POP STAR
BY STEPHEN THOMAS ERLEWINE
THE GREATEST
BY YEAR (1981-2020)
Illustrations by Heston Godby
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Not one that demands a lone winner as justification for the whole enterprise, exactly, but one that still entrances those of us watching from the sidelines to see who’ll come out on top. Who’s No. 1 this week? Who outsold who? Who’s playing the biggest venues? Who’s racking up Grammys, AMAs, VMAs? Listeners can love and admire their artists of choice without them winning these many mini-battles, but when they do, it provides the same rush as a home-team victory, since it still provides some measure of that most important validation in fandom: Our fav is better than your fav. Now, we here at Billboard obviously play no small part in the declaration of these victors, as success on our charts has long been one of the biggest measures by which pop stardom is sized and graded. But we also know that while chart success is an essential factor, pop stardom carries too many intangibles to be judged solely on any combination of numerical calculations. It’s not just hit singles and best-selling albums: It’s music videos, it’s live performances, it’s image, it’s headlines and controversy and cultural impact and overall ubiquity. It’s the answer to the question, “Could you have lived through this year without having an opinion on this artist?” Of course, it’s a far more subjective assessment than simply which team scored more points by the final buzzer. But it’s a discussion that has long been ongoing for rappers, and now something our staffers and most trusted contributors have been working on for many months to bring it to the pop world -- with our list of the greatest pop stars from each year since 1981. Now, understand that when we say “pop star,” we’re not just meaning solo artists in the classic triple-threat, top 40 dead-center mold of Madonna and Michael Jackson. Those two artists appear, of course, as do many of their most obvious acolytes. But we define “pop star” broadly enough for it to also encompass rappers and singer-songwriters, rock bands and R&B groups. As long as they were impactful and wide-reaching enough to have a profound impact on that vague concept we know as the mainstream -- and even more amorphously, the culture -- they’re up for consideration here. Why 1981 as a starting point? Well, gotta start somewhere, and ‘81 was the year that forever changed modern stardom, with the premiere of MTV cementing the music video as an elemental factor in pop iconicity. Though its true impact on the top 40 landscape wouldn’t really be felt for a couple years after its debut, videos forever changed the scale of pop stardom, making the biggest artists three-dimensional figures, as present in our lives as our favorite sitcom stars and talk show hosts, if not more so. The new competitive landscape of MTV rotation forced them to think bigger, to try harder -- and from Janet to Alanis to Rihanna to Drake, it’s impossible to envision the past 40 years of pop stardom without its impact. And what does “greatest” mean, exactly? Well, it’s not exactly “most popular,” though that’s certainly a large part of it. And it’s definitely not our personal favorites, strictly speaking -- we love these artists, but this wasn’t the place for any of us to stump for our Should Be Bigger pet causes. Mostly, we’re looking for the pop star that best defines each year; the one whose impact was most deeply felt across the most spaces. How much of the year the artist is active for also matters: For instance, Taylor Swift might have released 1989 in 2014, but the album didn’t drop until October -- so she’s more likely to be in play for 2015, when the set spun off most of its hit singles and videos and she spent most of the year on her victory lap world tour. Of course, our perception of pop stardom is unavoidably colored by personal experience -- and our decidedly North American perspective -- and you might very well see some of our picks and think that based on your own memories, we couldn’t be more wrong. Totally fair: We’ve done the best we could with the objective stats and the emotional reactions we all have, but several of these come down to coin-flip situations where we had to just sigh and go with our gut. To acknowledge some of the artists we passed over, though, we’ve also included some honorable mentions for each year -- along with awarding rookie of the year (for emerging pop stars then still new to the mainstream) and comeback of the year (for veteran stars who had their first big year in a while) distinctions for each year. Read on below to find our essays attempting to justify our picks for each year -- along with a handful of side discussions that we couldn’t get to in our primary pieces -- and feel free to let us know how we did your favorite artist wrong. Do try to remember, though: In pop music as in sports, there’s always next year.
Pop stardom is,
the one whose impact was most
that best defines each year;
"Mostly, we’re looking for the pop star
deeply felt across the most spaces."
in many ways,
a competitive sport.
1981-1985
1981 1982 1983 1984 1985
1986-1990
1991-1995
1996-2000
2001-2005
2006-2010
2011-2015
2016-2019
1986 1987 1988 1989 1990
1991 1992 1993 1994 1995
1996 1997 1998 1999 2000
2001 2002 2003 2004 2005
2006 2007 2008 2009 2010
2011 2012 2013 2014 2015
2016 2017 2018 2019
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BILLBOARD THE GREATEST POP STAR BY YEAR (1981-2020)
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Phil Collins was everywhere back in 1985. Switch on the radio and you were bound to hear a song that featured him in some fashion. Perhaps it was one of the four top 10 hits from his third solo album, No Jacket Required: "Sussudio" and "One More Night" both topped the Billboard Hot 100, while "Don't Lose My Number" and "Take Me Home" came close. Maybe it was as a duet partner with Philip Bailey or Marilyn Martin: both "Easy Lover" and "Separate Lives" permeated the airwaves and the public consciousness. Perhaps it was one of his recurrent hits, either from his main band Genesis or his solo albums; Miami Vice turned his ominous "In the Air Tonight" into a modern standard. Or it could've been his work as a drummer and producer: Eric Clapton's Behind the Sun was his big project that year, but his visibility as a sideman increased exponentially when he hopped onto the Concord so he could play on stages on either side of the Atlantic during Live Aid -- playing a solo set, then supporting Clapton, and finally filling in for the departed John Bonham in Led Zeppelin. Jimmy Page would later grouse about Collins, claiming Zeppelin deflated due to his "lack of preparation," but the fact that the singer/drummer was everywhere at once at Live Aid only underscored how it was impossible to escape him in 1985. His very omnipresence turned him into a superstar, even if at first glance it would seem that he would've been the furthest thing from a pop icon. Chalk some of this up to his everyday appearance and his studied lack of flair: Back in 1985, the joke was Phil Collins didn't seem like a pop star, he looked like an accountant. It was a jab that cut in multiple directions, insulting Collins's looks, consigning him to anonymity and dismissing his music as being nothing more than crass, calculated commercialism. The accountant joke left a mark because it had a grain of truth. Phil Collins personified the pop star as middle management, attempting to offer something pleasing to everyone. He happily appropriated Prince's synth-funk for "Sussudio" and crafted power ballads designed for adult contemporary, while never neglecting the art-rock that brought him to the dance. In a sense, 1985 is the year when all of the bets he laid paid off. Hamming it up in videos helped make him a staple on MTV, his pop instincts turned him into a fixture on top 40 radio, and "Take Me Home" evoked the same eerie atmospherics as "In the Air Tonight," a reminder that beneath his cheerful demeanor, Collins began as a prog-rocker. Whether he got spooky or silly, Collins maintained that same unflappable pose, smiling through hooks, harmonies and collaborations. Collins appeared in so many different incarnations, it appeared that he could do it all, and that was deliberate: Phil Collins styled himself as the placid face of a multi-purpose pop star, appealing to every demographic imaginable. In the middle of the 1980s, a decade where pop music grew increasingly corporatized, there could've been no pop star who captured the times so thoroughly.
Phil Collins was the placid face of the mid-’80s corporate pop star
Also in 1985...
By the end of 1984, Madonna had already established herself as one of the MTV era’s brightest stars, with boundary-pushing videos, underground-nodding dance-pop hits, and a writhing Video Music Awards performance that turned the then-fledgling telecast into a must-watch event. But the year after Like a Virgin’s release was owned by Madonna from back to front -- the last four weeks of the title track’s run at No. 1 on the Hot 100 opened 1985, and she followed it up with smash singles like “Material Girl” and “Angel,” her feature-film debut and first silver-screen starring role, and yet more unavoidable music videos. “Like a Virgin” hit No. 1 in December 1984 and stayed there until the end of January -- just as her Marilyn Monroe-saluting, Keith Carradine-starring video for “Material Girl” was being added to MTV’s rotation. The bouncy, sardonic track would go on to reach No. 2 and become one of Madonna’s career-defining songs, its video establishing Madonna’s blonde-ambition ideal while also showing off her more down-to-earth side. It also helped Like a Virgin reach the top of the Billboard 200 for three weeks in February, Madonna racked up another career milestone that month, when the May-December drama Vision Quest was released. In the movie, Madonna played a singer at a Spokane bar, performing “Crazy For You,” a lush, Jellybean Benitez-produced ballad that showed off Madonna’s lower range. Madonna’s star power was so strong that in some countries the movie’s title was changed to Crazy For You -- although in America, she had to settle for the soundtrack single being No. 1 on the Hot 100 for a single week in May. A month later, Madonna appeared in her first starring role in a movie, getting top billing alongside Rosanna Arquette in the hit mistaken-identity comedy Desperately Seeking Susan. The Susan Seidelman-directed ode to New York City’s bohemian enclaves featured the pop star’s “Into the Groove” in the background of a smoky club scene, although it wasn’t on the official soundtrack. At the time of Susan’s release, Madonna had two other videos still in regular rotation on MTV, and because Madonna’s label was worried about over-saturating the market, “Groove” was only released as the B-side to the glittery “Angel,” rendering it ineligible for the Hot 100. But the punchy, commanding song got an accompanying, movie-promoting visual, and became both a channel staple and a signature Madonna hit anyway -- while its “you can dance... for inspiration” koan would later inspire the title for her 1987 remix LP You Can Dance. In April 1985, Madonna embarked on her first live trek: The Virgin Tour brought Madonna’s vision of pop into arenas around North America, kicking off in Seattle and wrapping up with five shows in New York City -- three at Radio City Music Hall and two at Madison Square Garden. The video for “Dress You Up,” the final single (and fourth straight top 5 hit) from Like a Virgin, used footage of the song’s live performance from the Cobo Center in Detroit, while the home video featuring the show in its entirety, Madonna Live: The Virgin Tour, came out in November. Even while selling out arenas, Madonna remained a force in the clubs, with “Material Girl” and the double-A-sided “Into the Groove”/”Angel” single hitting No. 1 on the Hot Dance Club Play chart after “Like a Virgin” began the year at its summit. She was also a stealth (yet utterly unmistakable) presence on her frequent collaborator Jellybean Benitez’s blippy, freestyle-influenced “Sidewalk Talk,” a No. 1 dance hit and yet another crossover top 40 entry on the Hot 100 by year’s end -- a final testament to Madonna’s first year of true omnipresence. Honorable Mention: Phil Collins (No Jacket Required, “Sussudio,” “Easy Lover” (with Philip Bailey); Bruce Springsteen (“I’m On Fire,” “Glory Days,” “Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town”); Tears For Fears (Songs From the Big Chair, “Shout,” “Everybody Wants to Rule the World”) ROOKIE OF THE YEAR: WHITNEY HOUSTON “Arista is preparing a big push for Whitney Houston’s debut,” ran a note in the Jan. 12 issue of Billboard. That push paid off handsomely for the then-21-year-old singer and her label, who rode her big voice and winning personality to the top of the pop and R&B charts. Houston’s self-titled debut -- released on Valentine’s Day -- spawned the first of her many Hot 100 No. 1s with “Saving All My Love For You” in October 1985, while vibrant follow-up “How Will I Know” began scaling the chart in December. COMEBACK OF THE YEAR: ARETHA FRANKLIN Aretha Franklin’s trip down the “Freeway of Love” coincided with a journey back up the charts for the Queen of Soul. Her album Who’s Zoomin’ Who?, which came out in July, capitalized on the R&B sounds in vogue at the time, with production assistance by Narada Michael Walden -- and it became her highest-charting album since 1972 on the Billboard 200, reaching No. 13. The Clarence Clemons-assisted “Freeway” topped the R&B chart for five weeks and reached No. 3 on the Hot 100, while the slinky title track peaked at No. 7 on the Hot 100, and the Eurythmics collab “Sisters Are Doin’ It For Themselves” proved one of the year’s biggest crossover events.
MADONNA
BY MAURA JOHNSTON
Who is this kid? That was the refrain echoed by music fans and industry executives alike when Prince Rogers Nelson unceremoniously strolled onto the scene in April 1978 with debut studio album For You. At that point, he was a 19-year-old unknown, already with the brashness to credit himself as having produced, arranged, composed and performed all of his album’s tracks. Six years and six albums later, Prince laid to rest any further questions, letting the entire country know exactly who he was with the essential (and quintessential) Purple Rain. The June ’84 release dynamically showcased the Purple One’s formidable skill set as an innovative and fearless songwriter, producer, musician and singer. And this time around, Prince added a twist -- bringing to the forefront the creative acumen of his tight-knit rock band The Revolution, comprised of Wendy Melvoin (guitar/vocals), Lisa Coleman (keyboards/piano, vocals), Matt “Doctor” Fink (keyboards, vocals), Brown Mark (bass guitar, vocals) and Bobby Z (drums). The result? Purple Rain’s vibrant and seamless fusion of R&B, pop, rock and dance, which yielded four top 10 Hot 100 singles, leading off with back-to-back Hot 100 No. 1 hits: the plaintive “When Doves Cry” and the frenetic ode to living life to its fullest, “Let’s Go Crazy.” (Even the non-singles certainly made an impression: the sexually suggestive “Darling Nikki” forced label Warner Bros. to affix the album with Parental Advisory stickers in accordance with the times.) The nine-track set debuted at No. 11 on the Billboard 200 the week of July 14, 1984, and four weeks later, the album unseated Bruce Springsteen’s Born in the U.S.A. to claim the No. 1 slot. In addition to holding down that position for 24 consecutive weeks and spending more than 30 weeks in the top 10, Purple Rain remained on the Billboard 200 for 122 weeks, eventually being certified Diamond by the RIAA. Purple Rain could no doubt have stood on its own. But the sixth studio album in Prince’s growing musical arsenal also doubled as the soundtrack for a film by the same name. Hitting theaters a month after the accompanying LP’s debut, Purple Rain the movie starred Prince as -- appropriately enough -- “The Kid,” a young and talented Minneapolis musician beset by problems at home and in his romantic and creative lives. Featuring several club performance scenes and co-starring his then-collaborators Apollonia and Morris Day and The Revolution, Purple Rain racked up $68 million domestically, against a budget of just over $7 million. Prince completed the Purple Rain trifecta with a national tour of the same name. Launching Nov. 4, 1984 and wrapping April 7, 1985, the tour marked the incendiary live debut of The Revolution and Melvoin’s introduction as the band’s new guitarist. On board as opening acts: Sheila E. and Apollonia 6, both of whom were then in the midst of pop successes with Prince-penned hits (“The Glamorous Life” and “Sex Shooter,” respectively). Purple Rain received four Grammy nominations that December, including album of the year and producer of the year, non-classical for Prince and The Revolution. The album did win two awards, for best rock vocal performance by a duo or group and best score soundtrack for visual media. (Prince also picked up a third Grammy for best R&B song, for Chaka Khan’s inventive cover of his composition “I Feel for You.”) A couple of months into the new year, Prince was presented with an Academy Award for best original song score for Purple Rain -- further sealing his status alongside Michael Jackson, Madonna and Bruce Springsteen as a totemic figure in ‘80s pop. Honorable Mention: Cyndi Lauper (“Girls Just Wanna Have Fun,” “Time After Time,” “She Bop”); Bruce Springsteen (Born in the U.S.A., “Dancing in the Dark,” “Born in the U.S.A.”); Wham!/George Michael (Make It Big, “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go,” “Careless Whisper”) ROOKIE OF THE YEAR: MADONNA In 1984, Madonna climbed out of a cake and into immortality. Her performance of “Like a Virgin” at the first-ever MTV Video Music Awards that September, featuring the 26-year-old writhing on the Radio City Music Hall stage in a long, flowing wedding dress, quickly proved one of pop music’s most iconic national debuts, setting the rising dance-pop singer-songwriter on the path to global superstardom. Both “Like a Virgin” and its parent album of the same name would go on to top the Billboard charts; by the next year, Madonna’s stated ambition “to rule the world” had been fully realized. COMEBACK OF THE YEAR: TINA TURNER Tina Turner starred in one of music’s most memorable comebacks in 1984, when “What’s Love Got to Do With It” spent three weeks at No. 1 on the Hot 100. Some 13 years had elapsed since she and ex-husband Ike Turner reached the top 5 with “Proud Mary,” and since splitting with the abusive Ike, she returned with a new look and a new energy. Aside from “Love,” Turner’s fifth solo album Private Dancer yielded two more top 10 singles: “Better Be Good to Me” and the title track. The former won Turner a Grammy for best female rock vocal, while “Love” nabbed record and song of the year.
PRINCE
BY GAIL MITCHELL
Simply put: There’s pop stardom, and then there’s 1983 Michael Jackson. The King of Pop’s greatest year is the yardstick against which all other years of musical mainstream supremacy will forever be measured, unprecedented in its LP sales, hit singles, iconic music videos and generally incalculable cultural impact. No solo pop star since Elvis Presley had been so ubiquitous before, and none has been since. But what’s forgotten to time 37 years later is that Michael Jackson didn’t exactly start the year on top. In fact, the buzz preceding Thriller, released in late November 1982, was largely anxious, thanks to the set’s questionable choice of lead single: “The Girl Is Mine,” a soft-rock duet with Paul McCartney that reached No. 2 on the Hot 100 but generally left fans and critics underwhelmed. The disco sound that had propelled Jackson to stardom on 1979’s Off the Wall had faded from the mainstream, and as 1982 turned to 1983, it was not Thriller that was unmoveable from the top of the Billboard 200 -- the set debuted at No. 11 that December -- but Australian new wave band Men at Work’s Business as Usual, an improbable 15-week No. 1. However, in January of 1983, a second Thriller single would arrive to establish Jackson as a defining artist of the ‘80s: “Billie Jean.” Rooted in disco’s pulse but given a spooky synth-pop sheen by producer Quincy Jones and a vocal of unrecognizable paranoia and urgency from Jackson, the song raced to No. 1 on the Hot 100 that March. Just two frames after that song’s seven-week reign ended, it was succeeded by “Beat It,” a hard-rocking crossover cut that featured a searing guitar solo from preeminent early-’80 shredder Eddie Van Halen. By year’s end, MJ had notched three more spellbinding Hot 100 top 10s off the all-killer Thriller (“Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’,” No. 5, “Human Nature,” No. 7 and “P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing),” No. 10), on his way to scoring seven total top 10 hits off Thriller -- three more than the previous record for a single LP, a mark since tied but not yet bested. Meanwhile, following the breakthrough of “Billie Jean,” Thriller continued to rise on the Billboard 200, hitting No. 1 on the chart dated Feb. 26. And there it would stay for a record 37 non-consecutive weeks, ruling well into 1984, and quickly becoming the best-selling studio album of all time. The magic of Thriller changed the standards for the entire music industry: Where albums used to spin off a maximum of three or four singles over the course of an eight-month promo cycle, LPs could now produce as many as six or seven hits and exist at the mainstream’s center for as long as two years -- as blockbusters by Bruce Springsteen, Def Leppard and Michael’s sister Janet would confirm later that decade. But it wasn’t even on the charts that Jackson’s impact was most deeply felt in 1983. MTV had debuted two years earlier as a haven for aging rock stars and ascendant new wave breakouts, but in MJ, the channel found the star to take its burgeoning platform to the next level. “Billie Jean” and “Beat It” were both paired with captivating and instantly unforgettable visuals, based on Jackson’s singular stage presence, dancing ability and on-camera charisma, which were replayed relentlessly. Then, in December came “Thriller,” the larger-than-life 13-minute John Landis mini-movie shot for the album’s Halloween-ish title track, whose premiere instantly became the biggest event in MTV history. The short’s game-changing popularity cemented both “Thriller” and the music video in general as crucial elements of 20th century pop culture. All these stats and superlatives -- greatest, biggest, longest -- about MJ’s music and videos barely scratch the surface of just how inextricable he was to American life in 1983. In one TV appearance alone, on the Motown 25: Yesterday, Today, Forever special that May, Jackson’s performance of “Billie Jean” rocked the worlds of fashion and dance, thanks to his soon-to-be-signature white glove and jaw-dropping moonwalk maneuver. His multi-million-dollar promotional deal with Pepsi, signed that December, set the bar for celebrity endorsements. And by becoming too big for anyone to ignore, Jackson broke down color lines all across the industry -- particularly at MTV, which previously focused solely on rock-based videos from white artists. Historic and peerless as Michael Jackson’s 1983 was, it’s impossible to deny in 2020 that its memory has been tainted by the revelations and allegations that have come out about the artist’s alleged abusive, scarring relationships with several of the millions of children he enraptured with his blinding star power. They reveal the potentially horrific downside of the unanimous acclaim he received, and arguably cast both the private-life defensiveness of “Billie Jean” and the sympathetic dewiness of “Human Nature” in an insidious light. But it’s because of 1983, when he set the all-time gold standard for pop stardom, that we can never excise Jackson from our memory entirely: Merely by using the term “pop star,” we’re evoking peak MJ, whether we mean to or not. Honorable Mention: The Police (Synchronicity, “Every Breath You Take,” “King of Pain”); Lionel Richie (Can’t Slow Down, “All Night Long (All Night),” “You Are”); Billy Joel (An Innocent Man, “Tell Her About It,” “Uptown Girl”) ROOKIE OF THE YEAR: DURAN DURAN Michael Jackson might’ve been the Elvis of early MTV, but Duran Duran were its Beatles. The Fab Five of British heartthrobs expanded the proto-music video energy of A Hard Day’s Night into myriad globe-trotting mini-dramas, making their makeup-streaked visages unavoidable in the channel’s early years. They had the songs, too -- as sophomore LP Rio proved, spinning off two of the biggest hits of ‘83 in the lusty synth-rock of “Hungry Like the Wolf” and the intriguingly incomprehensible glam-funk of the title track. By the end of the year, they were high enough on their own supply to title their follow-up album Seven and the Ragged Tiger and its lead single “Union of the Snake”; both still went top 10. COMEBACK OF THE YEAR: DAVID BOWIE While David Bowie had already been a genre- and gender-bending rock icon for well over a decade, his true pop star moment in the States didn’t come until 1983, with the release of Let’s Dance. Despite norming out his once-ostentatious image -- writer Chuck Klosterman once described ‘83 Bowie as “dressing like a waiter from the Olive Garden” -- his cinematic clips for top 20 hits “Modern Love,” “China Girl,” and the set’s Hot 100-topping title track made him a fixture of the early-MTV era that his imaginative ‘70s visuals had helped make possible. “It’s an unbelievably wonderful way to live,” Bowie said of his newly lush, Platinum-certified lifestyle in an ‘83 Rolling Stone cover story. “The hardest thing is not to feel guilty about it.”
MICHAEL JACKSON
BY ANDREW UNTERBERGER
The 1980s were the last decade that rock still dominated top 40, and 1982 was a high-water mark. It was the year that J. Geils Band's "Centerfold," the poppy hit for the Peter Wolf-led bluesy rock band; Survivor's "Eye of the Tiger," the still-parodied theme to Rocky III; Steve Miller's career-revitalizing "Abracadabra"; and Joan Jett’s barroom anthem "I Love Rock 'n' Roll" all hit No. 1 on the Hot 100. It was also the year that marked the breakthrough of a rock singer-songwriter from the heartland, who had struggled mightily since the mid-1970s to define himself musically. That struggle was evident not only in the music John Mellencamp released prior to 1982, but in his stage name as well. His first manager Tony DeFries – who had represented David Bowie -- christened the Indiana native with the unfortunate stage name "Johnny Cougar" because "Mellencamp" didn’t exactly scream rock star. DeFries also packaged the artist as a kind of quasi-glam James Dean, which didn’t help. The early albums were uneven at best, and he was largely dismissed as a third-rate Springsteen. By the early 1980s, Johnny Cougar had become simply John Cougar and put three singles in the top 30 of the Hot 100 -- "I Need a Lover" (No. 28), "This Time" (No. 27) and "Ain't Even Done With the Night" (No. 17) -- but a signature sound (and vision) still eluded him. That all changed with the release of American Fool in April 1982. The album’s first single, "Hurts So Good," was a prime cut of Midwest barroom rock, with handclaps and air-guitar-worthy licks that rose to No. 2 on the Hot 100 in August. The song’s lyrics didn't say a whole lot, but the music video did, in its own lo-fi way: With his swinging mop of hair, F-you squint and fringed chaps, Mellencamp emerged as a gap-toothed Midwest heartthrob doing the good 'ol boy two-step, with a bunch of chopper-riding townies and truck-stop dancers who were definitely not out of Central Casting. From that point on, Mellencamp would position himself as a man of the people -- specifically, the people who lived along the rural routes and in the declining towns of middle America. Follow-up single "Jack & Diane," about a desultory teen romance in just such a town, drove that point home. Once again, there were handclaps and great guitar hooks, but the lyrics marked a serious leap forward for Mellencamp. Defined by the quietly devastating line, "Oh yeah, life goes on, long after the thrill of living is gone," "Jack & Diane" became an anthem for flyover America. Aided by MTV's relentless rotation of the music video -- which featured grainy 8-millimeter footage of Mellencamp and his then-wife Vicky Granucci -- the song became Mellencamp’s first and only Hot 100 No. 1 to date, topping the chart in October. Mellencamp had found his voice, and with the success of American Fool -- which spent nine weeks atop the Billboard 200, from September to November -- amassed enough clout to release his next album, 1983’s Uh-Huh, as John Cougar Mellencamp. By the time 1987’s The Lonesome Jubilee arrived, "Cougar" had been jettisoned entirely, and Mellencamp had become a voice for America’s embattled farmers. In 1985, he founded Farm Aid with Willie Nelson and Neil Young to bring further attention and relief to their plight. The next two years would bring about a sea change in stateside stardom, as the new ruling class of music’s mainstream was increasingly drawn from the image-conscious pop stars becoming icons practically overnight on MTV. But even as rock receded from the charts, Mellencamp landed another eight songs in the top 10 of the Hot 100, and released his 24th album, Other People's Stuff, in December 2018. Still, it’s that little ditty about Jack and Diane -- and the year when it made him a household name, even if that name still had a couple evolutions to go -- for which he'll always be remembered. Honorable Mention: The Go-Go’s (Beauty and the Beat, "We Got The Beat," "Vacation"); Hall & Oates ("I Can’t Go For That (No Can Do)," "Did It In A Minute," "Maneater"); Toto (Toto IV, "Rosanna," "Africa") ROOKIE OF THE YEAR: MEN AT WORK An unlikely '80s success story, Melbourne's Men at Work scored two Hot 100 No. 1s in 1982 with "Who Can It Be Now" -- one of a number of popular songs about paranoia that cropped up in the early decade – and "Down Under," which had radio jocks everywhere puzzling over vegemite. Colin Hay's whale song of a falsetto set the band apart from just about everything else on the radio, and the Men's shtick-laden videos -- watch saxophonist and Klaus Kinski lookalike Greg Ham drag around a teddy bear in "Down Under" -- landed them in heavy rotation on MTV. The band won a Grammy for best new artist, as their album Business as Usual reigned atop the Billboard 200 for a staggering 15 weeks. COMEBACK OF THE YEAR: CHICAGO Chicago hadn’t had a top 10 hit since 1977, and the song that gave them their second Hot 100 No. 1 was a dramatic departure from their horn-driven sound. "Hard to Say I'm Sorry" was a piano ballad co-written by treacle king David Foster and bassist/vocalist Peter Cetera, and almost 40 years later, it remains a go-to karaoke song for over-emoters. (It didn't hurt that the song was used over the closing credits of the movie Summer Lovers, which was about a threesome.) Parent album Chicago 16 hit the top 10, and one of the most reliable hitmaking outfits of the previous decade was officially back in business.
