To label a piece of music as "alternative" is to, in some sense, stand in contrast to what the phrase intends to express. Before the rise of the term as a somewhat identifiable genre that took shape ...

Lil Yachty is among a bevy of artists who have tried their hand at making a rock album. Jay-Z, Machine Gun Kelly, and Lil Wayne are just a few rhymers who went from rap to rock in their music careers.

Today, they’re a four-piece alt-rock outfit that produced some of their best music in the 2010s. When it comes to underrated alternative rock bands from the 2010s, Wolf Alice is criminally underrated.

In a year where there were just too many albums to reasonably catch up on, a shorter alternative existed and in larger numbers than usual. Yes, we're talking about the Best Rock + Metal EPs of 2021.