MTV has quietly eliminated the “Best Rock” category from the 2026 Video Music Awards, ending a run that stretched back 37 years under various names, according to Consequence’s reporting on this year’s nominee list. The category traces to 1989, when the VMAs introduced “Best Heavy Metal Video.”

Rather than replace it, MTV is folding rock recognition entirely into the “Best Alternative” category for 2026, a shift confirmed by the network’s own published nominee list.

Key Points

• “Best Rock” is absent from the 2026 MTV VMAs for the first time since a rock-specific category debuted in 1989
• The category evolved over decades from “Best Heavy Metal Video” through “Best Metal/Hard Rock Video,” “Best Hard Rock Video” and “Best Rock Video” before settling on “Best Rock”
• Rock acts are now folded into “Best Alternative,” whose 2026 nominees include Geese, mgk & Fred Durst, Noah Kahan, Olivia Rodrigo, Tame Impala and Twenty One Pilots
• The change comes one year after the VMAs paid tribute to the late Ozzy Osbourne
• 2026 VMAs air live September 27 from the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles, at 7:30 p.m. ET on MTV and CBS

The category’s 1989 launch as “Best Heavy Metal Video” reflected hair metal’s commercial dominance at the time, before a series of rebrands tracked rock’s shifting subgenres through grunge, nu-metal and 2000s alt-rock. Its quiet disappearance this year, without a farewell announcement or special tribute, is a notable departure from how MTV has handled other category retirements in the past.

Folding rock into “Best Alternative” effectively merges two categories that had already started to blur at the edges in recent years, as VMA nominee lists increasingly featured acts that could plausibly fit either bucket. This year’s Alternative field spans genre-crossing pop-punk, hyperpop-adjacent rock and singer-songwriter acts alongside heavier guitar-driven groups, illustrating how loosely “alternative” now functions as a catch-all next to genre-specific categories like Best Country or Best R&B.

The timing has drawn attention given the VMAs’ 2025 tribute to Osbourne, whose death last year prompted an on-air performance segment honoring his influence on the genre the show is now consolidating out of its own category list. It also lands alongside long-running commentary from rock veterans like Gene Simmons, who has argued for years that guitar-driven rock has lost its commercial center of gravity relative to pop and hip-hop.

Whether the change sticks in future years remains to be seen; award-show categories have shifted before in response to fan and industry pushback. For now, any rock act hoping for VMA recognition in 2026 will be competing directly against pop-adjacent alternative acts for a single trophy, a narrower path than the genre has had at the show in nearly four decades.