JOHN COUGAR MELLENCAMP
BY FRANK DIGIACOMO
Pop stars existed before 1981. You could credibly call either Frank Sinatra or Elvis Presley the first teen idol, just like how you could call The Beatles the first boy band, assessments that carry the weight of history. Nevertheless, none of these 20th Century icons feels like a modern pop star the way that Blondie -- or perhaps more specifically, frontwoman Debbie Harry -- still does. Blame this modernity on how Blondie were products of the downtown art-punk scene of New York City. Co-led by Harry and her creative (and romantic) partner/guitarist Chris Stein, the sextet -- which in the early '80s also featured drummer Clem Burke, keyboardist Jimmy Destri, bassist Nigel Harrison and guitarist Frank Infante -- loved the ephemeral nature and essential trash of pop music, but they existed at somewhat of a remove, offering commentary on stardom as much as they were delving into the thrum of pop. At the outset, the band were genuine stars only in the United Kingdom, where their nervy, charged revival of girl group and bubblegum tropes slid right into a chart filled with power pop and new wave, but Blondie broke the States wide open when they dove into disco with "Heart of Glass," a No. 1 smash on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1979. "Heart of Glass" hung heavily over Blondie at the outset of the 1980s, especially since Eat to the Beat -- the 1979 sequel to their career-making 1978 LP Parallel Lines -- wound up as a relative stiff on the charts. Blondie reacted by doubling down on the dance that brought them to the top with Autoamerican, reviving a bit of disco and dabbling in reggae with their cover of the Paragons' "The Tide Is High," which topped the Billboard charts the last week of January 1981. Notably, Autoamerican also showcased Blondie becoming the first rock band to explicitly borrow from hip-hop, on their No. 1 hit “Rapture.” “Rapture” name-checks Fab Five Freddy, later the host of Yo! MTV Raps, but that was hardly the only way the single seemed futuristic. Imagining a world with no boundaries separating rap or rock, “Rapture” pioneered the pop of the 21st Century and with its accompanying video tracing Harry's journey through nightclubs and into the streets, it created the template for MTV; it's cheap and a bit cheesy, but Harry's sleek, carnal presence is captivating. Through its sound and vision, it laid the groundwork for Madonna in how it brought the New York art into the mainstream. Blondie seemed to exist within the scene and float above it, a trick that endures. Contemporary pop stars embody the fleeting fashion of the time yet their artful resolve transcends time. It’s a move Blondie patented. Other acts emulated Blondie in the early ‘80s -- from the Go-Go's to Missing Persons, legions of new wave groups mined a similar power-pop, while Annie Lennox refined Harry's cool as the leader of Eurythmics -- but the quartet often seemed too cool for school in 1981; it was clear they were playing for the future. And that turned out to be true: Madonna expanded and deepened Harry’s video vixen persona and, eventually, Blondie’s blend of artful power pop and dance rock became part of the pop firmament. And that’s also a testament to the power of the image. Autoamerican is one of the group’s more uneven records, yet its ironic embrace of lounge, art and kitsch feels prescient. Even when it stumbles, this is the place where the concept of the modern pop star begins. Honorable Mention: Hall & Oates ("Kiss on My List, "You Make My Dreams," "Private Eyes”); Diana Ross ("One More Chance," "Endless Love," "Why Do Fools Fall In Love"); Olivia Newton-John ("Physical") ROOKIE OF THE YEAR: JUICE NEWTON Juice Newton scraped the charts in 1978 with a version of "It's a Heartache," a proto-power ballad and much bigger hit for Bonnie Tyler that same year. It was a sign of how Newton ground away at a career -- singing with Silver Spur in the mid-'70s, then becoming an overnight sensation in 1981 with her third album, Juice. Driven by two hit covers -- ballad "Angel of the Morning," a 1968 hit for Merrilee Rush, and the jaunty "Queen of Hearts," first recorded by Dave Edmunds in 1979 -- Juice’s breakthrough came during the twilight of urban cowboy, the movement that brought country music into the city, and pointed toward the pop-leaning hybrid sound that would come to define the genre in the coming decades. COMEBACK OF THE YEAR: RICK SPRINGFIELD Rick Springfield toiled away on the margins of rock & roll in the '70s, scoring an AM hit with the ramshackle singalong "Speak to the Sky" in 1972 and making headway on FM with "Take a Hand." But nothing he had done prior to 1981 compared to what he achieved with Working Class Dog, an album that arrived just as his acting role as Dr. Noah Drake on General Hospital made him a soap sensation. Working Class Dog found the sweet spot between power pop and AOR -- he even released a cover of Sammy Hagar's "I've Done Everything For You" as a single -- and that punchy blend gave him a smash hit with "Jessie's Girl," a single so big he never resided in obscurity again.
BLONDIE
1981
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2016-2020
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BILLBOARD THE GREATEST POP STAR BY YEAR (1981-2019)
1990
The pop charts hadn’t seen anything like Bobby Brown in a long time. For most of the 1980s, the biggest R&B artists fit neatly into the pop/rock mainstream, but Bobby Brown’s 1988 emergence represented a significant shift. The Bad Boy of R&B was armed with new jack sonics and MTV-ready charisma, and on the success of his blockbuster sophomore album Don’t Be Cruel, he announced the pop takeover of a new wave of R&B that was not only embracing hip-hop, it was informed by it. Having been jettisoned from New Edition in 1985, and coming off an underwhelming 1986 solo debut, Brown was an unlikely candidate for R&B savior. Keith Sweat’s Teddy Riley-produced Make It Last Forever ignited the new jack swing revolution and Al B. Sure followed Sweat to even greater pop stardom with In Effect Mode earlier in 1988. But it was the success of Brown’s sophomore album that would truly capture the zeitgeist and forge a R&B/pop template, which everyone from Usher to Chris Brown would eventually follow. Lead single “Don’t Be Cruel” would drop that May, eventually peaking at No. 8; follow-up “My Prerogative” would reach the top of the Hot 100 early the next year. (Three more top 10 hits would follow off Don’t Be Cruel into 1989 for Brown -- “Roni,” “Every Little Step” and “Rock Wit’cha” -- as well as the No. 2-peaking “On Our Own,” off the Ghostbusters 2 soundtrack.) And new jack swing would come to dominate much of the urban contemporary and pop sphere; hit singles by such acts as Karyn White and Babyface himself would hit the Hot 100’s top 10 over the next several months. The R&B revolution had begun. Bobby Brown wasn’t the first new jack swing star, but he shone the brightest -- even if it wasn’t exactly a long run. He pointed the way for where the 1990s would go; as a hip-hop-bred R&B singing pop star, he practically drew up the road map himself.
BY STEREO WILLIAMS
WHITNEY HOUSTON
1986
1987
1988
1989
Also in 1988...
Bobby Brown brought hip-hop to R&B (and brought R&B to pop)
Overnight sensation. Pop’s new queen. The voice. Those are just a few of the headline-blaring accolades bestowed upon a 22-year-old Whitney Houston in 1986. Just two months into the year, the newcomer from Newark, New Jersey had won her first Grammy Award for best pop vocal female performance, female for “Saving All My Love for You.” Also Houston’s first Hot 100 chart-topper the previous November, the stirring ballad was already the second top 5 hit spun off from her self-titled debut studio album, following “You Give Good Love” (No. 3 that July). It was pretty heady stuff for Houston, who was signed to Arista Records in 1983 by label president (and industry legend) Clive Davis. Over the next two years, Davis and A&R exec Gerry Griffith tapped producers such as Kashif, Jermaine Jackson, Michael Masser and Narada Michael Walden to craft songs for the young singer’s first album. Released on Valentine’s Day 1985, Whitney Houston initially entered the Billboard 200 at a lowly 166 -- but triggered by the crossover success of “You Give Good Love,” the album began its steady climb to a non-consecutive 14-week residency at No. 1, and an overall 162-week chart stand. By the end of ‘85, the album had not only netted Houston Grammy nominations for best pop vocal, but album of the year and best female R&B vocal performance (for “You Give Good Love”). With her stunning, church-honed five-octave range, pretty girl-next-door persona and musical pedigree (backing vocalist mom Cissy Houston; cousin and pop/R&B pioneer Dionne Warwick), Houston found herself sharing radio space with a formidable contingent of female voices in 1986. The year’s tally of established and emerging talent included Madonna, Heart, Cyndi Lauper, Janet Jackson and Sade. While Warwick claimed top song for “That’s What Friends Are For,” Houston did unseat Madonna for honors as Billboard’s No. 1 pop artist of the year -- though she lost the chance for a coveted best new artist Grammy nomination (and near-certain win) when she was deemed ineligible, owing to her guest vocals on separate songs by Jermaine Jackson and Teddy Pendergrass in 1984. But by then, Whitney was busy focusing on other things. She further broke down the color barrier at MTV with the fun, vibrant video for her energetic and catchy ode to love, “How Will I Know” (backing vocals courtesy of Cissy), which became the second No. 1 off her self-titled debut in February of 1986. With her final single off the album, Houston ascended the Hot 100 throne once again with the soaring anthem “Greatest Love of All,” originally recorded by George Benson a decade earlier -- which became her third consecutive chart-topper that May, and a future pop perennial. In a 1986 video interview with Rolling Stone, Houston talked about being inspired by Cissy, Warwick and longtime family friend Aretha Franklin. Recalling a studio visit during a session with Franklin and Cissy’s group The Sweet Inspirations, Houston said, “When I first heard her [Franklin’s] voice … it’s just something she has in the way she makes people feel. I thought if I could ever be a singer, that’s what I wanted to do. That kind of gut feeling where I can make myself feel good and make everybody else feel good.” Houston did just that with her early success -- and would continue to, as one of the greatest pop superstars of the ‘80s and ‘90s. Honorable Mention: Madonna (True Blue, “Live to Tell,” “Papa Don’t Preach”); Janet Jackson (Control, “When I Think of You,” “Nasty”); Prince (Under the Cherry Moon, “Kiss,” The Bangles’ “Manic Monday”) ROOKIE OF THE YEAR: MIAMI SOUND MACHINE A growing fanbase in Latin America and their home state of Florida blossomed into national stardom in 1986 for dance-pop outfit Miami Sound Machine, and their captivating frontwoman, Gloria Estefan. The group showed the full range of their irresistible, horn-tinged pop via three increasingly successful top 10 hit singles from the previous year’s Primitive Love album: the Cuban-flavored “Conga” (No. 10), the bubblegum throwback “Bad Boy” (No. 8), and the heart-rending ballad “Words Get in the Way” (No. 5). After one more album’s worth of hits, the group folded, and Estefan became one of the turn of the decade’s biggest solo stars. COMEBACK OF THE YEAR: AEROSMITH Having spent most of the ‘70s as rock royalty, lineup turmoil and substance abuse threatened to leave Aerosmith as also-rans for the entirety of the ‘80s. But in 1986, mega-producer (and rap/rock guru) Rick Rubin proposed that Run-D.M.C., then the biggest hip-hop act in the world, team up with the band for a redo of their classic ripper “Walk This Way.” The collab proved a massive success for both groups, cementing Run-D.M.C. as MTV’s first hip-hop superstars, and introducing Aerosmith to a whole new generation of fans -- right as a number of their long-haired acolytes were starting to sell out arenas nationwide. By year’s end, the band had gotten clean, and were ready to get to work on Permanent Vacation, their 1987 multi-platinum comeback LP.
Hair metal, glam rock, pop metal -- whatever you want to call it, the big hooks and big hair that dominated hard rock in the Reagan years reached its apex in 1987. Guns N’ Roses and Def Leppard released career-defining albums, Aerosmith staged a major comeback, and Motley Crue went multi-platinum. But nobody ruled the charts like Bon Jovi, whose 1986 album Slippery When Wet spent 8 weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and topped the year-end chart for 1987, while stadium singalong “Livin’ on a Prayer” was the year’s longest-reigning Hot 100 chart-topper. If any rock frontman was ever going to be crowned the biggest pop star of his time, it’s the man born John Bongiovi. Although he changed his name to a snappier phonetic spelling, the kid from New Jersey had everything else going for him from day one: a movie star smile, a big voice, and a cousin, Tony Bongiovi, who owned the New York studio The Power Station and let him record demos after hours. Unlike other hair metal heroes who moved to L.A. to make it on the Sunset Strip, Jon Bon Jovi kickstarted his career on his home turf, like his Jersey idol Bruce Springsteen. Recording his first hit, 1984’s “Runaway” -- with a lineup of session musicians that included E Street Band keyboardist Roy Bittan and eventual longtime JBJ sideman guitarist Richie Sambora -- Bon Jovi got the song on local radio, signed a record deal, and formed his eponymous band. But their momentum stalled when their second album failed to yield another hit as big as “Runaway.” Bon Jovi’s third album became their make-or-break moment, much as Born to Run had been for Springsteen. The group enlisted the help of veteran songwriter Desmond Child, who’d helped Kiss capitalize on disco with 1979’s “I Was Made for Lovin’ You,” and was already an expert at merging hard rock with pop hooks. The four songs he co-wrote on Slippery When Wet, including its first two singles, were just what Bon Jovi needed. The album debuted on the Billboard 200 at No. 45 after its August release, just below where the band’s first two albums had peaked. But within six weeks, the album had steadily risen to No. 1, and a few weeks later “You Give Love a Bad Name” topped the Hot 100. Then “Livin’ on a Prayer” came out, becoming the group’s second consecutive No. 1 in February -- by which point Slippery had already returned to the top of the charts, staying there for seven weeks. Jon Bon Jovi was a clean cut prom king compared to, say, the sleazier likes of Motley Crue or Guns N’ Roses. But Bon Jovi bucked the hair metal formula in one way: They didn’t need a power ballad to take their career to the next level. Both of the album’s No. 1 singles were fist-pumping anthems, and the third top 10 hit, “Wanted Dead or Alive,” rocked even harder at a slightly slower tempo. Burnt out by the whirlwind tour in support of the album, Bon Jovi never shot a video for the lighter-waving “Never Say Goodbye,” which was released as the album’s fourth single only in certain territories outside the U.S. (The videos for the album’s first three singles -- largely tour-shot affairs, helmed by MTV fixture Wayne Isham, featuring the band as larger-than-life live phenoms -- were among the channel’s most unavoidable clips of the era.) At a time when the biggest pop singers were releasing six or seven singles from each album, Bon Jovi bested them with a simple campaign of three songs and three videos. They’d repeat their success with 1988’s New Jersey, another No. 1 album with two No. 1 singles, and continue a steady stream of chart-topping albums and arena tours for the next three decades. But the trio of hits from Slippery When Wet so perfectly encapsulated Bon Jovi’s sound and image that they’ve never been eclipsed as the band’s lasting legacy. Honorable Mention: Michael Jackson (Bad, “Bad,” “The Way You Make Me Feel”); U2 (The Joshua Tree, “With Or Without You,” “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For”); Whitney Houston (Whitney, “I Wanna Dance With Somebody,” “Didn’t We Almost Have It All”) ROOKIE OF THE YEAR: DEBBIE GIBSON Debbie Gibson had been writing her own songs for years before she caught the attention of Atlantic Records and released her debut album Out of the Blue two weeks before her 17th birthday. The pop prodigy soon became a teen sensation, and a more wholesome alternative to Madonna, with Out of the Blue spawning the top 5 singles “Only in My Dreams” and “Shake Your Love.” The chart-topping torch song “Foolish Beat” followed the next year, earning Gibson Guinness recognition as the youngest artist to write, produce and perform a No. 1 single. COMEBACK OF THE YEAR: HERB ALPERT Herb Alpert had top 5 hits in three different decades, each time with a radically different sound: In 1968, the Tijuana Brass trumpeter hit No. 1 crooning the Bacharach and David song “This Guy’s in Love with You,” and he topped the Hot 100 again in 1979 with the funky instrumental “Rise.” In 1987, he scored yet another comeback with the No. 5-peaking dance-pop smash “Diamonds,” and its top 40 ballad follow-up “Making Love in the Rain” -- both produced by Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis, with vocals by Janet Jackson and Lisa Keith.
BON JOVI
BY AL SHIPLEY
MTV was no longer a novelty in 1988: It was the engine driving the music industry, shaping the Billboard charts and molding the very image of a pop star. George Michael realized the depth of this change more than his peers. Music videos were crucial to his rise to stardom in the mid-’80s as part of the hitmaking duo Wham!, but their singles deliberately targeted teenyboppers, underscoring the idea that MTV was for kids. Michael abandoned such notions when he went solo in 1987 -- deciding to refashion his persona so it was sexy, mature, even dangerous. Of course, this was a strategic pose, as all pop music is to an extent. Michael embraced how image and music are inseparable, consciously crafting Faith -- his ‘87 solo debut LP, which ruled the charts throughout 1988 thanks to four singles that hit No. 1 on the Hot 100 -- so the videos enhanced the music, and vice versa. All through 1988, it was impossible to escape images of George Michael bopping to a rockabilly guitar in his tight jeans, brooding with a broken heart or seducing comely models in "Father Figure." These looks were tailored for the times, while reflecting the times: They were stylish, moneyed fantasias, where the sex was as intoxicating as the wealth. It never seemed that Michael was one with the audience -- he stood separate, an object of admiration and desire, a pop star who never made a wrong move. This attention to detail, apparent in his image as well as his music, served as a testament of how Michael was raised in the hothouse of Britain's pop music industry, which was dominated by gossipy music newsweeklies and video clips that easily translated to MTV. Michael's brilliant move with Faith was to finesse and polish this glitz so it seemed heartfelt, not glib. Similarly, Michael's music was seamless, streamlined so every element helped emphasize its pop aspects. Compare "Faith" to "Desire," U2's contemporaneous bid for American roots credibility: Both bounce to a Bo Diddley beat, but Michael isn't interested in po-faced rock authenticity. Pop is his passion. In a 1988 cover feature for Rolling Stone, Michael enthused: “If you listen to a Supremes record or a Beatles record, which were made in the days when pop was accepted as an art of sorts, how can you not realize that the elation of a good pop record is an art form? Somewhere along the way, pop lost all its respect. And I think I kind of stubbornly stick up for all of that.” This notion has become commonplace in the last decade, but in 1988, such poptism seemed radical, even if it was the logical conclusion of a culture that embraced big, stylized pop stars over earthy troubadours. Many musicians mimicked Michael -- take a quick gander at Donny Osmond, who adopted every move of Faith for his eponymous 1989 comeback LP and its hit "Soldier of Love" -- but more importantly, this complete fusion of music and image became the gold standard for pop stars of all stripes in the decades to come. Michael would later make plenty of mistakes, abdicating his throne nearly as quickly as he earned it. By 1990, he seemed bored with the whole game, forcing his audience and critics -- and, as somebody raised on British music weeklies, he was obsessed with critics -- to pay attention to nothing but his music by removing himself from all his imagery; he wasn't seen on the album cover or in the videos for Listen Without Prejudice, Vol. 1. But during the Faith album cycle, he revelled in his own creation -- of George Michael the pop star. Honorable Mention: Def Leppard ("Pour Some Sugar on Me," "Love Bites," "Armageddon It"); Rick Astley ("Never Gonna Give You Up,” “Together Forever"," "She Wants to Dance with Me"); Michael Jackson ("Man in the Mirror," "Dirty Diana," "Smooth Criminal") ROOKIE OF THE YEAR: GUNS N’ ROSES Guns N’ Roses are often seen as the paragons of real, dangerous rock & roll -- yet part of their appeal lay in the unspoken cartoonishness of their presentation. Not since the Ramones were a rock ‘n’ roll band so suited for caricature, which is one of the reasons they thrived in the era of MTV; they looked best when painted in broad strokes. That much was evident when "Welcome to the Jungle" first hooked metalheads in late 1987, but word of mouth spilled over into the mainstream in the summer of ‘88, culminating with the ballad "Sweet Child o' Mine" topping the Hot 100 that September. Its success helped "Paradise City" hit top five in early 1989, a shocking placement for a song so hedonistic -- proof that the group were now pop stars. COMEBACK OF THE YEAR: GEORGE HARRISON Prior to "Got My Mind Set on You," the single that sat at the top of the charts at the outset of 1988, George Harrison had been a commercial nonentity since at least 1981. In fact, "Mind" was his first No. 1 since 1973, a stat that indicates the unlikelihood of Harrison's comeback -- but not his larger impact. At at time when his fellow boomers were struggling to get new material heard, Harrison breezed back into heavy rotation with a blend of pep and unabashed nostalgia, qualities evident both in mind and the rose-tinted "When We Was Fab," his other top 40 hit (and MTV fixture) of '88. It helped that his producer Jeff Lynne crafted a glistening modern production for parent album Cloud Nine, a sound that would rule pop and rock radio for years to come -- including on the multi-platinum debut set of new supergroup the Traveling Wilburys that year, in which Harrison was also a cheery participant.
GEORGE MICHAEL
With guitars starting to give ground and hip-hop not yet fully crossed over to a wider audience, the 1980s were the biggest decade for dance-based pop in the American mainstream. And as it came to a close, the era's biggest female pop star -- and arguably the biggest female pop star of all time -- reached a new apex in terms of artistry and impact. The year 1989 didn't start out on a high note for Madonna: After three years of marriage to Sean Penn (and a nullified 1987 divorce filing), she again filed for divorce from the actor in early January citing irreconcilable differences. But no matter: Soon thereafter, Madonna was back to topping charts, rankling pearl-clutchers and raking in the dough. She signed a $5 million deal with Pepsi in January, culminating in a two-minute ad that would eventually get pulled due to a religious backlash to her latest music video. Released March 3, the day after the Pepsi ad first aired, the controversial clip featured cross-burning, stigmata and an erotic encounter with a saint. Regardless, Madge still pocketed the soda money, and the video became an MTV staple. And oh, what was the name of that song again? "Like a Prayer"? Yes, this is the year where Madonna went from dance-pop purveyor with an iron-grip on American teens to a capital-A Artist, someone who could deliver an album every bit as geared toward the charts as to critics' tastes. Universally acclaimed, the song’s parent album (also called Like a Prayer) topped the Billboard 200 for six consecutive weeks and was eventually certified 4x platinum by the RIAA. The title track brilliantly mixed the secular and the sacred both lyrically ("I'm down on my knees" works both ways) and musically (a transcendent gospel choir takes the hard-hitting pop-rock anthem into the heavens), and the result was a sing-along for the ages that even non-fans are likely to know damn near every word to. It topped the Billboard Hot 100 for three weeks, while follow-up singles "Cherish" and "Express Yourself" both reached No. 2 (as the David Fincher-directed video for the latter, inspired by Fritz Lang's Metropolis, became one of the most instantly iconic of the era). This was a release so stuffed with hits that Madonna could afford to not release a duet with Prince as a single. Five years after her game-changing "Like a Virgin" at the inaugural MTV Video Music Awards, Madonna was courting controversy at the 1989 VMAs once again with a performance of the Motown-flavored "Express Yourself" that featured her simulating masturbation. That song's video would nab three VMAs and "Like a Prayer" the viewer's choice award, although inexplicably the latter lost video of the year to Neil Young's "This Note's For You" -- a decision that has not aged particularly well. While Madonna would go on to notch bigger hits on the Billboard Hot 100 and reach more idiosyncratic artistic heights, Like a Prayer was the last proper studio album where she would enjoy such universal adoration. As the '90s set in, her detractors would get louder, but in 1989, Madonna was able to own the charts, charm the critics and – even though she released a video so controversial Pepsi decided to scrap something they paid $5 million for -- reign as the most celebrated female artist in pop. Honorable Mentions: Janet Jackson (Rhythm Nation 1814, "Miss You Much," "Rhythm Nation"); Bobby Brown ("My Prerogative," "Every Little Step," "On Our Own”); New Kids on the Block (“You Got It (The Right Stuff),” "I'll Be Loving You (Forever)", "Hangin' Tough") ROOKIE OF THE YEAR: PAULA ABDUL After choreographing videos for Janet Jackson, Debbie Gibson, and, err, ZZ Top, Paula Abdul gave singing a shot -- literally taking vocal lessons. As it turns out, the girl could sing, and her dance-pop-meets-new-jack debut LP Forever Your Girl became an unexpected blockbuster -- taking off in '89, with "Straight Up" topping the Hot 100 for three weeks, "Forever Your Girl" for two and "Cold Hearted" for one. Abdul nabbed four VMAs at the ‘89 ceremony (hosted by then-BF Arsenio Hall), not only for her music but for her choreography. She rounded off '89 by dropping the "Opposites Attract” single, a fourth No. 1 in early ‘90, whose MC Skat Kat-featuring video gave us the greatest cartoon animal/human dance-off since Anchors Aweigh. COMEBACK OF THE YEAR: THE B-52S After AIDS claimed the life of founding member Ricky Wilson in 1985, and 1986's Bouncing Off the Satellites failed to maintain an orbit even in the previously supportive college rock realm, the B-52's seemed tired of their own antics and ready to call it quits. But a relocation to Woodstock for primary musical composer Keith Strickland resulted in a renewed vigor and focus, fueling out-of-the-blue comeback album Cosmic Thing -- the Athens, GA new wavers’ first top 10 LP on the Billboard 200. It also gave the now-quartet of unrepentant oddballs two unexpected radio smashes, with the gloriously loose party anthem "Love Shack" and the uplifting, jangly "Roam," both No. 3 Hot 100 hits. And even if no one knew what "TIN ROOF… RUSTED" meant in 1989, that didn't stop people from screaming it everywhere from keggers to weddings.
