Though the body is temporary, the work of these rock and metal creatives may last forever. After one of the saddest years in recent memory, we pay tribute to the essential minds we lost in 2021.

Though Children of Bodom's Alexi Laiho died in late 2020, it was January 2021 when the world learned it had lost the legend. One of the last true guitar heroes, Laiho's passing mirrored perhaps neoclassical metal's greatest loss in Randy Rhoads, along with the 2020 death of shred god Eddie Van Halen. Like Rhoads and Van Halen, Alexi will forever reign as one of music's greatest and most innovative guitarists, while his work with Children of Bodom will undoubtedly continue to inspire players for generations.

Along with rock and metal musicians, some of the industry's finest individuals left us in 2021, including Marsha Zazula, who helped usher in the '80s thrash tsunami as the co-founder of Megaforce Records. 2021 also saw the loss of one of metal's great journalists in Metal Edge editor Gerri Miller.

See the Rockers We Lost in 2021 in the gallery below. May they rest in peace as their memories continue to spark our creative spirit.

Rockers We Lost in 2021

R.I.P. to the rockers who died in 2021.

Rockers We Lost in 2020

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