studded tribute to Ozzy Osbourne, led by Yungblud, Aerosmith's Steven Tyler and Joe Perry, Extreme's Nuno Bettencourt and longtime Ozzy keyboardist Adam Wakeman.

See all of the Best Rock winners throughout the history of the MTV VMAs directly below.