BY JOE LYNCH
JANET JACKSON
BY CHRISTINE WERTHMAN
Birthday party at a roller rink? Yes. High school dance in a gymnasium? Yes. Suburban car ride with your mother to the dentist? Yes. All over MTV, inspiring you to try out militaristic fashions? For better or worse, also yes. Everywhere you looked, or listened, in 1990, Janet Jackson was there, soundtracking every moment in your life -- from the magnificent to the mundane -- with the socially conscious, message-laden smashes from her pop and R&B powerhouse of a fourth album, Janet Jackson’s Rhythm Nation 1814. It arrived in September 1989, more than three years after she blew open the doors of modern R&B with the funky, in-your-face statement piece (and call for her own independence) that was Control, her first collaboration with her now-career-spanning producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis. But while Control found Jackson self-reflective, she turned the mirror around on Rhythm Nation to show images of poverty, racism and substance abuse. The messages shared threads with those coming out of hip-hop at the time from Public Enemy, Salt-N-Pepa and N.W.A, but unlike those contemporaries, Jackson’s music came in a pop and R&B package whose call-to-action was twofold: pay attention, but also dance. If you were lucky, you got the Rhythm Nation black cassette tape to pop into your Walkman for Christmas in 1989. But even if you weren’t, the songs were inescapable through 1990, yielding her a record seven top five hits on the Billboard Hot 100 from 1989-1991, with four of those -- “Miss You Much,” “Love Will Never Do (Without You),” “Escapade,” and “Black Cat” -- going all the way to No. 1. Jackson’s album had already reached platinum status by November 1989, and the accolades kept coming with four Grammy nominations for the then-23-year-old, including producer of the year, announced right after the new year. She collected her first Grammy in February for the 30-minute Rhythm Nation music video, and only days later, embarked on her first-ever concert tour.. The international headlining venture was a huge step for Jackson, who never played shows for Control, despite its multi-platinum status. Some speculated it had to do with nerves, but as she told MTV at the time, she wanted to wait to tour until she had more songs under her belt. The tour wrapped in November after nine months, grossing $28.1 million for 89 shows. For those who couldn’t see her on the road, MTV kept fans sated with tour updates, performances -- including a bra-bearing rendition of “Black Cat” at the VMAs in September -- and of course, stunning music videos. In addition to 1989’s choreography-heavy black-and-white clips for “Miss You Much” and “Rhythm Nation,” MTV’s Janet-filled rotation in 1990 also included the dreamy close-ups of Jackson in Paris in “Come Back to Me”; the carnival-like, colorful atmosphere of “Escapade”; Jackson breaking it down in a zoot suit, with a guest appearance from Cab Calloway, for “Alright”; the fierce live concert footage assembled for “Black Cat”; and a return to B&W for the gorgeous Herb Ritts-shot (and Antonio Sabato Jr co-starring) “Love Will Never Do (Without You).” By the end of 1990, Rhythm Nation’s meager platinum count from 1989 was multiplied by five, making it the best-selling album of the year. The Grammys also weren’t done with her quite yet, adding three more nominations for her Rhythm Nation material, but no more wins, at the 33rd annual ceremony in 1991. Those nods included one for best rock vocal performance, female, for the Jellybean Johnson-produced (and Janet solo-penned) “Black Cat”: a nomination that proved Jackson, consistently labeled R&B, was too versatile to be contained to one category. She might have released Control in 1986, but 1990 felt like the year she truly took it. Honorable Mention: MC Hammer (Please Hammer, Don't Hurt 'Em, "U Can't Touch This," "Pray"); Madonna (The Immaculate Collection, “Vogue,” Dick Tracy); Vanilla Ice (To the Extreme, “Ice Ice Baby,” “Play That Funky Music”) ROOKIE OF THE YEAR: WILSON PHILLIPS A band comprising the grown children of famous musicians might seem like a gimmicky idea in theory, but it spawned one of 1990’s greatest debut acts in Wilson Phillips. Childhood friends Carnie and Wendy Wilson, daughters of the Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson, and Chynna Phillips, daughter of the Mamas and the Papas’ Michelle and John Phillips, formed the group in 1989 and released their self-titled debut album in May of 1990. Inescapable lead single “Hold On” reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in June, and they spent the summer touring season opening for Richard Marx, while the album peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 in August. “Release Me” topped the Hot 100 in September, while “Impulsive” went to No. 4 in December, proving the second-gen supertrio were no one-hit wonders. COMEBACK OF THE YEAR: BONNIE RAITT Bonnie Raitt had always been a critical darling ever since the release of her first album in 1971, but it would take nearly 20 years before she managed to find huge commercial success. By the late 1980s, Raitt was sober and newly signed to Capitol Records, where she and producer Don Was created her 10th album, 1989’s Nick of Time -- a smooth, 1970s-blues-rock release that showcased Raitt’s lived-in vocal and her rootsy guitar playing. The (appropriately) well-timed effort coincided with the crossover breakout of a number of fellow AOR peers and the debut of the more adult-oriented video channel VH1. Raitt took home four Grammys at the 1990 ceremony -- including album of the year for Nick of Time, which spent three weeks atop the Billboard 200 that April and was certified 2x platinum by May.
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Plenty of other country stars scored big pop crossover hits prior to Garth Brooks. But the phrase "crossover" itself illustrates what Brooks did differently. Prior to Garth, country singers became stars by adapting their style so it suited pop fashions; think of how Dolly Parton embraced pop and soft rock so she could reach the top of the charts with "Here You Come Again" and "9 to 5." Garth didn't make any concessions to the fashions of time: Even at the height of his stardom, he didn’t crack the Hot 100’s top 40. Instead, Brooks made sure the pop rulebook, dictated by blockbuster sales and spectacular live shows, was rewritten to accommodate country music. At the time, the conversation surrounding Garth Brooks focused on how he incorporated arena rock into his country music, an assessment that is by no means inaccurate. "The Thunder Rolls" carries a pumped-up sense of melodrama that's straight out of AOR, a sound that undoubtedly assisted the song’s rise to the top of the country charts in the middle of 1991. "Rolls" was the last hit pulled from No Fences, the 1990 album that turned Brooks into a superstar, and it provided the ideal transition between that album and Ropin' the Wind, the September 1991 record that cemented Brooks's stardom. Brooks's connection to rock, particularly '70s singer/songwriters, was underscored by how Ropin' The Wind contained a hit cover of Billy Joel's "Shameless.” But listening to his version of the tune now, what's striking is how the song doesn't really feel like it owes much to the glistening, anthemic sound of rock & roll. It sounds like country music, not just in production but in form: the outsized emotional gestures and anthemic melodies are now part of the Nashville lexicon. That's a testament to the enduring influence of Garth’s early '90s reign, an era that kicked off in 1991, when No Fences and Ropin' the Wind were racking up sales that dwarfed both Michael Jackson and Nirvana, as audiences flocked to see the Oklahoma megastar fly around an arena singing into a wireless microphone. His platinum certifications may have smashed records, but Garth's legacy rests on how he made the funky keyboards of "Rodeo" and the windswept introspection of "What She's Doing Now" feel as country as the kicking western swing of "Two of a Kind, Workin' on a Full House" -- a move that shaped the very identity of modern country music.
STEPHEN THOMAS ERLEWINE
MARIAH CAREY
ROSS SCARANO
1991
1992
1993
1994
Also in 1991...
Garth Brooks turned country into pop
“I want to be around for a while," Mariah Carey told the New York Times in September, 1991, two days before the release of her second album, Emotions. She was 21 years old, a self-described studio rat and workaholic -- the playful diva character she cultivated and inhabits so well was still waiting in the wings. (The bit where she says she won’t tour because “I need a lot of sleep” tips her hand a little, maybe.) She wasn’t being tongue-in-cheek about sticking around, and you, the reader, were meant to wonder if she’d manage where others so often fail. Dig if you will a time when Mariah’s star power was far from assured, when practically a year’s worth of coverage from the Times pondered and doubted. Could she skirt sophomore slump and match the staggering success of her self-titled debut, which had earned her a best new artist Grammy that February and pushed the album -- by then eight months old -- to No. 1 on the Billboard 200, where it luxuriated for 11 straight weeks? What was the label doing differently this time around? Was Tommy Mottola, then the president of Sony Music and her rumored boyfriend, too reckless and hung up on clout? The dramatic irony is delicious. Bucking record biz wisdom by releasing her second album less than 18 months after her debut, Emotions put Carey in the record books and asserted her desire for creative control. (Carey is credited as a co-producer and co-writer on every song.) Though it sold less than her self-titled, Emotions made Carey the first and only act to have their first five singles reach No. 1 on the Hot 100, when the C+C Music Factory-assisted “Emotions” -- her first major foray into club music, a space where she excelled in the ‘90s -- topped the chart on October 12. And between the release cycles for Mariah Carey and Emotions, there was never a moment when Carey wasn’t on your radar -- in clubs, on the radio, in your Walkman, on your television, on the covers of magazines like New York and Jet. “I Don’t Wanna Cry,” the tear-jerker fourth single from the self-titled LP, topped the Hot 100 in March, just a month after her Grammys debut, where she left the crowd and viewers at home stunned by a powerful rendition of “Vision of Love.” She owned the year, with her softly curled hair and whistle-register vocal punches, on display in the first-ever live televised performance of “Emotions,” at the MTV Video Music Awards in early September. In 1991, the Times published a letter from a smug, incredulous reader who had a hard time believing that Carey possessed a five-octave range, as the Gray Lady had described. Well Linda Lister, of Poughkeepsie, here’s Mariah’s performance of her classic deep cut “If It’s Over,” from the next year’s Grammys. Eat your heart out. Honorable Mention: Michael Jackson (Dangerous, “Black or White,” $65 million Sony contract extension); Garth Brooks (Ropin’ the Wind, “The Thunder Rolls,” “Shameless”); Color Me Badd (C.M.B., “I Wanna Sex You Up,” “I Adore Mi Amor”) ROOKIE OF THE YEAR: BOYZ II MEN They were teenagers, the three vocalists and their producer, and none of them had made an album before. In about six weeks, the four guys from Philadelphia (Nathan Morris, Wanya Morris, Michael McCary and Shawn Stockman) wrote and recorded with Georgia’s Dallas Austin. By November ‘91, Boyz II Men’s Cooleyhighharmony -- rushed out by Motown after the caffeinated single “Motownphilly” started blowing up -- was certified 2x platinum, buoyed by the marathon climb of its lead single (with a kinetic, color-blocked video) to No. 3 on the Hot 100. That they could balance their contemporary twist on doo-wop harmonies with real old-school ballads like “It’s So Hard To Say Goodbye to Yesterday” made them the total package. COMEBACK OF THE YEAR: AMY GRANT The lines lit up when the song played. As requested as the song was, it drew controversy too: Callers were shaken, angry, with the head of program management at KLTY Dallas telling Billboard that listeners would say the song “reminds me too much of the old life that I came out of.” It was April 1991 and Amy Grant’s “Baby Baby” -- a soft, upbeat pop song without explicit references to faith -- was triggering to many Christian radio listeners. But it was the No. 1 song in the country, the biggest solo hit from the devout singer-songwriter, who had been releasing music since the late ‘70s and had walked into comeback discord by writing a buoyant love song about… her daughter. Didn’t stop Grant for more than a minute, though, the controversy ultimately becoming a blip in the rise of one of the early ‘90s most reliable pop radio hitmakers.
The baby chasing that dollar in the swimming pool. The punk rock cheerleaders hyping up a crowd of head-banging, thrashing teens. That angelic head of blonde hair and those piercing blue eyes matched with a voice that could shred a phone book with one primal scream. In 1992, Kurt Cobain and Nirvana were pop: Not the pop you were used to, with neat hooks, programmed beats and dance moves, but rather jagged, jumbled pop that exploded on the radio and MTV seemingly overnight, re-ordering the universe in its own image. Bryan Adams, Paula Abdul, Color Me Badd and Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch topped the Billboard Hot 100 during the summer of 1991, just before Nirvana's breakthrough hit, "Smells Like Teen Spirit," began its rise into the top 10. In the post-hair metal, mid-gangsta rap era when the charts were as confused as Generation X, a raggedy trio of saviors roared in from Seattle dressed in flannel, ripped jeans, a hairshirt of angst and the noisiest pop tunes to ever conquer the mainstream. Before it blew a hole through the blindingly bright pop and R&B ruling the Hot 100, Nirvana's then-new label home, Geffen/DGC, had very modest expectations for the band's second album, Nevermind. How modest? DGC shipped fewer than 50,000 copies of the explosive 13-track collection that, within six months of its Sept. 24, 1991, release date, would be talked about as a modern classic on par with the most revered work of The Beatles and The Clash. Whether they wanted to, singer Kurt Cobain, bassist Krist Novoselic and whirling dervish drummer Dave Grohl achieved the rarest of things with Nevermind: a singular work that turned the entire music (and fashion) business on its head in the (relative) blink of an eye. In under a year, it paved the way for a Marc Jacobs grunge-way show, a wave of copycat loud-quiet-loud bands, and the anointing of a new rock god whose image was suddenly everywhere. Grohl’s bashing beats and Cobain’s mumble-to-a-scream vocals on “Teen Spirit” produced an anthem for dispossessed youth looking for teenage kicks, helping Nirvana infiltrate and upend mainstream culture in a way the first wave of punks never have dreamed of. Magazine covers, chart success and breathless MTV coverage followed wherever the trio roamed, an omnipresence that began in late 1991 and carried all the way through 1992. And to think it started with a song that had no reason to succeed as a lead single. "Teen Spirit," released in September of ‘91, is all kinds of wrong. It's long (five minutes), the chorus makes zero sense ("I feel stupid and contagious/ Here we are now, entertain us/ A mulatto, an albino, a mosquito, my libido") and its loud-quiet-loud dynamic range and lyrical inscrutability (which would become the band's signature) flouted just about every rule of pop/rock radio at the time. But 15 years after punk broke, Nirvana broke it again. "Teen Spirit" charted an unlikely rise to No. 6 on the Hot 100 by January 1992, while Nevermind toppled the biggest colossus in pop on the Billboard 200: Jackson, whose Dangerous ended its run at the top as the calendar flipped into the new year and Nevermind hit No. 1 on Jan. 11, 1992. (It would remain on the Billboard 200 for nearly two years.) It was a near-literal changing of the guards, but also a generational re-shuffling, as pop platitudes were moshed over by a ragged trio with a lot on their minds and a bracing, semi-nihilistic sound that would dominate rock (and pop) radio for the next four years. The album's slow-rocket ride was largely a result of the heavy rotation of the equally iconic "Teen Spirit" on MTV. With Nevermind moving a now-unthinkable 300,000 physical copies a week at its peak, the song Geffen thought would be the group's breakthrough, the morose "Come As You Are," dropped in March, reaching No. 32 on the Hot 100 as the second of three singles to chart from the album. (Follow-ups “Lithium” and “In Bloom” followed them to MTV dominance.) Despite his obvious love for the Beatles and massive hooks, Cobain was a reluctant musical savant and tortured poet, whose chronic drug issues and painful shyness belied an uncanny ability to twist his morose lyrics and melodies into somehow hummable songs. He also clearly got the responsibilities of the gig he seemed ambivalent about -- receiving tabloid attention as half of grunge’s first power couple after marrying indie rock’s reigning queen of chaos, Hole’s Courtney Love, in February, wearing a “Corporate Magazines Still Suck” homemade t-shirt for the band’s first Rolling Stone cover in May, and getting into a feud with Guns N’ Roses leader Axl Rose at the 1992 MTV VMAs that September. (The group also won two awards for “Spirit,” and rocked the house with a riotous “Lithium” performance.) The force of Nirvana’s peerlessly unlikely success story was massive enough to quickly open the doors for bands like Pearl Jam and Alice in Chains to become household names, to make Seattle one of the country’s cultural epicenters (as seen in that year’s Cameron Crowe-directed, grunge-heavy rom-com Singles), and to briefly turn MTV and even top 40 radio into alt-rock’s province. Hits are one thing, but the band's ability to drag the definition of pop so far left of center is a generational change that's truly rare, and a thing to cherish. Honorable Mention: Boyz II Men ("End of the Road," “Uhh Ahh"); Whitney Houston (The Bodyguard, “I Will Always Love You”); Guns N' Roses (“November Rain,” “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door,” “Live and Let Die”) ROOKIE OF THE YEAR: TLC As unlikely as Nirvana's success was, certainly nobody saw the debut album from quirky Atlanta hybrid trio TLC blowing up as it did either, thanks to the indelible Hot 100 top 10 smashes “Baby-Baby-Baby,” "Ain't 2 Proud 2 Beg" and “What About Your Friends." In addition to their vivacious mix of pop, R&B and hip-hop, T-Boz, Left Eye and Chilli brought inimitable attitude to their debut, Ooooooohhh... On the TLC Tip. Eventually rising to No. 14 on the Billboard 200 on its way to 4x platinum RIAA certification, the album set the template for the group's signature mix of emotional and topical songs about empowerment and resilience, with their playful attitude and a safe sex message in the video for "Beg." COMEBACK OF THE YEAR: ERIC CLAPTON A mostly forgotten soundtrack to a cops-undercover-as-druggies drama starring Jason Patric and Jennifer Jason Leigh, rock god Eric Clapton's work on the OST to the film Rush thrust the guitar legend into his brightest spotlight in decades for the most devastating reasons, thanks to his surprise hit “Tears in Heaven.” Written with lyricist Will Jennings ("My Heart Will Go On"), Clapton's highest-charting Hot 100 single (No. 2 that March) is also his most tragic, a reaction to the death of his four year-old son Conor, who fell from a 53rd-floor window a year earlier. The song was also recorded for a 1992 MTV Unplugged album, which won two Grammy Awards, topped the Billboard 200 and became Clapton's best-selling effort to date, at more than 26 million sold worldwide.
NIRVANA
BY GIL KAUFMAN
Since her 1986 breakthrough, Janet Jackson had been on a historic run. Having spent seven years on a remarkable pop tear that saw her become one of the biggest stars in music, by 1993, Janet was heading in a new direction. Her previous album, the titanic Rhythm Nation 1814, featured topical subject matter and thematic videos, and saw Janet’s image draped in semi-androgynous fashion sensibilities. But she’d hinted at what her next phase would be with the Herb Ritts-directed music video for 1990’s “Love Will Never Do (Without You),” which famously dropped the squared jackets and baseball caps of Nation’s earlier videos -- instead showcasing a svelte and sexy Janet in the desert. That image shift would inform her 1993-94 janet. album and campaign. Also, she’d taken a more direct hand in the songwriting process this time around. Her blockbuster contract with Virgin in 1991 led to chatter that she was coasting on her hitmaking producers and famous last name; but it goaded her into taking an active role in the writing and production on janet. And the singular album title was also intended to reflect her singular focus and a dismissal of any associations as the source of her success. This album is presented as “janet -- PERIOD.” She announced her 1993 return that spring, with a sultry, James Brown-sampling jewel called “That’s the Way Love Goes.” Janet had to face the daunting task of living up to the blockbuster success of Rhythm Nation 1814, an album that maintained a chart presence for the better part of three years and navigating the shifting musical landscape in R&B circa 1993. Janet Jackson’s sound would move away from the industrial new jack swing of Nation to something earthier, acknowledging mainstream R&B’s shift into both Toni Braxton-led smooth urban contemporary and Mary J. Blige-esque hip-hop soul. Her look was sexier -- but Janet’s image shift was more than just cosmetic. She’d embraced a “round-the-way-girl” aesthetic that suddenly presented her as the superstar-next-door, lounging with her friends and dancers in the omnipresent music videos for “That’s the Way Love Goes” and 1994s “You Want This,” confidently rocking her braids (adopted for Poetic Justice, the John Singleton-directed romantic drama she starred in that July) and other hairstyles that were more evocative of the neighborhood than the glam styles she’d sported in the 1980s and early 1990s. It was the kind of persona most megastars of the previous decade wouldn’t have been able to pull off with such sincerity. And her commercial clout was as formidable as ever. As so many other ‘80s superstars became embroiled in various controversies or experienced slippage in sales and/or chart success, Janet Jackson was soaring. janet. sold four million copies in the United States in 1993, and the album would yield six top 10 hits, two of which (“That’s the Way Love Goes” and the Poetic Justice torch song “Again”) hit No. 1. It would go on to become Janet’s best-selling studio album, surpassing 7 million copies sold in America. She’d opened the decade riding the wave of a monstrously successful album, but it was 1993’s janet. that cemented Janet Jackson as one of the defining artists of the 1990s. Honorable Mention: Mariah Carey (Music Box, “Dreamlover,” “Hero”); Whitney Houston (“I’m Every Woman,” “I Have Nothing,” “Run to You”); Dr. Dre (“Nuthin’ But a ‘G’ Thang,” “Dre Day,” “Let Me Ride”) ROOKIE OF THE YEAR: SNOOP DOGGY DOGG The man born Calvin Broadus became a new kind of rap phenomenon -- as controversial as Eazy-E, with singles as radio-friendly as Heavy D. Hits like “What’s My Name” and “Gin & Juice” proved he wasn’t going to squander the spotlight he’d stolen from his rap partner and producer Dr. Dre on The Chronic. His debut album Doggystyle hit the Billboard 200 at No. 1, catapulting him to the forefront of both the rap game and American popular culture. He would stay there for years to come. COMEBACK OF THE YEAR: MEAT LOAF The ‘70s power balladeer’s return to pop culture prominence was one of the decade’s most unexpected returns. Meat’s majestic wail soared on Bat Out of Hell II: Back Into Hell; and the pompous grandiosity of Jim Steinman’s “I’d Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That)” (and its predictably melodramatic, MTV-conquering music video) made for one of the year’s biggest hits, as well as the classic rocker’s first Hot 100 No. 1.
When Boyz II Men made their debut in 1991 with Cooleyhighharmony, you'd typically find the quartet of high school buddies (Wanya Morris, Shawn Stockman, Nathan Morris and Michael McCary) in coordinated cardigans, bow ties and baseball caps, looking like they'd just stepped off campus. But a new grown-up group hit the scene in 1994, with their aptly titled sophomore album II. The air-tight harmonies were still there, but the music had migrated to adult R&B -- made obvious by the straight-to-the-point lead single "I'll Make Love to You" -- and the matching outfits were now silk pajamas topped with gold chains, a daily sight on MTV, where the clips for “Make Love” and other II singles were a constant presence. Even with their grown-and-sexy makeover, you could still take these guys home to mom, making their previously wide appeal even wider. (As noted in Entertainment Weekly's review of the album at the time, "When they do get down and dirty, it's with someone they want to spend their life with.") Nothing demonstrates the group's across-the-board appeal quite like II's immediate commercial impact: The album debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 in August 1994 and spent five nonconsecutive weeks atop the chart. "I'll Make Love to You," released in July that year, spent 14 weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 -- matching the then-record-setting run of Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You" -- only to be replaced by II follow-up single "On Bended Knee" atop the tally. At the time, Boyz II Men were just the second act, after The Beatles, to replace itself at No. 1 on the Hot 100. (Oh, and shortly after, that record-tying 14-week run atop the Hot 100 would be broken by… Boyz II Men once again, when their 1995 "One Sweet Day" duet with Mariah Carey spent a then-record-holding 16 weeks at No. 1 -- a record that stood unmatched for over 20 years.) But II's impact didn't only translate to dollar signs; it was also part of a huge R&B boom that put the genre at the forefront of pop radio that year, alongside Toni Braxton ("Breathe Again" and "You Mean the World to Me" were both top 20 year-end singles) and All-4-One (whose breakout hit "I Swear" owes a huge debt to the Philly foursome). Critics were sold too, with Rolling Stone praising the album's "lush swoon-and-croon ballads" and EW pointing out the project's "deep-seated sensuality" in its glowing A review. The Recording Academy took notice as well: II was ultimately named best R&B album at the 1995 Grammys, and "I'll Make Love to You" was voted best R&B performance by a duo or group with vocals. "'94 was definitely huge for us," Nathan Morris told Billboard in 2014, looking back at their undeniable dominance that year. "I don't think there was a day in that year that something wasn't going on." Honorable Mention: Ace of Base ("The Sign," "Don't Turn Around"); Janet Jackson ("Any Time, Any Place," “You Want This,” “Because of Love”); Snoop Doggy Dogg ("Gin & Juice," "Doggy Dogg World," Murder Was the Case) ROOKIE OF THE YEAR: SHERYL CROW Sheryl Crow's debut album Tuesday Night Music Club arrived in August 1993, but it wasn't until a full year later, in the fall of '94, that "All I Wanna Do" -- the project's third single -- became a smash hit, propelling Crow to stardom. The song never made it all the way to the top of the Hot 100, getting stuck for six consecutive weeks at No. 2 (behind Boyz II Men's "I'll Make Love to You," of course), but Crow also found success that year with "Leaving Las Vegas" (top 10 on Alternative Songs) and "Strong Enough" (which debuted on the Hot 100 in December before eventually peaking at No. 5 in 1995), and landed a spot on the lineup at Woodstock ‘94. COMEBACK OF THE YEAR: THE EAGLES Hell basically did freeze over in 1994: Not only did the estranged Eagles -- Don Henley, Glenn Frey, Joe Walsh, Don Felder and Timothy B. Schmit -- re-form after a contentious 1980 breakup and 14-year hiatus, but they returned with the massive hit live album Hell Freezes Over and an accompanying MTV special. The two-week Billboard 200-topper reinterpreted some of their biggest hits ("Hotel California," "Tequila Sunrise," "Take It Easy") and also yielded a top 40 Hot 100 hit with "Get Over It" and an Adult Contemporary No. 1 with "Love Will Keep Us Alive," both brand-new songs for the project.
BOYZ II MEN
BY KATIE ATKINSON
Amidst the grunge and G-Funk that defined the decade, the ‘90s also bore witness to perhaps the greatest crop of girl groups found in R&B since mid-’60s Motown: En Vogue, SWV, Xscape, Jade and several other hitmakers. But by 1995, one of those groups had separated from the pack to become the defining pop ensemble of their era: Tionne “T-Boz” Watkins, Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes and Rozanda “Chilli” Thomas, collectively known as TLC. CrazySexyCool, the group’s sophomore album released in November ‘94, was a game-changer. Dialing back on the frenetic bangers and eye-popping fashion statements of their multi-platinum ‘92 breakthrough Ooooooohhh... On the TLC Tip, the supremely funky CrazySexyCool saw the trio maturing without dulling -- first with “Creep,” a cheater’s revenge anthem with a silky beat and a subtle hip-hop production edge. Released as the album’s lead single that October, the song boasted a lyrical and musical sophistication unmatched in pop at the time, and became the group’s first Hot 100-topper in January of ‘95. That chart breakthrough set the tone for the group’s year of Billboard dominance. Follow-up “Red Light Special,” a no-elaboration-needed slow jam, topped out at No. 2 in April, while third single “Waterfalls,” a cautionary tale punctuated by Stax horns and a fat Organized Noize groove, became the album’s biggest hit, besting the Hot 100 for seven weeks that summer. The shyly shuffling come-on of “Diggin’ on You” made it four top five hits in a row for the trio in December, and together, the singles set the standard for mid-’90s R&B -- turning the corner on the new jack swing that defined the early decade in favor of a slower, sleeker sound that was right at home on the radio between Coolio and Madonna. As big as the group was on the pop charts, they were even more unavoidable on MTV. The videos for the CrazySexyCool singles became iconic almost instantly: the flowing silk pajamas and monochromatic backgrounds of “Creep,” the black-and-white strip poker of “Red Light Special,” and particularly the dazzling walk-on-water choreography and visual effects of “Waterfalls.” TLC took a deserved victory lap at that year’s Video Music Awards, winning four awards (including video of the year for “Waterfalls”), while also taking the stage for a four-song “CrazySexyMedley,” showcasing the trio at the peak of their versatile powers as performers. The videos’ omnipresence helped push sales of CrazySexyCool to Diamond territory -- with the LP still standing as the all-time best-selling album by an all-female group nearly a quarter-century later. Of course, the group’s newfound calm and collected image on record conflicted with their somewhat unraveling presence in the ‘95 news headlines. The group filed for bankruptcy that July, following debts from bad contracts early in their career -- as well as medical bills from T-Boz’s struggles with sickle cell anemia, and both legal and insurance costs stemming from Left Eye’s arson charges following a fight with then-boyfriend Andre Rison that left his house incinerated. But the drama only added to TLC’s larger-than-life status in the mid-’90s, and ensured that the long recuperation period following their explosive ‘95 left a hole in pop music -- one that went unfilled until the group’s triumphant return at decade’s end. Honorable Mention: Mariah Carey (Daydream, “Fantasy,” “One Sweet Day”); Boyz II Men (“Water Runs Dry,” “One Sweet Day,” “Thank You”); The Notorious B.I.G. (“Big Poppa,” “One More Chance,” Junior M.A.F.I.A.’s Conspiracy) ROOKIE OF THE YEAR: HOOTIE AND THE BLOWFISH Not even CrazySexyCool could match the runaway sales of Cracked Rear View, the 21x platinum-certified debut from frat-rock one-album wonders Hootie and the Blowfish. Released in July of ‘94, the set went supernova in ‘95, spawning three Hot 100 top 10 hits (“Let Her Cry,” “Hold My Hand” and “Only Wanna Be With You”) and briefly making a superstar of genial frontman Darius “Don’t Call Me Hootie” Rucker. If you need proof of how the ‘90s alt-rock explosion briefly mucked up the pop star ecosystem, here’s your Exhibit A. COMEBACK OF THE YEAR: THE BEATLES The Beatles didn’t even need to reunite to bring Beatlemania to the mid-’90s, as their Anthology compilation became one of the year’s most buzzed-about sets, debuting at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 in December with over 850k in first-week sales. Anthology single “Free as a Bird,” a Hot 100 No. 6 hit featuring posthumous lead vocals from John Lennon, made for a particularly eerie pop presence -- as pointed out in John Harris’ Britpop anthology The Last Party, it was as if the genre's Oasis-led mid-'90s revival had somehow summoned the band back to the airwaves.
TLC
Some pop acts from the last four decades only captured the public’s imagination for a single year before shedding the spotlight -- either by their choice or ours. Here are the ten greatest examples. 10. Macklemore & Ryan Lewis (2013) The Year to Remember: Longtime dorm-rap favorites out of Seattle, the rapper/producer duo went nationwide in 2013 with a pair of Hot 100 No. 1s off breakthrough album The Heist -- bargain-bin anthem “Thrift Shop” and chest-beater “Can’t Hold Us” -- becoming the year’s most unavoidable crossover hip-hop act. What Happened Next: A bubbling backlash foamed over early the next year, as the duo’s overexposure hit a peak with four wins at the 2014 Grammys -- and by their next LP in 2016, rap had largely moved into the streaming era without them. 9. C&C Music Factory (1991) The Year to Remember: The dance-pop conglomerate -- headed by producers (and titular “C”s) Robert Clivillés & David Cole -- exploded onto the charts with jock jam extraordinaire “Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now),” a No. 1 hit in early 1991 that was followed to the top five by floor-filling follow-ups “Here We Go” and “Things That Make You Go Hmmm...” What Happened Next: Clivillés & Cole produced other hits for Mariah Carey and Aretha Franklin, but had muted chart success of their own before Cole’s tragic death in 1995. 8. Fine Young Cannibals (1989) The Year to Remember: The U.K. trio of new wave alumni found the sweet spot between pop and alternative with their sophomore album The Raw and the Cooked, with hybrid singles “She Drives Me Crazy” and “Good Thing” riding massive hooks and eye-catching videos to the top of the Hot 100 in 1989. What Happened Next: The band got psyched out by their own surprise success, going on hiatus in 1992 and never releasing a third album. 7. Twenty One Pilots (2016) The Year to Remember: The genre-mashing Columbus, Ohio alt duo broke all the way into pop stardom with their Blurryface LP, which spawned a pair of top five hits in “Stressed Out” and “Ride” in 2016 -- adding a third later that year with Suicide Squad soundtrack smash “Heathens.” What Happened Next: Tyler Joseph and Josh Dun decided top 40 wasn’t a priority, doubling down on their cult fandom with their ultra-dense 2018 follow-up Trench and its chest-pummelling lead single “Jumpsuit” -- though more than any other act on this list, they could still probably return to pop’s mainstream if/when they were so inclined. 6. Iggy Azalea (2014) The Year to Remember: The long-hyped, T.I.-endorsed Aussie rapper scored the song of the summer with the viral “Fancy,” also riding that momentum into a scene-stealing appearance on one of the season’s other biggest hits, Ariana Grande’s “Problem.” What Happened Next: A series of public missteps overwhelmed Iggy Azalea’s pop success, and by the end of 2015 even her star rapper mentor was washing his hands of her. 5. Arrested Development (1992) The Year to Remember: Achieving pop success previously unheard of for a “conscious” rap act, the Atlanta collective scored a trio of ponderous-but-cookout-ready top 10 hits with “Tennessee,” “People Everyday” and “Mr. Wendal,” and topped the Village Voice's prestigious Pazz & Jop critics poll with parent album 3 Years, 5 Months and 2 Days in the Life Of… What Happened Next: G-Funk took off, Bad Boy rose to power, and hip-hop’s sudden focus on bicoastal grit left little room for Arrested Development. 4. Terence Trent D’Arby (1988) The Year to Remember: The U.K. singer/songwriter proved an electric new do-everything talent with his first album Introducing the Hardline According to Terence Trent D’Arby, earning Prince comparisons -- and in 1988, a trio of top 10 hits, including the infectious chart-topper “Wishing Well.” What Happened Next: Claims that his debut was “better than [The Beatles’] Sgt. Pepper” left the public feeling none too charitable towards D’Arby following the ‘89 release of difficult second LP Neither Fish Nor Flesh, which peaked at No. 61, effectively ending his mainstream period. 3. Hootie and the Blowfish (1995) The Year to Remember: Darius Rucker’s merry band of South Carolina frat-rockers offered good vibes and sing-along choruses a-plenty on debut album Cracked Rear View, pushing well past Diamond status and blanketing radio and MTV in 1995 with the top 10 hits “Hold My Hand,” “Let Her Cry” and “Only Wanna Be With You.” What Happened Next: Follow-up Fairweather Johnson proved not-enough-too-soon upon its April 1996 arrival, selling respectably but only a fraction of its predecessor -- and by the dawn of the TRL era, Hootie and the Blowfish made no sense as a pop proposition. 2. Milli Vanilli (1989) The Year to Remember: The chest-bumping German dance-pop duo of Rob Pilatus & Fabrice “Fab” Morvan stormed the U.S. at the end of the ‘80s, selling CDs of debut Girl You Know It’s True by the millions and spinning off a jaw-dropping five top five hits -- three of which, “Girl I’m Gonna Miss You,” “Baby Don’t Forget My Number” and “Blame It on the Rain,” went to No. 1 in 1989. What Happened Next: Well. 1. Hanson (1997) The Year to Remember: Teenage brothers Taylor, Isaac and Zac brought bubblegum back to the alternative nation with their brain-drilling, chart-topping breakout hit “MMMBop,” turning the trio into pop-rock pinups for pre-teens and sending their major-label debut Middle of Nowhere to multi-platinum status. What Happened Next: Kids moved on to the all-singing, all-dancing variety of boy band by the next year, and the quickly maturing trio declined to chase after them.
The 10 Greatest One-Year Wonders of the Modern Pop Era
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2000
The pop zeitgeist of 1997 can best be summed up by two people -- not musicians, but video directors. At the height of MTV’s power to turn singles into chart hits, Hype Williams and Joseph “McG” McGinty Nichol completely overhauled the channel’s visual aesthetic. Williams turned his famous fisheye lens towards bright colors and fantastical sets and costumes in 1997: Puff Daddy and Ma$e danced and flew in shiny red jumpsuits, Missy Elliott twitched around in an inflated garbage bag, and Busta Rhymes wore glow-in-the-dark tribal paint. Meanwhile, McG’s blindingly bright and unapologetically silly videos for Sugar Ray and Smash Mouth turned the little-known alt-rock bands into platinum pop stars virtually overnight. McG’s videos were a jarring contrast from the washed out colors and long, lingering shots that directors like Samuel Bayer and Mark Pellington used to turn Nirvana and other grunge bands into MTV stars half a decade earlier. And Williams’ 1997 videos were even a notable left turn from the more subdued urban cool of the many rap videos he’d directed himself in 1995 and 1996. The alt-rock angst and gritty gangsta rap realism that had dominated the MTV landscape for most of the ‘90s were on their way out, and a much shinier, bolder color palette accompanied the glossy hits by a new crop of stars. While Puff Daddy was dancing across the screen more than any rap superstar since MC Hammer, popular music everywhere was getting brighter and more playful. Alternative rock was in the throes of a number of short-lived trends, including ska-punk, electronica, and the swing revival. The Spice Girls brought a renewed energy to good old fashioned capital-P Pop. Hanson got America excited about a bubblegum bop from a band of adolescent brothers, something that would’ve been unthinkable in the cynical and sarcastic early ‘90s. And the Backstreet Boys made their U.S. chart debut with “Quit Playing Games (With My Heart),” foreshadowing the boy band revival that would go supernova in 1998 when MTV debuted a little program called Total Request Live. The (literally and figuratively) brighter top 40 future that Hype Williams and McG had forecast had arrived.
ALANIS MORISSETTE
1996
1997
1998
1999
Also in 1997...
Alt-rock angst died, as big pop and blockbuster RAP took over
When grunge was exploding in the United States in the early 1990s, Canadian singer-songwriter Alanis Morissette was making dance-pop in the vein of Debbie Gibson. But the saccharine sounds of her first two albums, 1991’s Alanis and 1992’s Now Is the Time, were not at all indicative of what was to come: an emotional-exorcism of a third album that positioned her as the pissed-off queen of alternative rock. That album, Jagged Little Pill, was co-written by Morissette, then 19, and producer Glen Ballard. Up until then, Ballard was best known for his work with Michael Jackson, Paula Abdul and Wilson Phillips, yet somehow, when he and Morissette combined forces, they brought out the rock in one another. Pill came out in June 1995 on Madonna’s Maverick label, with singles “You Oughta Know” and “Hand in My Pocket” dropping in July and October, respectively. The album hit No. 1 on the Billboard 200 in October, but soon slipped thanks to the arrival of Mariah Carey’s Daydream. But Jagged wasn’t down for the count. At the 1996 Grammys, Morissette was nominated for six awards and walked away with four of them: album of the year, best rock album, best female rock vocal performance and best rock song. In addition to the Grammys, the album got another hefty push back into the limelight early in the year thanks to the quirky, colorful video and subsequent single release of “Ironic.” That explosive pop-rock smash famously confused generations of English students to come by misidentifying a series of bad-luck incidents as ironic (“It’s like rain on your wedding day / It’s a free ride when you’ve already paid”), asking of each, “Isn’t it ironic?” (Actually, no.) Still, if you removed your thinking cap for a moment, the video was entertaining enough to distract from the linguistic snafu. In it, Morissette played all four characters seated in a Lincoln Continental on a snowy highway drive, capturing four wildly different Alanis personalities and reflecting what a multi-faceted artist she was already becoming. The video won best editing, best new artist in a video and best female video at the 1996 MTV VMAs -- later topping the channel’s year-end Top 100 countdown -- while the song itself peaked at No. 4 on the Hot 100, still Morissette’s highest-charting hit to date. Starting at the end of February, Jagged Little Pill spent 10 more non-consecutive weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 until early September, sitting either in or just outside of the top 10 on the chart for the remainder of the year. Nearly a year and a half after its release, Pill was certified 14-times platinum. Despite -- or perhaps because of -- her success, Morissette became a divisive figure in certain critical circles, particularly among those who had some knowledge of her female rock predecessors. It was easy at the time to write off Morissette as a poser who only succeeded because she was a more marketable version of the alt-female “angry woman” rocker embodied by Courtney Love or Liz Phair. The 1990s began with the ferociousness of riot grrrl, so by the time Jagged Little Pill and its massive success came around, it seemed to many to represent the ultimate commodification of feminism and female empowerment. (We didn’t yet know the Spice Girls were coming.) Yet it was a misstep to dismiss her, because she had something to say and a particularly arresting way of saying it. Morissette’s yowl could wake the dead. Her feelings and desires were never hidden behind vague poetic stanzas but stated directly. Her music was able to reach a demographic that that of her forebears did not: women who were too young for riot grrrl and too out of the loop for Exile in Guyville, those who relied strictly on the radio to learn about the musical world around them, and didn’t realize how many men were on the alt-rock station until they heard a new voice coming through. Pill was bold and honest, and so many people connected with it so deeply that if you come for that album even 20-plus years after it dropped, people will still take up arms to defend it. Honorable Mention: Toni Braxton (Secrets, "You're Makin' Me High," "Un-Break My Heart"); Celine Dion (Falling Into You, “Because You Loved Me,” “It’s All Coming Back to Me Now”); 2Pac (All Eyez on Me, “California Love” “How Do U Want It”) ROOKIE OF THE YEAR: FUGEES So much for a sophomore slump: Fugees’ sample-laden, tough-talking, melody-floating second album, The Score, went 5x platinum seven months after its February 1996 release, outselling the group’s 1994 debut Blunted on Reality almost exponentially. The members of the New Jersey hip-hop trio -- Lauryn Hill, Pras, and Wyclef Jean -- were all in their twenties when they popped onto the scene that year, hitting big with a funkier cover of Roberta Flack’s 1973 hit “Killing Me Softly With His Song.” The album sat at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 for four weeks starting May 25, but as quickly as the Fugees appeared, the group fell apart, as its members pursued solo material beginning the following year -- most notably leading to Hill’s solo magnum opus, 1998’s The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill. COMEBACK OF THE YEAR: KEITH SWEAT R&B singer, songwriter and producer Keith Sweat first charted on the Hot 100 in 1988 with the pioneering new jack swing jam “I Want Her” from his debut album, Make It Last Forever. But it was two silky-smooth hits from his self-titled fifth album that landed him his highest placement on the chart in 1996, with “Twisted’ (featuring the all-female R&B group Kut Klose, founded by Sweat), hitting No. 2, and follow-up “Nobody” (with Kut Klose’s Athena Cage), going to No. 3. Both tracks went platinum by year’s end, and “Twisted” earned a spot on MTV’s Top 100 Videos of 1996 list, featuring Sweat as a cop in pursuit of an equally sexy, though murderous, jewel thief who ends up dead. Consider that plot twisted.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this. The year was supposed to be Big’s; he was the star the Bad Boy universe revolved around, and the plan was clear: “Ten years from now we’ll still be on top.” But come the morning of March 9, 1997, label founder Sean Combs and company were left devastated. With the rapper born Christopher Wallace dead at the age of 24, the victim of a still-unsolved shooting, the “we” intended to dominate for a decade was broken, that lyric a prophecy that could never be fulfilled. Like everything else, the grieving commingled with the business. Combs needed to finish Life After Death, slated to hit stores on March 25, and that meant final touches, including an intro track that would honor his friend’s life and work. Meanwhile, “Can’t Nobody Hold Me Down” -- Puff’s single with a 19 year old who grew up in Harlem, and whom he was grooming for stardom, had been steadily climbing the charts since its February release. On March 11, Mase and Puffy’s swaggering flip of Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five’s “The Message” and Matthew Wilder’s mid-’80s hit “Break My Stride” hit No. 1 on the Hot 100, where it reigned for six weeks, cementing itself as a classic of what would eventually be known as the Shiny Suit Era. “After Big died, we were searching to see who was gonna carry the torch,” Mase would tell GQ in 2014. Charismatic, self-aggrandizing and brazen enough to step into the spotlight, Puffy didn’t just carry the torch in 1997 -- he was the torch. For a total of 25 weeks that year, music written and produced (and sometimes performed) by Puffy held the top spot on the Hot 100. He wrote and produced on seven albums that year, many of them classics, including Mariah Carey’s Butterfly, Jay-Z’s In My Lifetime, Vol. 1 and Mase’s debut, Harlem World. Everything he touched burned up. He would turn 28 in November. “Hypnotize,” the first single from Life After Death, replaced “Can’t Nobody Hold Me Down” at No. 1. Three weeks later a pop-rock trio of children with the same last name took the No. 1 spot from Bad Boy, but it was only the calm before Puff’s real outpouring of sentiment snatched everyone’s attention. Utilizing a Police lift, and with vocal assistance from Bad Boy’s R&B wing in quartet 112 and Faith Evans, Big’s widow, “I’ll Be Missing You” became the biggest hit of Puffy’s career, debuting at No. 1 the week of June 11 -- the first rap song to ever debut atop the chart. For 11 weeks, the song would not be moved, sounding a mournful note that summer, as the one-year anniversary of Tupac Shakur’s death approached in September. In less than 12 months, hip-hop had lost two of its most talented and important voices, artists who had been friends turned rivals. That July, Puff dropped his debut, No Way Out, featuring some of the last verses Biggie recorded, including his turns on the iconic Tunnel banger “It’s All About the Benjamins” and the Rocky-sampling “Victory,” which resulted in one of the most expensive music videos of all time and received a half-hour premiere special on MTV. At no point in pop music history had death and murder been so bound up in the fabric of its biggest hits. It’s fitting that the only song that could move Puff’s blockbuster ballad came from Big. The ebullient “Mo Money Mo Problems” -- the impetus for another instantly iconic video, making Diddy one of the first hip-hop artists to scale the medium to the heights acts like Guns N’ Roses and Michael Jackson had previously staked out -- reached No. 1 the week of Aug. 30. That meant it was the most popular song in America when the Bad Boy family, clad all in white (and with Sting as an honorary member), performed it in a medley with “I’ll Be Missing You” at the MTV Video Music Awards on September 4. Nine days later, “Honey” -- the first single from Mariah Carey’s hotly anticipated sixth album, Butterfly -- debuted at No. 1. Twenty seconds into the song you can hear Puff drop an iconic “c’mon” adlib in the background of the mix. Truly, it was Bad Boy’s world. The year wound down with the October release of Mase’s Harlem World, the third Bad Boy No. 1 on the Billboard 200 in ‘97. Its singles, including “Feel So Good” and “What You Want,” stayed on the Hot 100 into 1998, leaving no doubt that a new time in hip-hop was upon us. The year began with bloodshed and ended with fireworks and brilliant, loose fabric sliding atop the nimble shoulders of Sean Combs -- head of one of the most successful black-run labels since Motown. Honorable Mention: The Notorious B.I.G. (Life After Death, “Hypnotize,” “Mo Money Mo Problems”); Hanson (Middle of Nowhere, “MMMBop,” “I Will Come to You”); Jewel (“You Were Meant For Me,” “Foolish Games,” Tiny Lights Tour) ROOKIE OF THE YEAR: SPICE GIRLS Alexander McQueen. Damien Hirst. Liam and Noel Gallagher. In March 1997, Vanity Fair declared that London had the multidisciplinary juice, from fashion to art to music. And yet, a quick ctrl-F reveals but one mention of the Spice Girls (“a quintet of latter-day dolly birds whose music is a forgettable mix of anodyne lite-funk and MOR balladry”). Over two decades later, VF’s commitment to cool missed the bigger point, which is that the best-selling girl group paved the way for the TRL era, the decade’s late-onset pop rebirth. Melanie Brown, Melanie Chisholm, Emma Bunton, Geri Halliwell and Victoria Beckham (née Adams) dominated the U.K. charts throughout ’96, before coming Stateside the next year via a few smash singles, jubilant music videos, multi-platinum albums, and a scatalogical Rolling Stone cover story. They had their own movie. In theaters. Just like, you know, The Beatles. COMEBACK OF THE YEAR: WILL SMITH It was practically impossible to find someone with a bad thing to say about Will Smith in 1997. He played the hero in Men in Black, the second biggest movie of the year, and the New York Times dubbed him “the only man in American movies who can easily address a space alien as ‘Baby.’” Contrary to what the film’s hit theme song said, you weren’t going to forget his winning smile and total charisma: The 29-year-old rapper, actor and former Fresh Prince was on his way to becoming the hip-hop generation’s Tom Hanks and its Paul McCartney with Big Willie Style, Smith’s breakout solo LP, featuring clean hits like “Gettin’ Jiggy Wit It,” “Miami” and “Just the Two of Us.” It won Grammys and Video Music Awards, earned platinum plaques and provided a stress-free soundtrack to many a middle-school dance. Finally, your parents would understand.
PUFF DADDY
BY ROSS SCARANO
On Sept. 14, 1998, the first episode of a music video countdown show titled Total Request Live aired on MTV. With a 25-year-old Carson Daly serving as host, TRL -- a hybrid of the channel’s pre-filmed video countdown program Total Request and their daily variety show MTV Live -- used fan votes to reflect the popular music of the moment. The show would quickly morph into a mid-afternoon cable phenomenon, defined by the young fans within and outside of the show’s Times Square studio, screaming about seeing their favorite artist’s video hit No. 1. Often, they held up signs with neon-colored magic marker, squiggly hearts surrounding their words. A lot of those signs simply read “BSB.” During a more primitive era of the Internet, before fan armies and stan wars, there was the Backstreet Boys eliciting shrieks on TRL, the most accomplished members of a teenybopper tidal wave that was going to crash down upon American pop at the dawn of a new millennium. Before Britney Spears was the princess of pop, before *NSYNC was hitting their own commercial stride -- and before Eminem was taking explicit potshots at all of them -- AJ McLean, Howie Dorough, Nick Carter, Kevin Richardson and Brian Littrell had achieved a level of commercial dominance and teen worship that would set the tempo for a prolonged cultural movement. The world was ready for new heartthrobs and clean hooks; a generation born a little too late for New Kids on the Block and Paula Abdul wanted idols of their own, and songs were being designed for them in Swedish studios with greater velocity. The largely dour grunge and alternative rock eras that had dominated the mainstream for much of the decade had all but run their course, and shiny pop music was primed for a major comeback. Backstreet Boys were prepared to capitalize on a market inefficiency, and were absolutely everywhere in 1998 as their peers tried to catch up. It didn’t come quickly: formed in Orlando in 1993 as the result of a casting call for a vocal group, Backstreet Boys spent years trying to crack the U.S. charts while early singles like “We’ve Got It Goin’ On” and “I’ll Never Break Your Heart” found success in various pockets of Europe. When BSB did manage a stateside breakthrough in 1997 -- the delicate “Quit Playing Games (With My Heart),” co-written and co-produced by a mid-twenties Max Martin -- they had already honed their harmonies, choreography and respective archetypes within the group. Brian was the boy next door; Nick the pretty heartbreaker; Kevin the strong, silent type; Howie the adorable one with the ponytail; and AJ, of course, the bad boy. Unlike quasi-rival boy band *NSYNC, Backstreet Boys did not have lead vocalists, making each member close to indispensable. Every new song, music video and performance sharpened their formula a bit more, as if they had been preparing for the TRL era before they even knew what was coming. More singles from their self-titled U.S. debut album hit the top 10 of the Hot 100: In 1998, the anthemic dance-pop of “Everybody (Backstreet’s Back)” solidified their grasp on top 40 radio, while “As Long As You Love Me,” “I’ll Never Break Your Heart” and “All I Have To Give” -- equally earnest, somewhat sappy and musically undeniable -- ensured that more Backstreet Boys posters would be kissed upon teen bedroom walls. Meanwhile, their Backstreet’s Back tour ran through the entirety of 1998 and established BSB as arena headliners for the first time in the United States -- status they would take into the pop stratosphere the next year with the release of their Diamond-selling U.S. sophomore LP Millennium and its generational lead single, “I Want It That Way.” Along with owning the early months of Total Request Live, Backstreet Boys also performed on the MTV Video Music Awards in 1998. The ceremony’s performances marked a hodgepodge of converging musical styles in the late 90s: glossy post-grunge (Hole’s “Celebrity Skin”), shout-along southern hip-hop (Master P and his No Limit soldiers’ “Make ‘Em Say Uhh!”), glammy alt-metal (Marilyn Manson’s “The Dope Show”) and blockbuster R&B (Brandy and Monica’s “The Boy Is Mine”). And then there was Backstreet Boys, showing off new-school “Thriller” moves during “Everybody (Backstreet’s Back),” Nick Carter singing the words “Am I sexua-a-a-a-l?” with gusto. The crowd loved them; mainstream music had found a path forward. If the teen-pop mania of the turn of the millennium was about to explode in 1998, it was Backstreet Boys who lit the fuse. Honorable Mention: Shania Twain (“You’re Still the One,” “From This Moment On,” Come on Over Tour); Monica (The Boy Is Mine, “The Boy Is Mine” duet with Brandy, “The First Night”); Madonna (Ray of Light, “Frozen,” “Ray of Light”) ROOKIE OF THE YEAR: DIXIE CHICKS A version of Dixie Chicks existed before 1998: sisters Emily and Martie Erwin formed the group as a Texas bluegrass project in 1989 with another singer and guitarist. When the quartet reconfigured into a trio, now with lead singer Natalie Maines aboard, the new-look Chicks shot out of a cannon with a seamlessly developed country-pop product. Their 1998 set Wide Open Spaces blended sugary harmonies and polished arrangements with tales of love and yearning, presented with a subtle feminist point of view that would be amplified in later releases. Wide Open Spaces connected with audiences nationwide, eventually earning Diamond certification while kicking off the group’s five-year run of country dominance. COMEBACK OF THE YEAR: BRIAN SETZER The swing revival of the late ‘90s seemed a bit inexplicable in the moment -- and feels even more so decades later, with big band music and their accompanying brass sections invading top 40 radio and awards shows because of... khaki ads and the movie Swingers, maybe? Regardless of the cause, acts like Cherry Poppin’ Daddies, Squirrel Nut Zippers and Big Bad Voodoo Daddy all benefited as a result, and Brian Setzer -- the spiky-haired frontman of early-MTV rockabilly favorites the Stray Cats -- became an unlikely face of the movement. His eponymous Orchestra’s cover of Louis Prima’s 1956 hit “Jump, Jive an’ Wail” peaked at No. 23 on Billboard’s Radio Songs chart, won a Grammy, and even earned Setzer a closing performance slot at that year’s VMAs.
BACKSTREET BOYS
BY JASON LIPSHUTZ
Britney Spears' debut single "...Baby One More Time" hit No. 1 on the Hot 100 the week of Jan. 30, 1999, kicking off a year that radically transformed modern pop. "Baby" spent a mere two weeks on top, and Spears didn't come close to replicating its chart success within that year: "Sometimes," her second single, topped out at No. 21, while "(You Drive Me) Crazy" wound up peaking at No. 10. While certainly respectable, these chart positions in no way reflect how thoroughly Britney Spears dominated the pop culture of 1999. In a way, Britney Spears's rise is analogous to the other pop phenomenons of the 1990s, trends that were incubated in the underground only to explode in the mainstream. Noisy, dangerous and defiant, alternative rock and hip-hop's ascendency dominated the decade, obscuring how a commercial counter-culture developed in their shadow. Where grunge and rap were to some extent grassroots movements, the teen-pop revolution was cannily constructed by the industry. Anchored on Nickelodeon and Disney Channel, this unabashedly pop movement picked up where New Kids on the Block and New Edition left off, updating bubblegum with new jack rhythms and corporate pizzazz. Spears cut her teeth here as part of the '90s incarnation of The Mickey Mouse Club, a place where she learned how to sing, dance and be a star. The latter is an essential element of Britney's stardom in 1999. Her fellow MMC alum Christina Aguilera actually performed better on the Billboard charts than Spears, racking up three No. 1 hits from her eponymous 1999 debut -- but her success was overshadowed by Britney. Much of that was due to the sun-blocking enormity of “Baby”: The atomic midtempo anthem quickly proved pivotal for turn-of-the-millennium pop, with its hip-hop and R&B influences officially turning the page on the Eurodance-based top 40 of the earlier decade. It quickly cemented writer/co-producer Max Martin as the defining sonic architect of the moment, and became one of the most iconic songs of the turn of the millennium, spawning countless imitators in its wake. A large part of Spears’ rise was also due to her savvy manipulation of imagery -- a gift showcased in the teasing music video for "Baby," which featured Britney slinking through high school hallways dressed as a schoolgirl. The video caught fire on MTV thanks in no small part to Total Request Live, with the clips for subsequent singles “Sometimes” and “(You Drive Me) Crazy” following it to regular play near the countdown’s top. Britney's popularity is inextricably tied to the TRL era: Neither would've been as big a sensation without the other. Like all great pop stars, separating the image from the music was impossible with Britney Spears. Magazine photoshoots leaned into her provocative sexiness -- her 1999 cover for Rolling Stone found her dressed in hot pants and cuddling a Teletubby -- but she spent as much time working wholesome ground. Learning her Disney channel lessons well, Spears threw herself into the industry machine, appearing regularly on television and at mall events. Even "(You Drive Me) Crazy" received a boost from its appearance in the teen comedy Drive Me Crazy, the synergy suggesting how Spears was part of a smooth-running machine. All of these avenues had been around for decades, but in 1999, the clean efficiency of Britney Spears' cross-platform pollination felt revolutionary. ...Baby One More Time was the organizing force behind a series of multi-media events that sold Britney's stardom as much as the music itself, an idea that flourished in the social media-saturated 21st Century. Honorable Mention: Backstreet Boys (Millennium, "I Want It That Way," "Larger Than Life”); TLC (FanMail, "No Scrubs," "Unpretty"); Ricky Martin (Ricky Martin, "Livin' La Vida Loca," "She's All I Ever Had”) ROOKIE OF THE YEAR: EMINEM The biggest hit he had in 1999 was his debut single "My Name Is," which just scraped the top 40, placing no higher than 36. Still, there is no question that Eminem dominated the areas of 1999 that weren't defined by Britney Spears or BSB. Furious and funny -- and thanks to producer Dr. Dre, quite funky -- The Slim Shady LP courted controversy from all quarters. Eminem's violent, provocative imagery provided a lightning rod in 1999 but underneath that bluster, he proved himself a dextrous, quick-witted rapper -- and his angst appealed to adolescents who would've been listening to grunge earlier in the '90s. COMEBACK OF THE YEAR: CHER Cher had long been a beloved figure in pop culture, but she never was quite hip. From her early days with Sonny Bono through her MTV-era arena-rock comeback, Cher's signature was enlivening a stuffy art form, which is why "Believe" was such a shock: It found her embracing dance so thoroughly, she fed her voice through an Auto-Tune audio predecessor. Largely treated as a novelty at the time, the robotization of Cher's voice had a lasting impact, with legions of singers and rappers adopting the innovation well into the next century. "Believe" had already topped the Hot 100 by early 1999, but its momentum rarely slowed throughout the year: Even when "Strong Enough" was released as a second single, "Believe" remained dominant, not only ruling the airwaves but propelling Cher's career for the next two decades.
BRITNEY SPEARS
Someday in the not-too-distant future, when every song ever recorded will be implanted inside our cerebral cortex, your grandkids will go through your attic and ask why anyone wasted their time listening to music on those plastic circles. But for now, let’s look back at the year 2000, when the boys of *NSYNC sold A LOT of those weird little discs. Like, more than anyone ever had in a single week. During a year when everyone from ATLiens OutKast to one-hit wonders Baha Men to MTV icons Britney Spears and Eminem were moving literal truckloads of CDs before the Great Physical Music Meltdown, Justin Timberlake, Joey Fatone, Lance Bass, JC Chasez and Chris Kirkpatrick were the boy band kings of retail island. The band’s second studio album, No Strings Attached, dropped on March 21, 2000, like a tightly choreographed atom bomb. Not only did it easily debut at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 (where it stayed for eight weeks), but it also obliterated all previous first-frame sales records, with an astonishing 2.4 million copies moved -- a high-water mark that stood until Adele surpassed it in 2015 with her 25 set. After establishing themselves as pitch-perfect rivals to the Backstreet Boys with their self-titled 1997 debut (featuring the hits “I Want You Back” and “Tearin’ Up My Heart”), the Lou Pearlman proteges -- fronted by former Mickey Mouse Club star Timberlake -- broke free from their late Ponzi-scheming manager, with a pointed statement of purpose that spawned some of their most beloved hits. Thanks to the Max Martin co-write “It’s Gonna Be Me” -- which sat atop the Hot 100 for two weeks in late July, the group’s only No. 1 -- as well as the hard-hitting “Bye Bye Bye” and the ballad “This I Promise You” (also both top 5 hits), No Strings firmly established *NSYNC as the Godzillas of the Pop2K era. For much of that spring of 2000 it was almost impossible to turn on MTV without seeing the five men suspended by strings as human marionettes in the candy-colored, Wayne Isham-directed “Bye Bye Bye” video. Ironically, all that pent-up demand might have been the result, in part, of the nearly three-year gap between albums caused by a contentious lawsuit over profits with Pearlman. In their absence, the rise of fellow pop stars such as Spears, Eminem and Christina Aguilera helped set the stage for the massive last gasp of the CD era, when moving millions of (physical) units was standard operating procedure -- No Strings blew out more than 1.1 million on its first day in stores. The victory lap continued on a sold-out world tour and included three wins at the 2000 VMAs in September, as well as a co-hosting gig at the Billboard Music Awards in December, where the group snatched up four honors, including album of the year. The limelight would shine brightly until the following year, when the group released their final album, Celebrity, another smash. That one proved to be the group’s swan song, setting the stage for Timberlake’s equally massive solo career -- and signaling the last, platinum gasp of a time when buying music meant spending your actual paper allowance rather than clicking a link on your iPhone. Honorable Mention: Britney Spears (Oops!… I Did It Again, “Oops!... I Did It Again,” "Lucky"); Eminem (The Marshall Mathers LP, "The Real Slim Shady," Dr. Dre’s “Forgot About Dre’); Christina Aguilera (“What a Girl Wants,” "I Turn to You," "Come On Over Baby (All I Want is You)”) ROOKIE OF THE YEAR: NELLY New York, Los Angeles and Atlanta were reliable hubs of hip-hop by the end of the 20th century. But when Cornell Iral Haynes Jr. -- a.k.a. Nelly -- exploded onto the scene in 2000 with his hit-soaked major label debut, Country Grammar, rap got a whole new slanguage to learn -- thanks to the personality-plus MC from the unlikely rap outpost of St. Louis. With his St. Lunatic crew in tow, Nelly crashed the pop charts with a string of hits, including the breakthrough title cut, "E.I.," "Ride Wit Me" and "Batter Up,” while Grammar debuted at No. 3 on the Billboard 200 on July 15 and spent five weeks at No. 1, eventually being certified Diamond. COMEBACK OF THE YEAR: SANTANA There are few greater comeback stories in rock history than the one staged by guitar hero Carlos Santana with his eponymous band’s Supernatural album. With the guiding hand of Arista president Clive Davis (who first signed the band to Columbia in 1969), the spiritual-minded guitarist’s biggest smash sat in the No. 1 spot on the Billboard 200 for 12 non-consecutive weeks, thanks largely to Davis’ inspired decision to pair Carlos with a wide variety of unexpected guest collaborators. The breakout single, the Rob Thomas-led "Smooth," equaled that three-month run on the Hot 100 at the turn of the millennium, while follow-up “Maria Maria” (with Wyclef Jean and The Product G&B) continued that reign in 2000 with a 10 week run at No. 1 -- helping Supernatural move more than 30 million albums globally, as Santana scored eight Grammys that February, equalling Michael Jackson’s Thriller-era record.
*NSYNC
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After dancehall emerged as reggae’s rowdier, raunchier kin in the late ‘70s, the genre experienced intermittent cycles of popularity within the U.S. mainstream. The first occurred in the early ‘90s, as Shabba Ranks, Beenie Man and Buju Banton escaped the confines of local genre spaces and launched into the American market. Once the new millennium drew closer, the next wave was ready to crash the top 40. While a pair of chart-topping hits from ‘90s Jamaican hitmaker Shaggy -- 2000’s “It Wasn’t Me” and the next year’s “Angel” -- leaned more pop, they helped open the gates for dancehall to once again cross over. The year 2003 introduced a new crew of dancehall artists whose music was tailored for American radio -- yet they didn’t water down their homegrown flair to do so. Elephant Man had clubs from Toronto to New York City signaling di plane with “Pon de River, Pon de Bank.” Wayne Wonder found the perfect crossover formula with the swoon-worthy “No Letting Go,” which peaked just outside the Hot 100's top 10. Lumidee’s debut single “Never Leave You (Uh Oooh, Uh Oooh)," founded on the same Diwali riddim as Wonder’s hit, rode the summery production to No. 3 on the Hot 100. But the artist who was clearly leading the second wave was Sean Paul. After signing to Atlantic Records, the dancehall star released his sophomore album Dutty Rock in November 2002. It was a commercial breakthrough, shooting up the top 10 on the Billboard 200 and achieving double-platinum status. The record yielded four top 20 hit singles, with "Get Busy” (peaking at No. 1 for three weeks) and “Like Glue” (No. 13) scaling the Hot 100 in 2003. Paul’s rising prominence led to collaborations outside of dancehall that same year -- Beyoncé’s chart-topping “Baby Boy,” Busta Rhymes’ “Make It Clap” remix and Blu Cantrell’s “Breathe” -- further boosting his pop presence. The success of dancehall’s second wave helped pave the way for reggaetón’s mainstream crossover, which was just bubbling up at the time. With the assistance of dancehall’s 2003 Liquid riddim, Puerto Rican artist Ivy Queen’s “Quiero Bailar” achieved mainstream access. It continued throughout the following year: Daddy Yankee’s “Gasolina,” N.O.R.E.’s “Oye Mi Canto” (alongside Yankee and “Move Ya Body” dancehall hitmakers Nina Sky) and Pitbull’s “Culo” (using the Coolie Dance riddim) all thrived on U.S. pop radio. By the next decade, reggaetón’s continued impact would open the doors for Latin trap and pop stars like Bad Bunny and J Balvin to become mainstream U.S. fixtures in their own right. The pop achievements of dancehall helped expand the reach of artists worldwide who hadn’t previously landed on top 40 in the U.S., while the genre’s sonic influences would remain a throughline in mainstream pop hits, like Justin Bieber’s “Sorry,” Rihanna’s “Work,” Drake’s “Controlla” and Ed Sheeran’s “Shape of You.” And the music always found a way to maintain its position: Sean Paul even hopped on Enrique Iglesias’ Spanglish version of “Bailando,” the first major Latin pop crossover smash of the ‘10s, and teamed with J Balvin for "Contra La Pared” last March. If dancehall continues to serve as the base for of-the-moment genre trends -- as seen with last year’s reggaetón’s reggae revival -- its next mainstream cycle won’t be too far away.
BY BIANCA GRACIE
JENNIFER LOPEZ
2001
2002
2003
2004
Also in 2003...
Dancehall crashed through America with its second wave
A pretty good accomplishment to topline any single-year resumé: In February of 2001, Jennifer Lopez had both the No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 (sophomore album J. Lo) and the No. 1 film at the U.S. box office (romantic comedy The Wedding Planner) -- making her the first entertainer to ever hold both top spots simultaneously. It was illustrative of Lopez’s decade-long evolution from a primetime TV backup dancer to one of the biggest stars -- musical or otherwise -- in the entire world. Beginning in the early ‘90s as one of the Fly Girl dancers on Fox sketch show In Living Color, Lopez left the show in ‘93 to pursue acting. She scored supporting roles in major film releases Money Train and Jack before achieving stardom in the title role of Selena, hit biopic of the titular late singer and Queen of Tejano. Selena portended Lopez’s own musical breakout, which she pursued in 1999 with the blockbuster debut album On the 6. The set spawned a pair of Hot 100 smashes in “Waiting For Tonight” and “If You Had My Love,” the latter becoming her first No. 1 and cementing the triple-threat as one of the biggest pop artists at the turn of the millennium. By 2001, a headline-grabbing (and Google Image Search-jumpstarting) appearance in a revealing dress at the Grammys the year before had also established Lopez as perhaps the ultimate sex symbol of the 21st century's earliest days. That image continued in the video for J.Lo lead single “Love Don’t Cost a Thing,” released at the end of 2000, in which Lopez sheds an unsatisfying relationship -- along with most of her clothes -- on the way to a liberating swim in the ocean. “Love Don’t Cost a Thing” was climbing the Hot 100 as the calendar turned to 2001, peaking at No. 3 that February. The next two singles off J. Lo didn’t fare as well, so for fourth single “I’m Real” Lopez’s label president Tommy Mottola recruited red-hot rapper Ja Rule for a guest turn on a new remix. The redo was rooted in R&B, via a sweet sample of Mary Jane Girls’ ‘80s bubblefunk classic “All Night Long,” but had a knockout pop chorus, traded off between the two co-leads. The song was a smash on both formats, becoming Lopez’s second Hot 100 No. 1 that September, while also setting the formula for her third -- “Ain’t It Funny,” another Ja-featuring Murder Remix, which dropped that December and topped the chart the next March. As many headlines as J. Lo made for her music and film success in 2001, she was as regular a presence in the news for her personal life. A much-publicized relationship with Sean Combs (then known as Puff Daddy) had exploded at the turn of the century with the couple’s arrest outside a Times Square nightclub shooting, after which they officially split in early ‘01. Lopez rebounded quickly, however, striking up a whirlwind romance with Cris Judd, a backup dancer of Lopez’s from the “Love Don’t Cost a Thing” video. The two were married in September in a “secret” ceremony -- one that nonetheless landed the couple a People cover story that October. Lopez would have further film and music hits, and went onto even more high-profile tabloid romances than with Combs or Judd (from whom she was divorced in June of 2002). But 2001 marks the peak of her all-consuming celebrity from the period when she was still America’s sweetheart, still believable as a plucky rom-com underdog, still ultra-approachable even at her most glamorous (From that People wedding story: “Even when Jennifer was walking down the aisle, she was saying hi to people”). The backlash was inevitable and overwhelming -- as was her eventual comeback -- but in 2001, no one was bigger or more likeable in their superstardom than Jenny From the Block. Honorable Mention: Usher (8701, “U Remind Me,” “U Got It Bad”); Janet Jackson (All For You, “All For You,” “Someone to Call My Lover”); Destiny’s Child (Survivor, “Survivor,” “Bootylicious”) ROOKIE OF THE YEAR: ALICIA KEYS Following the late-’90s breakthroughs of Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera, the mainstream was littered with young female top 40 aspirants with high-octane dance moves, glossy music videos and even shinier pop singles. That’s what made Alicia Keys’ breakthrough in 2001 so conspicuous: Keys eschewed the bare midriffs and Max Martin production for a grand piano, a mighty voice, and a throwback soul sound a world removed from the kids running MTV. But she had a bigger hit than all of ‘em in ‘01 with powerhouse ballad “Fallin’,” a Hot 100-topper that led parent album Songs in A Minor to 6x platinum sales. The next year, American Idol debuted, and suddenly Keys’ stardom made a lot more sense. COMEBACK OF THE YEAR: SHAGGY When Jamaican-American reggae fusionist Shaggy had one major hit in the mid-’90s with the big-talking “Boombastic” and then gradually faded from the mainstream before the new millennium, it seemed like the end of that chapter. But Shaggy’s greatest success would come with 2000’s Hotshot album, which included a pair of irresistible top 40 smashes that hit No. 1 in the first quarter of 2001, the Steve Miller Band- and Juice Newton-borrowing “Angel,” and pop’s all-time least-credible cheating defense, “It Wasn’t Me.” Always good to have Shaggy back, but shouts to the hook singers on those two songs -- Rayvon and Ricardo “RikRok” Ducent, respectively -- who did a lot of the heavy lifting there.
In 2002, 9/11 was fresh on everyone's minds, while U.S. headlines were dominated by the misinformation-filled campaign to sell America on the Iraq War (which would be authorized later that year). So while Eminem may seem like an unlikely pop hero, when you take into account the whiplash and confusion that characterized that year, perhaps only someone this angry could truly define 2002. At this point, Eminem was perfectly poised to come across both as an authority and a provocateur – with two smash albums under his belt, he was a proven force in the industry and an instantly recognizable face nationwide. But just shy of 30 and only in the public eye for three years by 2002, he could still convincingly play the role of s--t-stirring outsider tackling the personal and the political with equal dexterity. That’s exactly what Em did on The Eminem Show, a blockbuster set that went after a diverse roster of targets such as Dick Cheney, Moby and Chris Kirkpatrick -- and that's only on lead single "Without Me." From addressing his own white privilege to including a "skit" from music biz insider Paul Rosenberg to interpolating Aerosmith, there's a lot in The Eminem Show that you wouldn't have expected to find on 2002's best-selling album. And yet it topped the Billboard 200 for six non-consecutive weeks, became Eminem’s second consecutive Diamond-certified set, and produced four top 20 Hot 100 hits -- the first two of which, "Without Me" and "Cleanin' Out My Closet," were utterly inescapable that year. Despite Shady claiming "they try to shut me down on MTV" in its lyrics, the frenetic, superhero-centric clip for "Without Me" was in constant rotation on the channel that summer, with Em playing Robin to Dr. Dre's Batman. Ever the button-pusher, he even dressed up as Osama Bin Laden in the clip -- and it hadn’t been a year since Sept. 11. The clip would win four VMAs that August, including video of the year, and later also secured the Grammy for best music video. Follow-up "Cleanin' On My Closet" was a deeply personal, deadly serious counterpart, an account of the rapper’s traumatic, impoverished childhood set to minimal 808s and strings. It's such a harsh targeting of his mother that on 2017's "Headlights," he publicly apologized to her for it, and admitted he hates hearing it on the radio. The Eminem Show alone would've made 2002 a career-defining year for Marshall Mathers, but he followed it up with something unheard of for an artist in his position: a starring role in a much-hyped movie. OK, film turns from pop stars – especially ones where they essentially play themselves -- aren't exactly shocking, but 8 Mile leap-frogged all expectations. A critical and commercial smash (with Eminem's performance in particular drawing rave notices), the largely Em-produced soundtrack also topped the Billboard 200 for two weeks, while his own lead single "Lose Yourself" became arguably the defining song of his career. Not only was the cinematic, Rocky-styled rap-rock underdog anthem Marshall’s first Hot 100 topper, but it stayed there for 12 weeks. “Lose Yourself” also brought Eminem to a new level of mainstream acclaim, winning an Oscar for best original song in early 2003 -- the first hip-hop song to earn that award -- around the same time The Eminem Show won best rap album at the Grammys, giving him a third win in the category in four years’ time. While Eminem was cultural shorthand for political and parental distaste in 2000, he was 2002's biggest pop star, winning over detractors and seemingly only bolstered by those who continued to rail against him. Honorable mentions: Ashanti (Ashanti, "Foolish," Ja Rule's "Always on Time"); Nelly (Nellyville, "Hot In Herre," "Dilemma”); Missy Elliott (Under Construction, "Work It," "Gossip Folks") ROOKIE OF THE YEAR: AVRIL LAVIGNE When 17-year-old Avril Lavigne emerged out of the Canadian blue in 2002 with "Complicated," the ubiquitous smash -- kept from the Hot 100’s top spot only by Nelly's two 2002 chart-toppers -- announced a bold new voice in the realm of radio-friendly singer-songwriters. But if Lavigne had clear predecessors in that vein (Alanis Morissette, Nelly Furtado), the devil-may-skate attitude of follow-up hit "Sk8er Boi" was the blast of female mall-punk mainstream America was desperately lacking. From the haircut to the heavy eyeshadow to the loose tie-on-t-shirt look, Avril broadened the appeal of Hot Topic beyond nu-metal boys and established that you could be both punk and princess at the same time. COMEBACK OF THE YEAR: KYLIE MINOGUE After scoring three top 40 Hot 100 hits in the late '80s (including her No. 3-peaking cover of "The Loco-Motion"), Australian pop legend Kylie Minogue didn't come near the chart for the entirety of the '90s. By the time Minogue served her full-length Fever and the icy post-disco banger "Can't Get You Out of My Head" in late 2001, for much of the Stateside radio-listening public, she was a fresh face. Dance-pop certainly wasn't the dominant sound of 2002, but the pulsing beat and hypnotic chorus of “Head” ensured that the slow-burner gradually reached a Hot 100 peak of No. 7, and soaring "Love at First Sight" would also hit the top 40. Kylie would once again slip back under the U.S. radio mainstream after, but not before re-establishing a rabid cult following that continues in America, particularly among the LGBTQ community, to this day.
EMINEM
“You ready?” Beyoncé Knowles asks to kick off the lead single from her first solo offering, Dangerously in Love. What fools we were to shrug it off as a throwaway line, when it really was a declaration of independence, the opening statement in the most successful solo transition since Michael Jackson a quarter-century earlier. By 2003, we knew Beyoncé as one-fourth -- and then one-third -- of Destiny’s Child, but hints at a solo run were clear from the start. To her credit, she played her cards carefully, acutely aware that members of other star ‘90s R&B groups underperformed commercially after striking out on their own. Her moves started with a subtle push of DC’s sonic boundaries with each successive LP, expanding her role as a writer and producer, while shepherding the group from girls-next-door R&B to the force behind generational anthems like “Independent Women Part I,” and “Survivor.” Bey then strengthened her crossover appeal in 2002, starring on the small screen (BET’s Carmen: A Hip-Hopera) and big screen (Austin Powers in Goldmember), and pushing her musical development as a guest on then-boyfriend Jay-Z’s “’03 Bonnie and Clyde” -- a move that upgraded her urban clout in a demographic that had yet to fully embrace her. And then she was ready. “Crazy in Love” was the ultimate coming-out party, anchored on a bed of commanding Chi-Lites horns, bold 808s and an addictive “oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-no-no” refrain. That throwback-modern sonic combo, plus Bey’s confident vocal and a well-integrated verse from Jay, was a winning play: “Crazy” shot to No. 1 on the Hot 100 in eight weeks and stayed there for just as many. “Baby Boy” soon followed, and logged another nine weeks atop the chart, while its dancehall- and Arabian-inspired sound revealed the diva-in-training’s willingness to draw inspiration from non-American cultures. A well-timed guest spot from dancehall star Sean Paul, then on his own crossover hot streak, only furthered the song’s appeal. Next on the takeover checklist was MTV. Bey quickly became a staple thanks to the “Crazy” and “Baby” visuals, and her live performances only doubled down on her artistry’s central premise: a one-woman version of CrazySexyCool, whose technical prowess matches her visual perfection. Who else could master the trickiest runs and most rigorous dance routines so well that they almost look too easy -- but command a swag and style that fits in on city streets, a nightclub stage or a presidential inauguration without the blink of an eye? Sets at that June’s BET Awards and August’s MTV Video Music Awards weren’t just her coming-out moments, but a challenge to the many young R&B contemporary stars of the day: Beyoncé wasn’t playing to be queen of just this era; she had her sights on history. While most would revel in that debut success, Beyoncé was already onto her next project, co-starring in The Fighting Temptations with Cuba Gooding, Jr, released that October. Her contributions to the film soundtrack included another feminist statement -- “Fighting Temptation,” with Missy Elliott, Free and MC Lyte -- but likely due to the overperformance of “Baby Boy” at the same time, it never garnered proper promotion. When you cancel a single because your previous one is doing too well, then you’re riding on the crest of a pop culture tidal wave. For those who placed a losing bet that Beyoncé’s solo career would falter in its infancy, don’t feel bad. The New York Times infamously declared, “She’s no Ashanti.” Even her own record label, Columbia, didn’t believe in her, as Knowles later recalled. “They told me I didn’t have one hit song on my album,” she told a sold-out crowd in 2011. And then, with a sly smile, she dropped the mic: “I guess they were kinda right. I had five.” Honorable Mentions: OutKast (Speakerboxxx/The Love Below, “Hey Ya!,” “The Way You Move”); Sean Paul (“Like Glue,” “Get Busy,” Beyoncé’s “Baby Boy”); Justin Timberlake (“Cry Me a River,” “Rock Your Body,” “Senorita”) ROOKIE OF THE YEAR: 50 CENT For a man who was shot nine times, 50 Cent didn’t conquer the world with ruthless, bitter verses. Instead, he became almost everyone’s loveable gangsta: Someone who could whoop your ass in a flash, but also shows his LL Cool J-like romantic side with lines like “I love you like a fat kid loves cake,” in the summer smash “21 Questions.” That song went to No. 1 on the Hot 100, as did lead single “In Da Club.” By October, every suburban middle school kid in American was swearing they were a “P.I.M.P.” 50 Cent’s 2003 was stellar by any metric, including triumphs with the year’s best-selling album (Get Rich or Die Tryin’), top Hot 100 song (“In Da Club”), and five Grammy nominations – but the most telling victory came when Interscope granted him his own label, G-Unit Records, a near-empire of 50’s own in less than a year’s time. COMEBACK OF THE YEAR: JOHNNY CASH The idea of Johnny Cash capping his storied career with a cover of Nine Inch Nails’ “Hurt” may have sounded, as NIN’s Trent Reznor feared, “a bit gimmicky.” But despite a generational and sonic chasm, the country legend’s version, released in March 2003, transformed the song into a haunting portrait of a man all too aware he’s living out his last days. The video thrust the emotional pull into overdrive, alternating between archival footage from Cash’s youth and his current, frail form -- its bittersweet feeling mounting with shots of his wife June Carter, who died on May 15 that year, just four months before Cash himself succumbed to illness. “Hurt” would win single of the year honors at the Country Music Association Awards, and a Grammy for best short form music video, as the music industry bestowed the all-time veteran a fitting final salute.
BEYONCÉ
BY TREVOR ANDERSON
The label was unsatisfied. The Nov. 6, 2003 release date for Usher’s fourth album, Confessions, was fast approaching, and though the Atlanta R&B star -- a mononymous icon since his pop breakthrough six years earlier -- had turned in 40-plus tracks, featuring A1 production from the Neptunes, Jermaine Dupri, and Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, L.A. Reid only heard the lack. Or, as Lil Jon put it, “He needed a single. They had 'Burn,' 'Burn' was hot, but they needed that first powerful monster.” The head of Arista Records pushed the album back while Lil Jon went into his bag, hunting. The song they came up with was a monster, indeed. “Yeah!” hit the streets on Jan. 24, 2004, and by Feb. 28, it took the No. 1 spot on the Hot 100, setting up shop like it had signed a lease. If you hadn’t been hearing Atlanta before, you were now: The shoulder-shaking crunk & B banger “Yeah!” dominated for 12 weeks, until “Burn,” Usher’s remorseful second single, replaced it. For 19 consecutive weeks, the most popular songs in American came from one person, and they called him U-S-H-E-R-R-A-Y-M-O-N-D. Writing for MTV at the time of the album’s release, Shaheem Reid declared that “with Confessions, Usher has made the Big Connection…. That connection our parents felt when Marvin Gaye sang on the Here, My Dear album.” Only it wasn’t Usher’s story: Unlike Marvin’s bitter and sprawling account of his divorce from Anna Gordy, Confessions (and its unsparing two-part title track, improbably the album’s third No. 1 in July) is not a play-by-play account of Usher’s life -- it’s actually the trials and tribulations of producer and songwriter Jermaine Dupri. As Dupri explained to Complex in 2014, “When we first started making this album, Usher was considered a clean artist. He had hit records but he wasn’t really in the media. The media only cares about those that are doing dirt, doing crazy s--t.” And here you can picture Dupri smiling: “My whole thing was to create a ruckus.” Which the ATL impresario did by writing about his own drama. But at the time, the gossip and whispers and tabloids said it must have been Usher’s dalliances outside of his public relationship with TLC’s Chilli that provided the material for Confessions. That scandalous buzz proved useful. Over a million sold in its first week, the biggest debut for an R&B artist. Singles that spent a combined 28 weeks at No. 1 -- the most weeks of a calendar year for a single artist in Hot 100 history, a record that stood until 2018. Total album sales for Confessions and its deluxe edition -- the one with “My Boo,” the Alicia Keys duet that marked the set’s fourth No. 1 and helped Usher set a record for most weeks atop the chart in a calendar year -- tapping out at 7.3 million by year’s end, on its way to an increasingly rare Diamond certification. Dupri’s plan for the 25-year-old star he’d been making music with since the ‘90s had worked, beyond anyone’s wildest imaginations. Even if you didn’t listen to R&B, you knew this album. And if you did listen to R&B, this was the blueprint for all your favorite stars to come: Drake, Justin Bieber, Miguel, Chris Brown and Omarion have all cited Usher’s influence. And though Beyoncé spoke about Thriller as the touchstone for her career-defining self-titled release in 2013, the way the lyrics tease revelations about her personal life with her husband, both good and bad, feels more indebted to Confessions than anything Michael Jackson wrote. Honorable Mention: Ciara (Goodies, “Goodies, “1, 2 Step”); Maroon 5 (“This Love,” “She Will Be Loved,” “Sunday Morning”); Jay-Z (“Dirt Off Your Shoulder,” “99 Problems,” Collision Course with Linkin Park) ROOKIE OF THE YEAR: KANYE WEST “But you're not conscious.” This is what No I.D. recalls telling Kanye West after Kanye called him with a post-car accident epiphany: he was going to go “conscious with [his] music.” From the vantage of 2020, it’s perhaps the most revealing line about the foundation of Kanye’s breakout year (and possibly his entire career), when the producer came into the picture in ‘04 with his landscape-shifting Roc-A-Fella debut The College Dropout. 50 Cent may have revived street rap in the mainstream, but the future would belong to the lane ‘Ye opened, with his middle-class perspective on consumption and social climbing. The 2003 single “Through the Wire” described that life-altering accident; the album immersed you in Kanye’s world: the social concerns, the relentless striving, the musical ambition, the bad jokes and fashion preferences. “We all self-conscious, I’m just the first to admit it,” he rapped -- convincingly. COMEBACK OF THE YEAR: GREEN DAY It had been just three years since the September 11 attacks. Four years since the election, the recount, the hanging chads. Green Day, coming off a four-year hiatus -- the Oakland band’s longest gap yet -- channeled the frustration and despair of the Bush years into American Idiot, an ambitious rock opera, with nine-minute suites and supporting characters. And smash singles: “Boulevard of Broken Dreams,” a lighter-waver from the vantage point of the character “Jesus of Suburbia,” was the No. 2 single in America for a whole month. Seems wild now, when hip-hop dominates the charts, and guitar-driven rock feels perpetually on the verge of extinction at the mainstream level. But for a time this early-century, the pop-punk band that did ditties about masturbation were the popular choice for political discourse set to power chords.
USHER
In 2003, when his debut single “Through the Wire” became a surprise hit and Kanye West was thrust into the spotlight, the brash Chicago rapper/producer was hailed as hip-hop’s greatest underdog. Two years later, Kanye was one of rap’s elite; his 2004 debut album The College Dropout had placed him squarely at the top of mid-2000s hip-hop, and now he was one of the biggest artists in music. Teaming up with everyone from Jon Brion to Paul Wall for the follow-up, Kanye’s ambitions were in plain sight and the public was eager to hear what he’d do next. It was still early in his career, but it’s obvious in hindsight that we were in the midst of the rapper/producer’s most potent creative and commercial run. West was musically and thematically referencing a cross-section of trendy, era-defining creative signifiers like Michel Gondry and Ray, tying it all together in a winning pop formula that was undeniably infectious but that also felt increasingly forward-pushing. Following the breakthrough success of The College Dropout, West hadn’t shown any signs of slowing down creatively. He’d produced fellow Chicagoan Common’s acclaimed fifth album Be earlier in ‘05 and suddenly dropped one of the year’s boldest singles in the cascading “Diamonds From Sierra Leone,” both the original and the more conflicted, Jay-Z assisted remix. Featuring a newly unretired Hov didn’t do much to push the track to the upper reaches of the pop charts, but Kanye’s second single would be inescapable. The Jamie Foxx-assisted “Gold Digger” featured the actor/singer recreating his Oscar-winning Ray Charles performance for a hooky interpolation of the legendary musician’s 1954 hit “I Got a Woman,” and became one of the defining songs of the summer. “Gold Digger” would climb all the way to No. 1 -- West’s first Hot 100-topper as a lead artist -- and would also take home the Grammy for best rap solo performance the next February. Meanwhile, parent album Late Registration was an unequivocal success, debuting that August at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, en route to triple-platinum certification in the U.S. It lost the 2006 Grammy for album of the year to Ray Charles’ Genius Loves Company, but took home best rap album, Kanye’s second straight win in the category. Late Registration was a creative expansion on Dropout’s sonic template, and a commercial explosion that transformed Kanye West into the multimedia pop icon of a generation. (West also showed the non-musical ways he could dominate headlines, with a September appearance on NBC’s A Concert For Hurricane Relief, during which he proclaimed that then-president George W. Bush “doesn’t care about black people.”) In many ways. Registration establishes the template that West albums would follow for the next decade: gaudy, ambitious, indulgent and exciting. ‘Ye projects would become pop culture happenings unto themselves, and Late Registration was the first Kanye album that had to live up to fans’ and critics’ expectations. His penchant for spectacle would eventually consume a lot of his artistry, but in 2005, Kanye was juggling it all masterfully -- and rewriting rap’s pop rule book while doing it. Honorable Mention: Gwen Stefani (“Rich Girl,” “Hollaback Girl,” “Cool”); Kelly Clarkson (“Since U Been Gone,” “Because of You,” “Behind These Hazel Eyes”); 50 Cent (The Massacre, “Candy Shop,” The Game’s “Hate It or Love It”) ROOKIE OF THE YEAR: FALL OUT BOY Pop-punk underground favorites Fall Out Boy officially went mainstream when “Sugar We’re Going Down” took them to the Hot 100’s top 10, and was followed there shortly after by “Dance, Dance” -- making them arguably the last new rock group to be as famous as the era’s biggest top 40 stars. By decade’s end, bands would take a backseat at the vanguard of popular culture, but in ’05, Pete Wentz & Co. announced themselves as rock torchbearers with self-loathing anthems, clever music videos and ambitions well beyond what the Warped Tour had to offer. COMEBACK OF THE YEAR: MARIAH CAREY There was much chatter following the commercial disappointment of 2001’s Glitter and 2003’s Charmbracelet that perhaps the best-selling recording artist of the ‘90s had already seen her best days commercially. But Mariah Carey reclaimed pop’s upper reaches with 2005’s immaculate The Emancipation of Mimi album, and three top five hits -- the biggest of which, the tear-soaked megaballad “We Belong Together,” reigned at No. 1 for 14 weeks, topping Billboard’s year-end Hot 100. The craft in the songwriting and production was impossibly perfect, reaffirming Mariah as the defining pop diva of her generation.
KANYE WEST
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2010
By the end of the ‘00s, hip-hop’s long held line of demarcation between rapping and crooning was blurry as ever. With their ambition and vulnerability, Kid Cudi and Drake erased it completely. Like many paradigm shifts in millennial culture, this revolution is impossible to separate from Kanye West. Reeling from his mother’s death, Kanye’s embrace of Auto-Tune and anguish across 2008’s 808s and Heartbreak album is frequently credited for the rapper-singer sea change, though he wasn’t without his forerunners -- there was Nelly, there was T-Pain, there was “Lollipop,” there were countless others. But it was an upstart Cleveland MC that shaped 808s most of all. The moody melodicism of debut mixtape A Kid Named Cudi led to the 24-year old co-writing four 808s tracks and scoring a deal with Kanye’s G.O.O.D Music imprint. Soon, the words “emo” and “rap” fused like checkers on Vans. Cudi’s debut single “Day ‘n’ Nite,” inspired by the death of his uncle, unrequited love, and his nocturnal weed habit medicating it all, went top-five in May 2009. Studio debut Man on the Moon: The End of Day went on to break 100,000 in first-week sales and nab three Grammy nominations before the year was out. It was a rap album that welcomed intrepid indie groups like MGMT and Ratatat, a novel concept at the time. It’s no accident a couple intrepid indie-rap groups would be lurking around the corner. While Kid Cudi’s rise was deeply intertwined with Kanye, Drake was the first 808s disciple to become a star from outside G.O.O.D’s orbit. The Toronto native -- just two years removed from Degrassi -- sparked a major label bidding war behind his 2009 mixtape So Far Gone, eventually won by Lil Wayne’s Young Money empire that June. While Cudi’s lyrics confronted depression, addiction, and mortality, Drake emoted less-harrowing 20-something concerns regarding fame, women and famous women. Soon, he’d reach a level of fame Cudi only hinted at. His velvety No. 2-peaking breakthrough hit “Best I Ever Had” serenaded a flame from back home as if she was already a celebrity. Twelve months earlier, the same sort of rap-R&B hybrid smash would have required a T-Pain or an Usher alongside a Weezy or Jeezy; now there was Drake, and only Drake. While Cudi and Drake went down strikingly different career paths in the years that followed, their collective influence proved ubiquitous. Artists like Frank Ocean, Childish Gambino, Chance the Rapper, J. Cole, Juice WRLD, and a host of others were free to rhyme or croon their way across the sonic and emotional spectrum -- making the case with their ballooning success that rap music had simply become the new pop music of the 2010s.
BY CHRIS PAYNE
JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE
2006
2007
2008
2009
Also in 2009...
Kid Cudi and Drake welcomed hip-hop to heartbreak
In 2006, the MTV Video Music Awards were essentially unredeemable. The weakest crop of winners in the show’s history to date -- Avenged Sevenfold, James Blunt, “My Humps” -- matched with a mostly inessential group of performances, hosted by a post-prime Jack Black. Al Gore was prominently involved. The ratings were low, the reviews were scathing, the show got reinvented the following year. But even at this nadir, one indelible moment emerged: Justin Timberlake and Timbaland, unlikely allies in mismatched suits, brushing each others’ shoulders off at center stage -- the very image of mid-’00s pop cool. It wasn’t guaranteed that it would be this way. Justin Timberlake’s 2002 solo debut Justified was an enormous success, but one whose promo cycle ended with a Super Bowl performance of epochal disaster -- after which Timberlake took a few years off to pick up acting, with mixed results. It had been similarly long outside the limelight for his new choice of creative soulmate: Timbaland, the writer/producer who’d spent the late ‘90s and early ‘00s inventing the future of hip-hop and R&B from within its mainstream, had fallen on hard times creatively and commercially. For the two to return with an album called FutureSex/LoveSounds felt perhaps ambitious beyond their current grasp. But from the first time you heard comeback single “SexyBack,” you knew the ego was earned. Well, maybe not the first time: The song’s abrasive electro-funk came as such a shock to the system in the era of pitched-up soul samples and MOR pop-rock that you might not have been quite sure what to do with it immediately upon its July release. But the song shortly proved itself as something powerful enough to both define top 40 and also push it forward, while severing the final ties between Timberlake and his teen-pop past -- his grown-man getup and swagger a lifetime away from the MJ wannabe who showed up to the 2002 VMAs in fringe and a chain wallet. Of course, “SexyBack” turned out to be just the prelude for that September’s FutureSex/LoveSounds, a full-length LP of coherence and uniform song-to-song quality virtually unheard of in pop music since the ‘80s golden age of Michael, Madonna, Janet and Prince. The set clearly flashed back to MTV’s prime era not only in its high standards and quality control, but in its neon post-disco lacquer, its blending of the accessible with the challenging, its attempt to touch the past and the future simultaneously. The set drew rave reviews, debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, and quickly became Timberlake’s best-selling solo set to date. Another way FutureSex/LoveSounds emulated albums by those ‘80s superstars was in the singles it spun off. “SexyBack” bound to No. 1 on the Hot 100 in just its third week on the chart -- Timberlake’s first as a solo artist. That was quickly followed to the summit by “My Love,” the slow jam second single with a hypnotic time-lapse synth hook, a half-beatboxed beat, and a guest verse by rapper-of-the-moment T.I. JT went three-for-three with that December’s “What Goes Around… Comes Around,” a two-part spiritual sequel to “Cry Me a River,” the spiteful breakup anthem that served as Timbaland and Timberlake’s first collaboration. Like one of his suit-and-vest combos, Timberlake himself continued to wear pop stardom exceptionally well. He glided through his music videos and live performances with the confidence of a man who’d already spent a large percentage of his life in the spotlight, and who never doubted he’d be able to return to music on top. His accumulated acting experience added a new dimension to his combo-threat appeal, and his skills as an all-around entertainer were on display off when he served as both host and performer on a December Saturday Night Live -- in which the uber-viral (and JT-co-starring) “Dick in a Box” short debuted, quickly making Timberlake as ubiquitous on the Internet as he was on TV. Timberlake ended the FutureSex/LoveSounds era with as high an overall approval rating as any other pop star of the ‘00s -- and then once again disappeared from music, enjoying his life and many side pursuits as a fantastically successful celebrity who could move between worlds of his choosing at his leisure. Perhaps he realized over the course of what would become a nearly-seven-year absence between albums what the rest of his music career would ultimately bear out: Once you’ve experienced a year like 2006, there’s really nowhere to go but down. Honorable Mention: Beyoncé (B’Day, “Déja Vu,” “Irreplaceable”); Rihanna (A Girl Like Me, “S.O.S.,” “Unfaithful”); Fergie (The Dutchess, “London Bridge,” “Fergalicious”) ROOKIE OF THE YEAR: NE-YO After co-penning one of the biggest hits of 2005 for R&B singer Mario with “Let Me Love You,” Shaffer “Ne-Yo” Smith broke out as a solo star in 2006 with the release of his heartache ballad “So Sick.” The song stunned both in Ne-Yo’s nuanced vocal delivery and his obvious writer’s touch on the lyrics, and with some help from a snapping mid-tempo beat from burgeoning production duo Stargate, became his first Hot 100 No. 1 in March. Ne-Yo followed that up with top 20 hits “When You’re Mad” (No. 15) and “Sexy Love” (also a StarGate collab, No. 7), and by year’s end he had become the smoothest R&B-singing, Fedora-wearing crossover star in pop. COMEBACK OF THE YEAR: NELLY FURTADO As shocking a return as “SexyBack” was, it had nothing on the other Timbaland-engineered pop star comeback of 2006. When Nelly Furtado’s deadpanned stomper “Maneater” -- a song so incendiary the speakers literally caught fire during recording -- first started making its way around the Internet in the spring, the only reaction was Really? THAT Nelly Furtado? The Canadian pop star had come a long way from her folkier singer-songwriter days of the early decade, but her clubgoing fembot makeover paid dividends -- particularly once Timbaland duet “Promiscuous” became the unavoidable song of the summer, taking her to Hot 100 heights she never soared to even when she was in full “I’m Like a Bird” flight.
The steamy opening shot of the "Umbrella" video is a fitting analogy for the way Rihanna truly arrived in 2007. As smoke wafts around a latex-leotard-clad mystery woman in the visual, the camera pans across her silhouette, before revealing a single smoky eye hiding under a crisp black fedora -- and that eye unmistakably belongs to the Barbados-born singer. With the ubiquitous song and its striking video, Rihanna debuted a brand-new look (complete with her then-signature asymmetrical bob haircut) and a brand-new sound (not a steel drum within earshot) -- as well as a brand-new masterplan to dominate the Billboard charts and become an A-list pop superstar. Of course, Rihanna didn't come out of nowhere -- we met her in 2005 through her sun-kissed debut single "Pon De Replay," and then she took her island roots all the way to No. 1 on the Hot 100 the next year with the Soft Cell-sampling "S.O.S." -- but it was all leading to something much bigger, and that something bigger was her third studio album, Good Girl Gone Bad, released in May 2007. Def Jam pulled out all the stops for the project, securing Timbaland, Justin Timberlake, Tricky Stewart, The-Dream, Ne-Yo, J.R. Rotem, StarGate and more songwriting and production all-stars to put together a dozen could-be and would-be smashes. In order to come out strong, they needed an undeniable lead single, and they found it in "Umbrella." According to producer/songwriter Tricky Stewart, a few other vocalists were considered for "Umbrella," including Britney Spears and Mary J. Blige, but Def Jam fought tooth-and-nail to secure the cymbal-forward instant smash for Rihanna. "When she recorded the 'ellas,' you knew it was about to be the jump-off, and your life was about to change if you had anything to do with that record," Stewart told MTV News back in 2007. It didn't hurt that then-label boss Jay-Z also wanted to hop on the song for a guest verse (though, he acknowledged, "It was a hit without me"), and he officially co-signed Rihanna's new era with his "Take three, action!" ad lib in the "Umbrella" intro, making it clear that the label had a feeling the third time was the charm for RiRi. They were right: "Umbrella" spent seven consecutive weeks at No. 1 on the Hot 100. Front and center for the hit-packed album was a newly confident Rihanna, who owned her singular vocals like never before -- most notably on the silky-smooth duet "Hate That I Love You" with Ne-Yo, a No. 7 hit in December -- and scored her first certified dance-floor smash with "Don't Stop the Music," foretelling her soon-to-be unparalleled success in that arena. The album also proved just how adaptable a pop star she could be, as she jumped from genre to genre with ease while never giving up her identity, even going full rock 'n' roll with Fall Out Boy for her 2007 VMAs performance of "Shut Up and Drive." Rihanna was unstoppable in 2007 -- and 13 years later, we still wouldn't get in her way. Honorable Mention: Fergie ("Glamorous," "Big Girls Don't Cry," "Clumsy"); Kanye West (Graduation, "Stronger," "Good Life,"); Justin Timberlake ("LoveStoned," Timbaland's "Give It to Me," 50 Cent’s "Ayo Technology") ROOKIE OF THE YEAR: AMY WINEHOUSE Amy Winehouse burst onto the scene in October 2006 with her devastating breakthrough album Back to Black and its self-fulfilling prophecy of a lead single, "Rehab.” She became a legend-in-the-making the next year, with “Rehab” hitting the Hot 100’s Top 10 in June, as she rolled out four more singles from Black -- "You Know I'm No Good," the title track, "Tears Dry on Their Own" and "Love Is a Losing Game" -- and performed at the MTV Movie Awards, Lollapalooza, Glastonbury and anywhere else organizers could get her to show up. This story doesn't have a happy ending, but back in 2007, Winehouse's light burned blindingly bright. COMEBACK OF THE YEAR: TIMBALAND In addition to his work behind the scenes on Rihanna's project, Timbaland took a big step back into the spotlight with his April 2007 release Shock Value -- his first album since 1998. Tim had kept busy following his breakthrough work with Missy Elliott and Aaliyah back in the late '90s, and had a behind-the-scenes resurgence teaming up with Justin Timberlake and Nelly Furtado the year before. But Shock Value gave the superproducer his biggest hits as a lead artist to date: the No. 1 Hot 100 smash "Give It to Me," featuring JT and Nelly Furtado, the No. 3-peaking "The Way I Are" with Keri Hilson and D.O.E., and "Apologize," Timbo’s remix of what became OneRepublic’s breakout hit, which tapped out at No. 2.
RIHANNA
Lil Wayne spoke it into existence. When the New Orleans rapper declared himself “the best rapper alive since the best rapper retired” on his fourth album Tha Carter in 2004, relatively few agreed that he was ready to take the crown from Jay-Z. But by the time that album’s second sequel, Tha Carter III, was released in June 2008, it wasn’t such a controversial statement. In the four years in between, he’d released a couple platinum albums, appeared on over a dozen Hot 100 hits, and released a flurry of mixtapes and freestyles to back up his claims to lyrical supremacy. The year 2008 was a low ebb for the music industry as a whole: CD sales had cratered (particularly in hip-hop, with all but the biggest albums falling short of platinum), and with convenient legal streaming years away, iTunes sales were not making up the difference. So when Lil Wayne sold a million copies of Tha Carter III in a week -- the fastest selling album since 50 Cent’s The Massacre in 2005 -- he bucked all industry trends, in part by cashing in all the goodwill he’d accrued with acclaimed free mixtapes like 2006’s Dedication 2 and 2007’s Da Drought 3. A few months later, he won best rap album at the Grammys, where Tha Carter III was also up for album of the year. Tha Carter III ultimately sold 3 million, powered by the Hot 100 No. 1 single “Lollipop” featuring Static Major -- which debuted a new sound from Lil Wayne, singing and rapping with Auto-Tune. Three more hits followed, including the enduring fan favorite “A Milli” and the top 10 hit “Got Money” -- the latter featuring T-Pain, who’d popularized the Auto-Tune trend. Lil Wayne had also been stealing the spotlight on guest verses for nearly a decade, and throughout 2008, he kept his dance card full with the kind of guest verses that helped get him to that level. He appeared on platinum singles by T-Pain, Kevin Rudolf, and Keri Hilson, and anchored the all-star posse cut “Swagga Like Us,” alongside fellow superstars Jay-Z, Kanye West, and T.I. With his face tattoos, Auto-Tune melodies, and playful public persona, Lil Wayne was also a new kind of superstar rapper, the kind that we’d see a lot more of in the years to follow. He wasn’t reserved and selective with guest appearances like Jay-Z, who only made guest appearances on albums by an elite few artists (including Wayne, with Tha Carter III deep cut “Mr. Carter”). Weezy soon used his platform to spread the success around to artists on his Young Money imprint, and the next year he’d begin introducing the world to the signees who’d go on to become his two most famous protégés, and two of the biggest stars of the 2010s: Drake and Nicki Minaj. Honorable Mention: Rihanna (“Take A Bow,” “Disturbia,” T.I.’s “Live Your Life”); Taylor Swift (Fearless, “Love Story,” “White Horse”); Chris Brown (“Forever,” “No Air” with Jordin Sparks, Lil Mama’s “Shawty Get Loose”) ROOKIE OF THE YEAR: KATY PERRY The Christian rock singer formerly known Katy Hudson burst onto the secular pop scene with the provocative No. 1 single “I Kissed a Girl” and the platinum album One of the Boys. Borrowing the guitar-driven sound of established stars like Kelly Clarkson and Pink, Katy Perry was a different kind of pop star, playing the Warped Tour while she had the song of the summer on top 40 radio. She wouldn’t really affirm her superstar power until her next album a couple years later, but the No. 3 follow-up single “Hot N Cold” shut down any one hit wonder talk in the meantime. COMEBACK OF THE YEAR: KID ROCK Kid Rock had drifted from the spotlight in the decade since breaking through with 1998’s Devil Without a Cause. And though 2007’s Rock n Roll Jesus debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, it didn’t seem to reverse the trend with its first two singles, minor rock radio hits that missed the Hot 100. And then “All Summer Long” came along, riding familiar samples of Lynyrd Skynyrd and Warren Zevon oldies to top 40 glory, and eventually pushing the album to triple-Platinum sales.
LIL WAYNE
On a frantic night in the summer of 2008, Lady Gaga struggled with her latex bodysuit as cameras for MTV’s The Hills rolled in the background. At the time, the reality soap’s leading lady, Lauren Conrad, was a bigger star than Gaga, the new kid on the major-label block. Conrad, who was working a fashion label’s launch party, zipped Gaga up following a brief, tense wardrobe malfunction. The two quickly embraced, and the singer grabbed her signature shades and a rhinestone-studded microphone before making her way to the club’s small stage. That episode of The Hills aired in September of 2008. A year and a week after that, Gaga traded the black latex in for (fake) blood-soaked lingerie and played dead as she swung from the rafters at New York’s Radio City Music Hall. Her wild-eyed performance of The Fame single “Paparazzi” at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards made for one of the ceremony’s most memorable moments -- a feat for what was a truly historic VMAs. She was nominated for nine Moonmen that night and took home three, including best new artist for “Poker Face,” her second straight Hot 100 No. 1 that April (after debut “Just Dance” topped the chart in January). Gaga had arrived, clearly -- on her own terms, and with the whole world watching. Her ascent from her The Hills walk-on to award-show standout was an appropriate reflection of the breakneck pace with which Gaga took over pop music -- and pop culture at large. The adoration her growing fanbase had for The Fame, the album that made her a star, and The Fame Monster, her victory lap EP that followed in November of 2009, kept both albums and their singles in the highest echelons of the charts, and were undeniable champions during awards season as well. The Fame remained a regular on the Billboard 200 albums chart for the duration of the year and spent 39 weeks bouncing between spots in the top 20 alone. Meanwhile, The Fame Monster EP quickly shot to No. 5 on the Billboard 200, and its lead single, the classic “Bad Romance,” peaked at No. 2 on the Hot 100. To say that her one-year rise from rookie to MVP was meteoric doesn’t quite cut it, as she wasn’t just successful, but game-changing -- thanks to her voracious appetite for reinvention. 2009 was the first year in which we could compare and contrast Gaga in her various forms: she graduated from the disco-stick loving club kid to the architect of her own musical funhouse (or ballroom, if we’re going back to the VMA performance), all while performing before a rapt audience. With The Fame as the template, the dark, alien flourishes of The Fame Monster’s intrigue were all the more captivating. Every single drop was an opportunity for metamorphosis, and her music videos were the medium for exploring the afterglow of her debut. The lavish, outlandishly murderous plot of “Paparazzi,” the nocturnal New York subway adventure of “LoveGame,” and of course the instantly iconic “Bad Romance,” which had Gaga outfitted in off-the-runway Alexander McQueen designs and “hatching” out of a clinical white nightmare coffin -- she experimented with texture, technology and narrative and nailed it every time. No impulse was too wacky or surreal, as she and her Haus of Gaga creative team dreamt up the visual counterparts of her infectious pop hooks, and “Bad Romance,” especially, set a new standard for her multidimensional capabilities. (“Bad Romance” is the only one of Gaga’s videos to amass 1 billion views on YouTube.) Though the pop deck was stacked in 2009, with Beyoncé, Rihanna, P!nk, Taylor Swift, Katy Perry and other artists enjoying the fruits of their creative labors through top-grossing tours and best-selling albums, Gaga stood out in a superlative pool as the talent who wrote her own map to pop stardom -- one she’s stuck to ever since. Honorable Mention: Beyoncé (“Halo,” “Single Ladies (Put a Ring On It),” I Am… World Tour); Taylor Swift (“You Belong With Me,” “Fifteen,” the Kanye VMAs incident); The Black Eyed Peas (The E.N.D., “Boom Boom Pow,” “I Gotta Feeling”) ROOKIE OF THE YEAR: DRAKE Jimmy Brooks who? Aubrey Graham was a teen heartthrob in Canada as one of the stars of long-running TV series Degrassi: The Next Generation. As he aged out of his teens, he broke out of acting and picked up a microphone, along with Drake as his stage name. With the drop of commercial debut mixtape So Far Gone in 2009, Drake’s initiation into mainstream hip-hop was complete: Birdman and superstar Lil Wayne, the latter of whom featured on several of the tape’s tracks, signed Drake to their Young Money label and re-released the mixtape as an EP. Meanwhile, single “Best I Ever Had” scaled the Hot 100, peaking at No. 2 and cementing the rapper-singer’s crossover stardom. COMEBACK OF THE YEAR: JASON MRAZ Seven years after Jason Mraz broke out with his rambunctious and radio-friendly “The Remedy (I Won’t Worry),” he returned to the Hot 100 with a record-breaking run thanks to a ukulele-strumming serenade. “I’m Yours,” his simple and sweet ballad, rose as high as No. 6 and spent a whopping 76 weeks on the chart -- setting a new record in the process -- while soundtracking countless weddings and proposals across the globe. The song moved over 2 million copies in 2009 alone, and eventually went Diamond.
LADY GAGA
BY HILARY HUGHES
You could be forgiven for not really knowing what to make of Katy Perry as a pop star at the turn of the ‘10s. A re-branded, re-christened Christian rocker now appearing as a Warped Tour rascal and top 40 party-crasher, Perry’s off-kilter presence in the late-’00s mainstream was a confusing one. Her cartoonish charisma was obvious, and her barnstorming hooks refused to take no for an answer. But the occasional sourness to even the most winning hit singles off 2008’s One of the Boys -- touristic dips into bisexuality on the Hot 100-topping “I Kissed a Girl,” lyrics like “You P.M.S. like a bitch” on No. 3-peaking followup “Hot ‘n’ Cold” -- resulted in their radio dominance leaving an unpleasant aftertaste. But that bitterness was nowhere to be found within the candyland fantasia that was Perry’s Teenage Dream era. She returned on a cloud in April 2010 via the music video for “California Gurls,” a spiritual Beach Boys update that thumbed its nose at the implied East Coast supremacy of Jay-Z and Alicia Keys’ “Empire State of Mind” the previous year. With the help of a five-star chorus, a guest blessing from West Coast guardian angel Snoop Dogg, and the enduring video image of Perry shooting whipped cream from her rocket-strapped breasts, the song landed as an instant pop landmark -- naughty enough to avoid total bubblegum, but sweet enough to not risk aging into vinegar. It topped the Hot 100 for six weeks in June and July. “Teenage Dream,” the title track and second single released from her then-still-upcoming new album, was even better -- a young-love anthem of Britney Spears-like efficiency and Springsteenian urgency that followed “Gurls” to No. 1 in September. The former comparison point was hardly incidental: Katy was now primarily working with writer/producers Max Martin and Dr. Luke, the super-duo whose combined work with Britney, Kelly Clarkson, P!nk and Miley Cyrus had essentially set the default turbo-pop sound of top 40 at the end of the ‘00s. In Perry, they found their perfect conduit, an artist whose outsized personality and total commitment to the bit properly sold both their larger-than-life toplines and oft-preposterous, first-feeling-best-feeling lyrics. But Perry wasn’t totally reliant on them, either, as proven by the set’s third single “Firework,” released in October. The everyone-is-beautiful dancefloor anthem, co-helmed by Norwegian writer/producer duo Stargate, was Perry’s most earnest and widely embraced hit to date -- even as its video, an eventual video of the year VMA winner, also featured the titular item again being shot out of her chest. The song became her third Teenage Dream No. 1 in December, and before 2011 was over, the album would spawn two more Hot 100-toppers -- just the second LP in Billboard history to spawn five No. 1 hits, matching the record set by Michael Jackson’s Bad nearly a quarter-century earlier. You didn’t need the Billboard record books to tell you that Katy Perry was the defining pop star of the turn of the ‘10s, though. While a year earlier, Lady Gaga personified the genre at its edgiest and most guttural, one watch of “California Gurls” could tell you that Perry was clearly the genre’s future at its frothiest and most accessible: pop as sweet science, rather than boundary-pushing art. Even if Teenage Dream wasn’t as progressive as The Fame Monster, it quickly proved just as iconic, and this era of Perry’s remains one that inspires as much top 40 listener nostalgia as any: Whenever a fan bemoans the lack of “real pop music” on the radio, it’s the era of Perry’s takeover they’re most likely wistful for -- the last time pop’s center was almost exclusively dictated by what was unavoidable on the FM dial. Honorable Mention: Lady Gaga (“Telephone,” “Alejandro,” “Speechless” Grammys performance with Elton John); Ke$ha (Animal/Cannibal, “Your Love Is My Drug,” “We R Who We R”); Justin Bieber (My World 2.0, “Baby,” “Never Say Never”) ROOKIE OF THE YEAR: NICKI MINAJ “$50K for a verse, no album out,” Nicki Minaj unforgettably flexed on Kanye West’s “Monster” single, flaunting her Next Big Thing status before even releasing her official debut LP. In fact, Kanye got a bargain: mixtape star Minaj’s scene-swallowing cameos in 2010 were of incalculable value, minting hits by Trey Songz, Sean Kingston and even Usher as must-hear material, and turning Young Money’s “Bedrock” from a cutesy intro-credits crew cut to one of the year’s defining smashes. By 2010’s end, the album was out, and debut LP Pink Friday saw Nicki high-fiving Rihanna, out-dueling Eminem and stealing Drake’s heart -- confirming that she wasn’t going to be settling for best supporting actress trophies in the decade to come. COMEBACK OF THE YEAR: SADE It was truly the wild, wild west in 2010 pop music, a scene absolutely littered with monolithic (and mononymic) pop stars: Katy, Taylor, Gaga, Britney, Rihanna, Kesha. Yet selling about as well as any of them was a one-named icon who’d scored classic hits before most of ‘em were even born: Sade. Her eponymous band returned at the beginning of the decade with Soldier of Love, a modest masterwork of adult cool that moved 500k first week, and whose unassailable title track became the group’s biggest chart hit in 18 years. “When the time comes, I don't test the waters,” Ms. Adu proclaimed in a 2011 Billboard cover story, as she prepared for the ensuing world tour. “I just jump straight in."
KATY PERRY
Derek Jeter, Drew Brees and Dwyane Wade can all tell you: Just because you never won MVP for a single season doesn’t mean you weren’t an all-timer. Here are the 10 greatest pop stars who we didn’t award a year to in this project. 10. New Kids on the Block Resumé: The biggest boy band -- or pop group of any kind -- at the turn of the ‘90s, using the formula manager Maurice Starr established with New Edition to even greater success, thanks to gigantic hooks, fun and imitable dance moves, and a crossover-friendlier (read: whiter) image. Why Never MVP? The George H.W. Bush era was simply a massive one for iconic solo stars -- George, Madonna, Janet -- all of whom had broader all-ages appeal than NKOTB’s teen-courting megapop. 9. P!nk Resumé: A major star since her debut at the dawn of the 20th century, spending time as a rapper, a diva, a rocker, a pop star, an anti-pop star, and an adult contemporary fixture -- with the only consistent factor being her chart success, scoring 15 top 10 hits, including three No. 1s. Why Never MVP? Perhaps because of her unfailing production and constant presence, P!nk has never quite seemed like the defining artist of any one specific period this century. 8. Bruce Springsteen Resumé: The ‘70s rock star who had by far the easiest time pivoting to the MTV era, Bruuuuuce had no problem playing at pop’s highest level in the mid-’80s, when his Diamond-selling Born in the U.S.A. album became just the second album to ever spawn seven top 10 hits. Why Never MVP? Mostly because the first LP to spawn that many hits was still going at the same time -- Michael Jackson’s Thriller, the most important album in pop history -- as were superstar-minting sets from Prince and Madonna. 7. OutKast Resumé: In the early ‘00s, no act married critical acclaim with commercial success like Big Boi and Andre 3000, ruling the Grammys and the charts -- and releasing perhaps the most universally beloved pop song of the century so far with 2003’s “Hey Ya!” Why Never MVP? The timing just didn’t quite align for OutKast, who split their post-“Hey Ya!” dominance between 2003 and 2004, and had to contend with Beyoncé’s debut and Usher’s peak, respectively. 6. Bruno Mars Resumé: Hard to find a pop star with more achievements checked off this decade than Bruno Mars -- No. 1 singles, multi-platinum albums, Grammy sweeps, two Super Bowl halftime performances -- without a single major personal or professional blunder of note. Why Never MVP? Perhaps in part because of his spotless record (and consummate showmanship), Mars’ greatness has felt undeniable, but never truly transcendent. 5. Nicki Minaj Resumé: With the lone exception of her superduperstar labelmate, the most consistently successful rapper of the 2010s, with over 100 Hot 100 hits -- and one whose big pop swings not only resulted in 17 top 10 hits, but felt like natural extensions of her larger-than-life personality. Why Never MVP? Minaj has spread those pop smashes out pretty evenly over the decade, never concentrating them within any one year -- possibly because she didn’t really care for a bunch of ‘em in the first place. 4. Guns N’ Roses Resumé: Along with Nirvana, the most iconic rock band of the last 40 years; hard-edged enough to remain vital through the decades, but accessible enough to top the Hot 100 and sell tens of millions of records. Why Never MVP? GnR burned bright but incredibly short, bursting out of the underground with historic velocity in the late ‘80s, but already showing signs of fatigue by the time their scale matched their popularity in the early ‘90s. 3. Kendrick Lamar Resumé: The most venerated MC of his generation -- both from peers and critics -- and one whose commercial stats have, since 2017’s blockbuster LP DAMN. and its chart-topping lead single “Humble,” finally swelled to match his critical hosannahs. Why Never MVP? Boy, he came close in 2017, but even with a greater willingness to play the game -- big singles, big videos, big live performances -- Kendrick still feels just the slightest bit removed from pop’s center. 2. Destiny’s Child Resumé: Rivaled only by TLC and Boyz II Men among the most successful R&B groups of the past 25 years, Destiny’s Child notched three multi-platinum albums and four Hot 100 No. 1s around the turn of the century -- and oh yeah, spun off maybe the greatest SOLO pop star of the 21st century. Why Never MVP? At the height of the TRL era, so many acts were putting up Barry Bonds numbers that a couple big sluggers couldn’t help but come up short. 1. Jay-Z Resumé: Considered by many the greatest rapper of all-time. Why Never MVP? Jay’s best-selling album (Vol. 2… Hard Knock Life in 1998), his most acclaimed album (The Blueprint in 2001) and his most top 40-impacting album (The Blueprint 3 in 2009) all came years apart, helping his unprecedented longevity but hindering a singular peak.
The 10 Greatest Pop Stars Never to Be Greatest For a Year
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2015
Over the early 2010s, as a class of rising and returning stars was minted on radio, iTunes, and YouTube, pop’s arms race was accelerating to unsustainable levels of hype. Each major-label release was a self-proclaimed event, each expected to be bigger than the last. Something had to give, and in 2013, the dam broke -- over and over again. Lady Gaga’s ARTPOP, Katy Perry’s PRISM, Jay-Z’s Magna Carta... Holy Grail, Britney Spears’ Britney Jean, Justin Timberlake’s two-part The 20/20 Experience; each promised the world, and each fell short in different, fascinating, and exhausting ways. Amidst all the hubbub emerged a 16-year-old with humble origins and a grand name: Lorde. Popular music had never seen a teenage star quite as self-possessed as the New Zealand native, whose debut single “Royals” was pointed directly at the state of the pop zeitgeist: “Jet planes, islands, tigers on a gold leash/ We don’t care/ We aren’t caught up in your love affair/ And we’ll never be royals...” Her Queen-like vocal harmonies swoop above her dramatic, yet conversational lead vocals, barely accompanied by producer Joel Little’s kick drums and finger-snaps. This was a pop song with no obvious predecessor, whose negative space forced the listener to lean in and take notice. “Let me live that fantasy,” Lorde sang with a knowing irony -- that even as a buzzy artist signed to Universal, she’d likely never reach those heights. Incredibly, she did. From its initial release in November 2012, “Royals” slowly made its way up charts and playlists across the globe. By late 2013, it had not only topped the Billboard Hot 100 for nine weeks, but reached top five on alternative and hip-hop/R&B radio -- becoming a truly post-genre hit. If Lana Del Rey was the first figurehead in pop’s trajectory towards moodier, more hip-hop-inflected territory over the 2010s -- scoring her own first two top 40 hits in 2013, after her splashy 2011 debut and subsequent backlash the next year -- Lorde took it to another level. Her debut album Pure Heroine more than delivered, bringing her tales of teenage ennui to a mass audience, while only hinting at the potential she’d unlock with 2017’s sweeping Melodrama. Though Lorde wouldn’t maintain her brief position as a singles-driven hitmaker, she’d become even more beloved as a cult pop artist. “Post-genre,” “alt-pop” -- these were labels that had never been applied to mainstream pop even as late as 2010, that have now become the norm for an entire class of streaming-era artists who aspire to cultural cachet over traditional pop stardom. “Royals” was one of the decade’s most minimalist hits, but it dared to dream big -- leaving a long-term impact even Lorde herself could never have imagined.
BY RICHARD S. HE
ADELE
2011
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Also in 2013...
Lorde’s “Royals” was the sound of the Big Pop bubble bursting
Simply put: Anyone who says they saw the full extent of this success story coming is a liar. Yes, by early 2011, Adele had two major Grammys (best new artist and best female pop vocal performance), while her debut album 19 flew to the top 10 of the Billboard 200 following a performance on the year’s highest-rated episode of Saturday Night Live. But ahead of round two, The Guardian summed up the situation best: “Adele is not yet a very big deal in America, because her new album, 21, isn't out for another week. Nobody's sure if it will make quite the same splash as her first, 19.” Everyone agreed that her voice should warrant a world-class career, but in 2011, was a great voice alone enough? 21, released that February, was an outlier from its arrival. Thumping, excitable anthems were still the queenmakers on radio and the charts, with Katy Perry’s “Firework,” Britney Spears’ “Hold It Against Me” and Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way” among the era’s standouts. Big-budget music videos reinforced their communal spirit, with demanding mass choreography or jubilant crowds jumping in time to a high-octane chorus. Plus, thanks to the sharpest technology, even amateur singers could pass for good vocalists, and actual singers -- the Gagas and Beyonces of the world -- still integrated spectacle into their shows. In short, image and flash were paramount. Adele -- no colorful costumes, no backup dancers, wait, she just stands there and sings? -- seemed pre-ordained for the adult contemporary convent. So, how did she storm to the top? Well, she bottled heartbreak into 11 masterful tracks that whisked listeners through a wild emotional terrain -- rage, revenge, regret, resolve and release -- without drowning in syrupy lyrics or cheesy production. Sure, the Perry and Spears bops were our friends at the club and every house party, but after a fight on the phone? A lonely Saturday night? Trying to make sense of mixed signals? That was uniquely Adele territory. And so she reaped the rewards. Upon release, 21 debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 with an impressive 351,000 copies sold, ultimately settling into a long-term affair with the top spot: The album weaved in and out of No. 1 eight times, outlasting new projects from Spears, Chris Brown, Gaga and Beyoncé. No surprise, then, when it became the year’s top seller, with over 5 million copies purchased, and effectively carried the industry during an historic down period: For the first time since 2004, total album sales rose from the previous year. Yet even with almighty sales, 21’s singles were more of a shock. Lead offering “Rolling in the Deep,” a blues-dipped scorned lover’s cry punctuated on a booming “we could have had it aaaaalllll,” powered to No. 1 on the Hot 100, but the riskier second single, “Someone Like You,” coronated the new queen. If 21 was a jolt in the pop landscape, Adele performing a piano ballad under a single spotlight at the MTV Video Music Awards -- the most eye-popping three hours of pomp and circumstance on television -- could have incited a riot. And though Beyonce’s pregnancy reveal snatched the show’s headlines, Adele claimed a not-too-shabby consolation prize: “Someone” flew 19-1 on the very next Hot 100. Adele’s annus mirabilis ended on a low note: The singer cancelled the final dates of her tour as she battled a vocal-cord hemorrhage and did not perform publicly for the rest of 2011. But her comeback was the grandest affair: She returned to the stage at the following year’s Grammy Awards without a rousing performance of “Deep” and swept her six nominations, including wins for record, song and album of the year -- proof that she’d taken the industry and rewrote the pop rulebook on her terms. If only for a night, she, at long last, did have it all. Honorable Mentions: Katy Perry (“Firework,” “E.T.,” “Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)”); Lady Gaga (Born This Way, “Born This Way,” “The Edge of Glory”); LMFAO (Sorry For Party Rocking, “Party Rock Anthem,” “Sexy and I Know It”) ROOKIE OF THE YEAR: LANA DEL REY In the year of Adele, another indelible voice rose to prominence as a retro-leaning torch singer -- but the artist formerly known as Lizzy Grant wasn’t made to top the pop charts, exactly. Lana Del Rey’s emergence as a blog sensation in 2011 with the haunting, sweeping ballads “Video Games” and “Born to Die” was a polarizing one, leading to questions about her past identity, her authenticity, even her feminism. But while Del Rey rarely provided easy answers for her fans, the allure of her songwriting, her always-expanding mythology, and her singular distant croon kept them in rapt attention for the remainder of the decade. COMEBACK OF THE YEAR: JENNIFER LOPEZ The charts were Jennifer Lopez’s playground in the early 2000s, as her slick blend of pop, R&B and hip-hop yielded hit after hit. Yet, between a new wave of burgeoning pop and R&B stars and albums that lacked direction and purpose, J. Lo’s chart fortunes waned after 2005. After a label change, she reinvigorated her sound with the first single from 2011’s Love?, “On the Floor,” a bumping, Eurodance and Latin-influenced track that appealed to every corner of the global market. She updated her musical partner, too: Goodbye LL Cool J, hello Pitbull. But her smartest play was banking a deal to judge on the tenth season of TV’s No. 1 program, American Idol, which provided an unparalleled promotion platform. “Floor” remained in the Hot 100’s top 10 in all but one week of the season’s run, and gave the new judge her biggest hit since 2003.
At the turn of the decade, Rihanna was releasing music at a dizzying pace -- one album per year from the November 2009 release of the dark, brooding Rated R, through the November 2012 drop of the EDM-and-reggae-flavored hit machine Unapologetic. That strategy paid off most handsomely in 2012, when she released two new Hot 100 top 10 hits, had a 2011 smash return to No. 1, collaborated with heavy hitters like Drake and Jay-Z, and took a bunch of music writers on a trip around the world. Rihanna opened 2012 with her chart-topping collaboration with Scottish DJ Calvin Harris, the dizzying 2011 smash “We Found Love” -- in which Rihanna became one of the first (and most successful) pop stars to adapt to EDM’s mainstream takeover -- still lingering around the top of the Hot 100. She reasserted herself at No. 1 in late January, and “We Found Love” remained at the chart’s summit for two weeks. The title track from Rihanna’s 2011 album Talk That Talk, a spiky collaboration with her mentor Jay-Z, was released as a single later shortly after, eventually peaking at No. 31 on the Hot 100. In February, Drake released the title track from his monster 2011 album Take Care as a single; the moody, low-lit track sampled the British beatmaster Jamie xx’s rework of Gil Scott-Heron’s “I’ll Take Care of You,” but the real star was Rihanna. The rumors about Drake and Rihanna’s off-mic relationship helped vault the song to No. 7 on the Hot 100; it also peaked at No. 2 on Hot Rap Songs in April, held off from the top spot by another Drake collaboration, his Lil Wayne team-up “The Motto.” Not that Rihanna needed that achievement. By April, she’d won a Grammy for singing the hook on Kanye West’s all-star 2010 single “All of the Lights,” appeared on Coldplay’s Mylo Xyloto mini-epic “Princess of China,” and released a pair of remixes with her ex-boyfriend Chris Brown -- reworks of the raunchy Talk track “Birthday Cake” and Brown’s own “Turn Up the Music” -- to controversy from onlookers. “Where Have You Been,” another house-influenced Harris collaboration, was the last single from Talk That Talk to hit the top 10, but Rihanna’s momentum continued through her rework of the set’s “Cockiness (Love It)” featuring New York MC A$AP Rocky. The new version opened up the 2012 running of MTV’s Video Music Awards -- grabbing headlines for some of the collaborators’ own onstage grabbing -- where the hyperkinetic video for “We Found Love” picked up a video of the year Moonman. Three weeks after the VMAs, Rihanna was back -- and this time, she had a brand-new song. The storming, Sia-penned “Diamonds” showed off the huskier side of Rihanna’s voice, and it opened the #R7 era, with the album that eventually became known as Unapologetic. “Diamonds” reached No. 1 on the Hot 100 on December 1, giving Rihanna an even dozen chart-toppers; Unapologetic debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 a week later. In the run-up to her seventh album’s November 19 release, Rihanna headlined the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show, played Saturday Night Live, and -- perhaps most memorably -- took a planeload of journalists on an around-the-world promotional jaunt, a disastrous and seemingly endless junket, whose negative press somehow only further demonstrated her singular allure. Honorable Mention: Maroon 5 (Overexposed, “Payphone,” “One More Night,”); Taylor Swift (Red, “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together,” “I Knew You Were Trouble”); Adele (“Set Fire to the Rain,” “Skyfall,” sweeping the Grammys) ROOKIE OF THE YEAR: ONE DIRECTION One Direction may have come in third on the 2010 season of The X Factor, but the boy band quintet were first in fans’ hearts in America when they made their U.S. debut two years later. Their peppy debut single “What Makes You Beautiful” debuted at No. 28 on the Hot 100 in February, giving them the highest debut by a British act in over a decade. Up All Night, their first full-length, got a proper US release in March, and they quickly graduated from opening for Big Time Rush to headlining their own Stateside trek. Liam, Louis, Harry, Niall, and Zayn also cleaned up at the 2012 VMAs, winning three awards, including best new artist. COMEBACK OF THE YEAR: MADONNA Leave it to Madonna to announce her return to pop at the year’s biggest televised event -- the Super Bowl. In February, Madonna, with the help of Cirque du Soleil, LMFAO, Cee Lo Green, and recent collaborators Nicki Minaj and M.I.A., headlined the big game’s halftime show. They debuted the Madge-Minaj-Maya collab “Give Me All Your Luvin,” while reworking hits like “Music” and “Express Yourself” and even courting controversy thanks to M.I.A.’s extended middle finger. That segued into the promotion for Madonna’s 12th album MDNA, an EDM-informed pop fantasia that hit No. 1 in April and set the stage for the set’s ensuing 88-date promotional tour.
Miley Cyrus reinvented herself in 2013 -- in large part, because she needed to. Three years earlier, the former Disney Channel star -- best known as the world-conquering kids’ character Hannah Montana -- had attempted to kickstart an adult career with an album titled Can’t Be Tamed, which ditched her early pop-rock for swaggering electro-pop. Cyrus had scored hits prior to this hard pivot to a more mature sound, including 2009’s surprise smash “Party in the U.S.A.,” but Can’t Be Tamed quickly killed her momentum, thanks to a string of singles that failed to touch Top 40 radio, and a persona that felt uninspired alongside edgier new contemporaries like Lady Gaga and Kesha. Cyrus didn’t release music for three years; in the interim, she declined touring Can’t Be Tamed in North America, left her record label, co-starred in a few mediocre films and made headlines for a TMZ video in which she was filmed with a bong. When the 20-year-old Cyrus announced the release of a new single in early 2013, her musical stardom was perceived as an uncertainty at best. Yet that single, “We Can’t Stop,” proved to be more than a resuscitation: co-produced by rap auteur Mike WiLL Made-It and originally intended for Rihanna, the song and its house-party-set music video repainted Cyrus as a twerk-happy firecracker, ready to simultaneously invigorate top 40 radio and provoke conversations about hip-hop culture appropriation. The woozy R&B production and thinly veiled drug references on “We Can’t Stop” effectively left Cyrus’ Hannah Montana days in the rearview, and the song was an immediate hit, peaking at No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100. She topped it with its follow-up, “Wrecking Ball,” which became her first Hot 100 chart-topper; the stirring power ballad led to the No. 1 bow of Bangerz, a grab bag of a pop album with guest spots from Future and Britney Spears, in October 2013. To recap Cyrus’ chart achievements in 2013 would help underscore the success of the former teen star’s comeback bid that year, yet it wouldn’t capture her enormity. Bruno Mars, Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, Katy Perry and Pharrell Williams all enjoyed memorable 2013s, but no artist produced anywhere near as many unforgettable visual moments that year as Cyrus. Of course, there was her infamous twerk-grind and foam finger delinquency alongside Robin Thicke when the chart-topping pair mashed up “We Can’t Stop” and “Blurred Lines” at the 2013 MTV Video Music Awards; in one of the most memorable (and infamous) VMAs performances of the past decade, Cyrus summarily shocked parents who hadn’t been paying attention to her R-rated renaissance. Yet she also used music videos to present her new worldview in must-see fashion, particularly the “Wrecking Ball” music video, which featured Cyrus swinging naked upon the titular object, as well as the “We Can’t Stop” clip, her shock of blonde hair announcing a new era, her tongue wagging throughout the mischief. The Bangerz era was a huge gamble on a new sound and style that could have had the former Hannah Montana fall flat on her face, but instead bestowed Cyrus with her most fruitful commercial run to date, effectively setting up her adult career. Cyrus has since dabbled in psychedelica, country-pop, disco and R&B, to varying degrees of success, always with an admirable sense of confidence and curiosity. Cyrus will continue exploring well into the 2020s, and even if she never tops the Hot 100 again, the way she remolded the zeitgeist to fit her hedonistic pop vision in 2013 will not soon be forgotten. Honorable Mention: Pharrell (Daft Punk’s “Get Lucky,” Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines,” Despicable Me 2 soundtrack); Macklemore & Ryan Lewis (“Thrift Shop,” “Can’t Hold Us,” “Same Love”); Bruno Mars (“When I Was Your Man,” “Treasure,” Moonshine Jungle Tour) ROOKIE OF THE YEAR: LORDE At the beginning of 2013, Ella Yelich-O’Connor was a 16-year-old from Auckland, New Zealand who had just released her debut EP on SoundCloud for free; within 12 months, the world had embraced her bass-heavy alt-pop. The second track on that EP, a sardonic assessment of celebrity fortune titled “Royals,” spent nine weeks atop the Hot 100 chart and would eventually win the song of the year Grammy. Lorde’s meticulous songwriting ensured that she would outgrow her breakthrough hit, as her debut album, 2013’s Pure Heroine, was lauded by critics and contained another top 10 hit in “Team.” COMEBACK OF THE YEAR: DAFT PUNK The French robots of Daft Punk had been long out of service as 2013 rolled around, at least as hitmakers: the duo’s days of dance smashes had given way to an uneven album (2005’s Human After All), an experimental film soundtrack (2010’s Tron: Legacy) and years of silence. Random Access Memories was an expansive mash note to the music that had influenced Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo in the 1970s and 1980s -- in 2014, it became one of the weirdest ever album of the year Grammy winners — but the album was anchored by “Get Lucky,” a disco-funk smash featuring Pharrell Williams and Nile Rodgers, undeniable enough to transcend its EDM-heavy era of existence and effectively play against type. Daft Punk beamed back into our lives for one summer to boogie, and haven’t returned since.
MILEY CYRUS
Pity the music publications who went early on their 2013 year-end albums lists. On Dec. 13 of that year -- late on a Thursday night -- Beyoncé dropped her self-titled, 14-track opus on an unsuspecting Internet, who previously had only faint inklings of a new album even being near completion. The set was brilliant, a stunningly coherent and aggressively modern mélange of styles and collaborators, about which you could poll 10 separate BeyHive members on their favorite song and likely get 10 different answers -- and each track came with its own music video, too. Suddenly, the year’s much-anticipated Daft Punk and Justin Timberlake albums didn’t seem quite so vital. What’s easy to forget now is that as head-smackingly obvious as Beyoncé made Queen Bey’s regality upon its release, her reign was not so unquestioned in the earlier part of the ‘10s. Her 2011 set 4 was well-reviewed, and spawned fan favorites in “Countdown” and “Love on Top,” but had little luck spinning off major hits; while four top 10 Hot 100 hits were pulled from prior set I Am… Sasha Fierce, nothing off 4 even made the top 15. The album ultimately posted Bey’s poorest sales to date, and while a masterful, hit-laden Super Bowl halftime set reinforced her status as one of the 21st century’s canonical pop stars, it also suggested that maybe she was moving into the next phase of her career -- one primarily as a live attraction and legacy artist. Beyoncé took until the next morning to make those suggestions seem ridiculous, and its creator spent essentially the entirety of 2014 rubbing our faces in just how wrong we’d been. “Drunk in Love,” the set’s delirious ode to spontaneous spousal arousal -- featuring hubby Jay-Z, natch -- quickly became the radio hit that 4 failed to produce: After a Grammy-opening performance from the power couple in February, the lead single rocketed to a No. 2 peak on the Hot 100, the biggest hit of the new decade for either artist. And is often the case with Beyoncé hits, the song’s greatest impact was on the general vernacular, making “Surfbort” one of the year’s biggest cultural buzzwords (and fashion statements). The victory lap continued for most of the year, including chart runs for “Partition” (moving the marital sex from the kitchen floor to the limo backseat) and “Flawless,” which later received a Twitter-freezing remix featuring Nicki Minaj. The latter song also served as the linchpin number in Beyoncé’s 16-minute medley performance of nearly the entirety of her self-titled set at that year’s MTV Video Music Awards, an unprecedented amount of stage time and creative freedom afforded to a single artist at the award show. The performance became iconic immediately, particularly for its striking image of Bey performing the Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie-sampling anthem in front of a text background that proclaimed “FEMINIST.” The moment set the stage for pop stars becoming ever bolder and more political in their art for the decade’s remainder, with the previously largely statement-reticent Ms. Carter leading the way. Beyoncé spent the rest of the summer on her massively successful On the Run Tour, co-headlining with Mr. Carter, and closed the year by releasing the Platinum Edition of Beyoncé in November, scoring an extra hit with the frisky bonus cut “7/11” for her troubles. But the artist’s true weight was felt outside of her own catalogue in 2014, where in the larger music industry, the established rules were being entirely reimagined: After a 2013 where pre-album release hype seemed truly interminable, suddenly everyone from U2 to Skrillex to D’Angelo was releasing new albums with little to no warning. The results of those surprise drops varied, but the excitement of new albums potentially coming from seemingly anyone at any time helped raise interest in the LP format in general to its highest point in years. Beyoncé might have caught a lot of the industry with its pants down at the end of 2013, but by the end of 2014, everyone was permanently on alert to expect the unexpected from pop’s biggest stars -- and no one was underestimating the Queen’s place within those ranks again. In fact, a number of publications that missed out on her self-titled album on their 2013 lists ended up ranking it in 2014 instead; after the year she had, it was hard to blame them for fudging their calendars a little. Honorable Mention: Ariana Grande (My Everything, “Problem,” “Break Free”); Katy Perry (“Dark Horse,” “Birthday,” Prismatic World Tour); Nicki Minaj (The Pinkprint, “Anaconda,” “Bang Bang”) ROOKIE OF THE YEAR: IGGY AZALEA Beyoncé may have ruled over the culture in 2014, but the airwaves belonged to one Amethyst Amelia Kelly, better known as Iggy Azalea. The Aussie rapper had spent the early decade percolating in the underground, but despite a big co-sign from label head T.I., had yet to score a major hit -- until “Fancy,” a DJ Mustard-aping banger with a gigantic Charli XCX chorus and a Clueless-recreating video, topped the Hot 100 in June, becoming the Song of the Summer. The hot streak continued for Iggy, through her guest appearance on Ariana Grande’s No. 2 hit “Problem” and her own Rita Ora-featuring, No. 3-peaking follow-up “Black Widow.” But the backlash to the Caucasian rapper’s heavy footprint was beginning -- rap legend Q-Tip decided that she needed a history lesson in December, and by next March she was an SNL punchline. COMEBACK OF THE YEAR: JOHN LEGEND Despite a decade-long career in the mainstream as one of R&B’s most respected and consistently successful singer-songwriters, John Legend had never seen a crossover single even approach the top of the Hot 100. That hardly changed immediately upon the release of beat-less ballad “All of Me” in June of 2013, but the love song gradually took hold of top 40, and by May 2014, it had hit No. 1. The song’s surprise success didn’t belatedly turn John Legend into Usher overnight, but “All of Me” became the best-selling song of 2014 -- and if it hadn’t been for Ed Sheeran, it would have sailed unchallenged to 2020 as the decade’s defining wedding song.
While Taylor Swift had certainly dipped more than a toe into the country-free pop realm with various singles from her 2012 album Red, she was very upfront with her fans regarding the full-on stylistic about-face that awaited them with 2014's 1989. Announcing its release on an August! live stream, she referred to her fifth release as her "first documented, official pop album," working with veterans like Max Martin, Shellback, Ryan Tedder and rising pop- whisperer Jack Antonoff on the synth-heavy 13-track LP. While the "Shake It Off" video, which dropped immediately after the live stream, was met with some mixed critical takes, the public reaction was immediate: "Shake It Off" shot to No. 1 for four non-consecutive weeks, and as the year rounded out, the critically lauded "Blank Space" -- a clever send-up of her public image -- sat comfortably atop the Hot 100, where it would remain for the first two weeks of 2015. Slinky follow-up "Style" became yet another top 10 hit for Swift in her soi-disant pop period, followed by a remix of "Bad Blood" featuring Kendrick Lamar (and a star-studded, explosive video with her friends playing action heroes), which became 1989's third No. 1 in June. By the time the wistful ballad "Wildest Dreams" came out as a single in late summer (eventually hitting the top 10), it was clear Swift's superstardom had reached previously unforeseen heights, expanding her fanbase far beyond the confines of country for good. Not that 1989 was 2015's biggest seller – that honor went to Adele's blockbuster 25, which sold more than double Swift's LP that year. But in terms of ubiquity, influence and presence, 2015 was the Year of Taylor. Her June 2015 open letter to Apple Music changed the international behemoth's attitude toward paying royalties to artists during the three-month trial period (Apple changed its policy immediately after her call-to-action, citing her letter as the reason) and her relationship with DJ/producer Calvin Harris was a source of constant Internet gossip in the latter half of the year. Around that time, she also took over the most-followed on Instagram title from Kim Kardashian -- in addition to cats aplenty, her account boasted a carefully manicured look inside the life of her ascendant squad of singers, models, actors and influencers. Personal life aside, when the year wrapped, the music had the last word, with 1989 winning Swift three Grammys, including album of the year, at the 2016 Grammy Awards -- marking the second time Swift nabbed the honor. The year's 1989 World Tour also became her highest-grossing to date (an honor her Reputation Tour would later shatter) with over $250 million earned worldwide. And while the Swift Squad accompanied her offstage, she trotted out an eclectic assortment of cross-generational guests nearly every night on her tour for a series of one-off covers. Whether it was an expected collab (pals Selena Gomez, Ed Sheeran and Lorde all joined her on separate nights) or confounding match-ups (Fetty Wap, Beck with St. Vincent, and Pitbull were all also trotted out), every surprise appearance guaranteed Swift headlines and massive social media bursts from the fandom. When her 1989 era came to a close and Swift once again returned to the shadows (as much as an internationally-recognizable human can) to live her life and create new art, it was obvious the trepidation that was ever so slightly detectable in her 2014 live stream had been unfounded. Not only did longtime fans happily follow her as she brought the synths that characterized the decade of her birth into her sound full force, but onlookers who would profess to liking “one or two songs” in a radio or karaoke context circa Red were suddenly fully on board -- making her not simply a household name, but a name everyone in your household had something to say about. Honorable Mention: Drake (If You're Reading This It's Too Late, What a Time to Be Alive with Future, "Hotline Bling”); The Weeknd (Beauty Behind the Madness, "Can't Feel My Face," "The Hills"); Adele (25, "Hello," Adele Live in New York City) ROOKIE OF THE YEAR: FETTY WAP Anyone who lived through 2015 might be surprised that Fetty Wap didn't actually top the Hot 100 that year with "Trap Queen." Although it peaked at No. 2, the inescapable trap anthem had everyone from late night hosts to your grandma quoting the "hey what's up hello?" intro, whether they understood what the hell "cooking pies" meant or not. The song’s buoyant beat, earnest delivery and hypnotic chorus ensured “Queen” a long shelf life – it took more than a year to hit the Hot 100, but remained there for 52 weeks. Wap's irresistible personality and knack for pop hookery helped bring follow-ups "679" and "My Way" into the top 10, sent his self-titled debut album to No. 1 on the Billboard 200, and set up Fetty as the year's clear breakout star. COMEBACK OF THE YEAR: JUSTIN BIEBER While it seems like a foregone conclusion in hindsight, when Justin Bieber returned to music in 2015, his success was far from guaranteed: Historically speaking, not a lot of teen heartthrobs keep netting hits into their 20s, particularly those with Bieber's declining image and rep. So it was wise that his own soft return piggybacked off another artist: EDM superduo Jack Ü, with their trendsetting, trop-house-inflected "Where Are Ü Now.” Bieber's decision to continue in the same vein on his solo fare paid off in a big way: The pure-voiced crooner's EDM forays put him at the forefront a burgeoning pop trend, as his own "What Do You Mean" became his first Hot 100 No. 1. The uniformly excellent Purpose would spawn further smashes, confirm Bieber's marketable appeal among adults and relegate "Baby" to a distant memory.
TAYLOR SWIFT
Not all years in pop music are created equal -- sometimes, the stars just align. Here are our picks for the 10 absolute starriest. 10. 2003 Why One of the Best? Beyoncé and Justin Timberlake broke out as solo superstars, 50 Cent debuted and “Hey Ya!” reigned supreme. And Don’t Forget About: Crunk’s turn in the spotlight, thanks to Lil Jon & the East Side Boyz and the Ying Yang Twins crashing the mainstream with the No. 2-peaking “Get Low. “ 9. 2010 Why One of the Best? Katy Perry, Kesha and Rihanna made pop radio exciting again, while Lil Wayne, Drake and Nicki Minaj worked on building the Young Money empire. And Don’t Forget About: Bruno Mars’ introduction to the mainstream, guiding B.o.B (“Nothin’ on You”) and Travie McCoy (“Billionaire”) to heavy rotation with guest hooks, then scoring his first solo No. 1 (“Just the Way You Are”). 8. 1993 Why One of the Best? Grunge and G-Funk’s brightest stars were all at their peaks, as Mariah Carey and Janet Jackson held it down for top 40. And Don’t Forget About: The epic Aerosmith trilogy of Alicia Silverstone-starring, MTV-conquering Get a Grip videos: “Cryin’,”“Amazing” and (the next year) “Crazy.” 7. 1989 Why One of the Best? Just ask Taylor Swift: A year of incredible pop imagination from the likes of Madonna, Paula Abdul, Bobby Brown, and again, Janet Jackson. And Don’t Forget About: The year of Young M.C., both with his own pop-rap breakthrough smash “Bust a Move” and as writer of Tone Loc’s two top 10 hits, “Wild Thing” and “Funky Cold Medina.” 6. 1997 Why One of the Best? The mid-decade’s pop doldrums gave way to Hanson and the Spice Girls, plus the Bad Boy Family took hip-hop to new heights on radio and MTV. And Don’t Forget About: Lilith Fair tour founder Sarah McLachlan, and first-year-performers Jewel, Paula Cole and Fiona Apple -- all singer-songwriters who had huge crossover years in ‘97. 5. 1983 Why One of the Best? MTV officially came into its own, spawning countless new wave stars and aiding Michael Jackson’s rise to historic greatness. And Don’t Forget About: Donna Summer, biggest pop star of the disco ‘70s, scoring her greatest video-era hit with the working woman’s anthem “She Works Hard For the Money.” 4. 2009 Why One of the Best? Lady Gaga, Beyoncé and Justin Bieber reinvented pop superstardom for the YouTube era, and Taylor Swift and Drake prepped for their next decade of dominance. And Don’t Forget About: The year’s two longest-reigning Hot 100 No. 1s both belonging to electro-rap goofballs The Black Eyed Peas (“Boom Boom Pow,” “I Gotta Feeling”) 3. 2016 Why One of the Best? Huge releases from Beyoncé, Kanye West and Rihanna changed the way we think about pop albums in the streaming age, while Drake and Bieber ran radio. And Don’t Forget About: Memes becoming rap kingmakers, with both Rae Sremmurd (“Black Beatles” with Gucci Mane) and Migos (“Bad and Boujee” with Lil Uzi Vert) seeing singles go viral late in the year. 2. 1999 Why One of the Best? The TRL era went supernova, with Britney Spears and Backstreet Boys taking teen pop to a new level, and Eminem and the nu-metal explosion providing valuable counter-programming. And Don’t Forget About: The Latin Pop explosion crashing U.S. shores, with Ricky Martin, Jennifer Lopez, Enrique Iglesias and Marc Anthony all becoming enormous Stateside stars. 1. 1984 Why One of the Best? Michael. Madonna. Prince. Bruce. Tina. Cyndi. Lionel. George. Enough said. And Don’t Forget About: The Cars, Van Halen and ZZ Top: Three ‘70s rock bands who successfully made the transition to MTV and enjoyed their biggest pop year in ‘84.
The 10 Best Years For Modern Pop Stardom
There’s more information at our fingertips than at any point in human history, but it’s still possible to insulate yourself from certain realities. This isn’t a novel observation. You could arrange your life in such a way that you wouldn’t have known that Ed Sheeran’s “Shape of You” was the most successful song of 2017. (My cousin went most of the year hearing snatches of it in cabs and at bars, thinking it was a solid Justin Timberlake record.) Foreground hip-hop -- black music -- read the sites that cover that, stick to the good bars and clubs, turn off your radio (or just listen to the right stations), and you’re pretty much there. (Assuming you have the autonomy to do so -- young people, the ones pop is marketed to most heavily, are oftentimes subject to the whims of whichever world they’ve been born into.) The dominant narratives are, by now, starting to catch up to your worldview -- Sheeran was snubbed at the Grammys -- and anyway, you’ve loved rap your whole life: the Grammys don’t mean s--t. So in that case, who defines 2017? Easy. Kendrick Lamar. The hype leading up to the release of DAMN., the album that confirmed Kendrick as a pop star, is unquenchable. The release of “The Heart Pt. IV” in late March and ensuing speculation about Big Sean subliminals eats up days on the timeline. I worked at Complex during the rollout, and each song and video was an event, a text to be close-read; the release-night coverage of the album was our biggest night in music. Sheeran dominated, statistically speaking, in the most anodyne spaces, but Kendrick’s superstardom felt more impactful than numbers. Why mourn the death of an imagined monoculture, when there was only the appearance of unified areas of interest, everyone tuning in to the same thing? MTV, it should not be forgotten, didn’t play videos from black artists from its launch on August 1, 1981 until March 2, 1983, when it added “Billie Jean” into rotation. And even four years after the network added Run-DMC’s “Rock Box,” in 1984, “the channel programmed less than ten rap videos total,” as Dan Charnas reports in his book The Big Payback. Culture is shaped by executives who have largely been straight white men. The only sensible thing to do when someone approaches you about the monoculture is to go looking for everything that was ignored to manufacture homogeny. If you want to know what you missed while you were streaming “Shape of You,” go talk to the Pulitzer committee. Which, of course, is perhaps just a shell game of swapping one sort of cosign for another. But still.
JUSTIN BIEBER
2016
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Also in 2017...
Ed Sheeran and Kendrick Lamar showed how “monoculture” was relative
In 2015, Justin Bieber admitted that his single “Sorry” was at least “a little bit” about his ex-girlfriend, Selena Gomez. For pop fans who didn’t necessarily care about lyrical nods toward celebrity romance, the dancehall-influenced smash also worked if construed as a general apology for romance-spoiling. Yet “Sorry” worked on a third level that had nothing to do with love: it was the sound of Bieber, a YouTube-bred teen heartthrob, seeking the forgiveness of a young, massive fan base that had watched him personally spiral for years. When Bieber sang “Yeah, I know that I let you down,” he was feasibly addressing millions of Beliebers. Bieber had reason to apologize: After becoming a household name at the beginning of the 2010s, thanks to tween-courting pop tracks like “Baby” and “One Less Lonely Girl,” a steady string of controversies -- a DUI arrest, a vandalism charge, brash threats of retirement, the infamous mop-bucket incident -- had derailed his public image by the end of 2014. “Where Are Ü Now,” a collaboration with the Diplo-Skrillex EDM project Jack Ü, became an unexpected hit in early 2015 for Bieber and pointed him toward a fruitful tropical-pop sound. When he launched his comeback project Purpose later that year, Bieber was searing in his public self-assessments -- “I was close to letting [fame] completely destroy me,” he told Billboard at the time -- and savvy in his selection of collaborators, tapping Skrillex to helm multiple tracks, soon-to-be stars Travis Scott and Halsey to guest, and Ed Sheeran to co-write a change-of-tempo track. Top 40 radio, for its part, was more than ready to re-embrace Bieber. Who doesn’t love a good comeback story? Purpose, released in November 2015, completed that phoenix-like rise for the 21-year-old Bieber and set up a massive 2016 for the reinvigorated pop star. After lead single “What Do You Mean?” became the first Hot 100 chart-topper of Bieber’s career in 2015, its follow-ups, “Sorry” and the Sheeran-assisted “Love Yourself,” followed it to No. 1 the following year. (When “Love Yourself” replaced “Sorry” at the Hot 100 summit in February ‘16, Bieber became just the 12th artist ever to succeed himself at the top). “Love Yourself” represented a new type of achievement for Bieber, as an acoustic kiss-off to an ex with minimal production and nuanced lyrical details. The track topped Billboard’s year-end Hot 100 singles of 2016 list, and earned Bieber a Grammy nomination for song of the year. As 2016 rolled on, Bieber’s imperial phase included a few more top five hits as a featured artist for EDM titans -- first on the Major Lazer track “Cold Water” and then on DJ Snake’s dance anthem “Let Me Love You,” radio smashes driven in large part by his star power. Kicking off in March of that year, his Purpose World Tour -- featuring a rising young rapper named Post Malone as an opener -- played to arenas, then stadiums. Bieber cancelled a handful of shows as the tour sprawled into mid-2017, citing depression and exhaustion; the Purpose trek still brought in over $160 million in 2016 alone. For Bieber, who once again retreated from the music world for a few years after the Purpose era concluded, his dominant 2016 was about more than just a satisfying narrative. “What Do You Mean?,” “Sorry” and “Love Yourself” all topped the Hot 100 because they perfectly married Bieber’s feathery vocal approach and melodic understanding with a strain of combustible electro-pop that proved difficult for even his staunchest haters to resist. Bieber has continued toying with different genres recently, trying on country-pop for the Dan & Shay collaboration “10,000 Hours” and diving into R&B for his long-awaited follow-up LP, 2020’s Changes. He may never fully return to the sound of Purpose, but for one extended run in the middle of the decade, he had effectively apologized, and proceeded to conquer pop. Honorable Mention: Rihanna (ANTI, “Work,” Calvin Harris’ “This Is What You Came For”); Beyoncé (Lemonade, “Formation,” Super Bowl 50 Halftime Show); Drake (Views, “One Dance,” Rihanna’s “Work”) ROOKIE OF THE YEAR: THE CHAINSMOKERS In 2014, The Chainsmokers cameoed in the Hot 100’s top 20 with “#SELFIE,” a jokey bit of bro-pop built around a self-absorbed female clubgoer’s monologue. Alex Pall and Drew Taggart were expected to disappear from the mainstream once that gimmicky single tumbled off the charts, but instead, they became undeniable pop A-listers two years later. As the EDM bubble began to burst, The Chainsmokers wisely slowed down their tempos and leaned into dance-pop melancholy, first with “Roses,” then with “Don’t Let Me Down,” and most memorably with “Closer,” a wistful, push-pull collab with Halsey that topped the Hot 100 for a whopping 12 weeks in 2016. The Chainsmokers had convincingly altered their brand over the course of a few hit singles, ensuring that they would be one of the defining electronic-based artists of the 2010s. COMEBACK OF THE YEAR: MIKE POSNER “I'm just a singer, who already blew his shot,” Mike Posner admits on “I Took a Pill In Ibiza,” “I get along with old timers/ ‘Cause my name's a reminder of a pop song people forgot.” Fair indeed to suggest that in 2016, the general public was not still humming along to “Cooler Than Me,” Posner’s slick 2010 pop radio hit. Six years later, Posner was considered a has-been in his late 20s -- until a remix of the self-lacerating “I Took a Pill In Ibiza” by Norwegian production duo Seeb became the year’s least-likely club slayer, peaking at No. 4 on the Hot 100 and earning a song of the year Grammy nod. Posner hasn’t quite sustained that commercial power, but remains proof that sometimes lightning really can strike twice.
As the 2010s progressed, sensitive dudes with guitars were in increasingly short supply at the mainstream’s highest levels. But by the end of 2016, British singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran had already headlined arenas around the world, sold nearly 20 million albums worldwide, co-written a No. 1 hit for fellow megastar Justin Bieber, and won a pair of Grammys -- all while still mostly looking and sounding like the troubadour who could’ve played your local coffee house last week. And after a year-long hiatus and social media break, the affable bloke that few saw coming as an international superstar managed to take his career to an even bigger -- and practically untouchable -- level, with his massively successful ÷ (Divide) set. Sheeran began his triumphant return by redefining the single release method, making history by dropping two singles at once -- the nostalgic rock jam “Castle on the Hill” and the xylophone-accented, hook-heavy banger “Shape of You” -- that both debuted in the Billboard Hot 100’s top 10 (at No. 6 and No. 1, respectively). “Shape” in particular represented Sheeran’s most dead-center aim at radio thus far -- and was originally written with Rihanna in mind, showing just how natural Sheeran’s drift towards pop had been, while still maintaining his own singer-songwriter identity. It would ultimately become his first No. 1 on the Hot 100 as a performer, reigning for 12 total weeks. Though the impressive chart run was later bested by Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee’s “Despacito” (which had a record-tying 16 week run at No. 1), “Shape of You” served as a reminder that top 40-core pop was still relevant in a year that was otherwise largely dominated by hip-hop. As indicated by the songs that sandwiched and interrupted the “Shape” 12-week run -- Migos and Lil Uzi Vert’s “Bad and Boujee,” Rae Sremmurd and Gucci Mane’s “Black Beatles,” Kendrick Lamar’s “Humble” and Bruno Mars’ “That’s What I Like” -- R&B/hip-hop was 2017’s biggest genre, representing 24.5 percent of all music consumption in the U.S. Yet, “Shape of You” was the most-heard song on radio in 2017, according to Nielsen Music, and broke the record for the longest run in the top 10 of the Hot 100 at 33 weeks. In addition to airwave domination, the “Shape of You” video quickly became a YouTube juggernaut -- the boxing-focused clip reached 1 billion views just 97 days after its February release, a feat that furthered the song’s Hot 100 success and made it even more ubiquitous. (It also dethroned Drake’s “One Dance” that September as the most streamed song in Spotify history, a mark it still holds today with over 2.4 billion spins.) In an age where radio hits and streaming hits were becoming stratified than ever, “Shape” simply ruled across all formats, becoming one of the most unavoidable smashes of the entire decade. While “Shape of You” was the centerpiece of Sheeran’s 2017 domination, ÷ as a whole was no sleeper. Following the album’s March 3 release, all 12 of its tracks debuted on the Hot 100, along with the deluxe cut “Barcelona." The set topped the Billboard 200 for its first two weeks, then remained in the top 20 for the rest of the year. What’s more, it became one of just two albums to sell 1 million copies in the U.S. in 2017, alongside Taylor Swift’s Reputation. Swift and Sheeran’s friendship has been adored by Swifties and Sheerios alike since the two teamed up for Swift’s Red track “Everything Has Changed” in 2012, but Sheeran’s achievements in 2017 proved that he’s not just a peer of the pop princess -- he was her male equivalent. With the explosive response to his third album came an elevation in touring -- not only did he play arenas throughout the world in 2017, but when he came back the next year, it was for an international stadium tour marking his biggest series of shows to date. While fans might have expected Sheeran to scale up his live act to match his new pop success, he instead went the other direction -- playing the biggest venues in the world with nothing but his own guitar for accompaniment, which he would loop to simulate the effect of a full band. Fans didn’t seem to mind the stripped-down setup: Sheeran played to sold-out crowds on the tour from 2018 well into 2019, setting a multitude of touring records in the process. Sheeran closed out 2017 as Nielsen Music’s top artist, also scoring another No. 1 hit -- ÷ wedding ballad “Perfect” topped the Hot 100 for six weeks, starting at the end of the year, thanks in part to a remix featuring Beyonce. While he has showed no signs of slowing down since, Sheeran’s runaway success in 2017 solidified his position in the pop stratosphere, a singer-songwriter who conquered the world with a guitar and a looper pedal. Honorable Mention: Kendrick Lamar (DAMN., “Humble,” “DNA”); Bruno Mars (“That’s What I Like,” “Versace on the Floor,” 24K Magic World Tour); Taylor Swift (Reputation, “Look What You Made Me Do,” “...Ready For It?”) ROOKIE OF THE YEAR: CARDI B As men dominated the charts and the airwaves in 2017, Cardi B didn’t just break through -- she made history. Her brash, empowering debut single “Bodak Yellow” made the Bronx native the second female MC to top the Billboard Hot 100 unassisted, ruling the chart for three weeks straight that October, and turning the social media and reality TV star into a hip-hop household name. She later claimed her own throne as the first female MC to send her first three Hot 100 entries to the top 10, with Migos/Nicki Minaj team-up “Motorsport” and G-Eazy collab “No Limit.” Cardi ended 2017 with a pair of Grammy nods for “Bodak” and follow-up solo single “Bartier Cardi,” which debuted at No. 14 on the Hot 100 and set the stage for a monumental 2018. COMEBACK OF THE YEAR: KESHA In the midst of an emotional, ongoing legal battle with former producer and mentor Dr. Luke, Kesha made a triumphant return to music with the stunning “Praying.” Though the song didn’t quite match the Hot 100 success of her Animal days, the impassioned ballad hit No. 22 and liberated the embattled singer, as she wrote in a letter about the song, “If you feel like someone has wronged you, get rid of that hate, because it will just create more negativity.” The further result of that revelation was the stunning LP Rainbow, which toned down her party-girl persona for a more empowered (but still glitter-drenched) version of the quirky lyricism she established with “Tik Tok” in 2009, landing her second No. 1 on the Billboard 200. While “Praying” was an important moment for Kesha personally, the anthem proved particularly timely in American society, arriving months before the Time’s Up and #MeToo movements took hold in the culture.
ED SHEERAN
BY TAYLOR WEATHERBY
Drake’s generational popularity by the time of 2018 could only be truly grasped through a deep understanding of late-’10s trends, of collapsing genre borders and changing gatekeepers, of social media-driven virality and narrative-building, and of general Millennial anxieties and aspirations. But in a sense, all you need is one number: 29. That’s how many weeks Drake spent at No. 1 on the Hot 100 in 2018 -- not even counting his crucial uncredited appearance on Travis Scott’s chart-topping “Sicko Mode” -- the most for a single year in the chart’s 60-plus history. When you can claim majority ownership of the Hot 100 for a calendar year, chances are you’re just the guy for that year. It was the culmination of a decade in the spotlight for the teen actor turned hip-hop superstar. With the blessing and early guidance of Young Money label paterfamilias/21st-century icon Lil Wayne, Drake broke out at the end of the ‘00s with a blend of puffed-chest hashtag rhyming and melancholy, melodic introspection, often singing and rapping on the same song. His hooks, verses and business sense only sharpened into the thick of the 2010s, and by 2013 he could credibly claim to be “just as famous as my mentor.” In 2016, he was unmistakably the biggest rapper in the world, with both an album (Views) and lead single (“One Dance”) topping the Billboard charts for double-digit weeks -- even though the muted critical and fan reception to each seemed to leave the rapper vulnerable to claims about his slide being imminent. Indeed, what made Drake’s unprecedented level of chart prosperity in 2018 so fascinating is that it happened while, on a slightly more below-the-surface level, his career was thoroughly under siege. A long-simmering feud with veteran street rapper Pusha T and his superstar producer Kanye West reached a breaking point with an escalating trio of volleys between the two rappers -- Pusha’s “Infrared,” Drake’s “Duppy Freestyle” and then Pusha’s “The Story of Adidon.” The last one landed the heaviest blows, most notably unearthing (via its single art) an early photo that the mixed-race Drake had taken in blackface, and revealing that the rapper had fathered the titular child the year before, whose presence he’d not yet announced to the world. The threat to Drake’s credibility felt real, as it had three years earlier, when collaborator Meek Mill -- like Pusha, a respected rapper whose hard-luck hustle and come-up fit the classic hip-hop narrative a lot more neatly than the Canadian-bred, Degrassi-starring Drake -- declared war via ghostwriting accusations. But in 2015, Drake triumphed with volume (in both senses), as he dropped two diss tracks aimed at Meek before he could respond with one, then loudly proclaimed victory at his OVO Fest while his rival was still trying to figure out what had even happened. By 2018, Drake was well-positioned enough in the pop mainstream to just let his stats do the talking. He refrained from directly responding to “Adidon,” and trusted that his commercial momentum was overwhelming enough to weather any blows to his image and rep. He had reason for confidence: “God’s Plan,” released that January, had already reigned for 11 weeks on the Hot 100 with no chorus or major musical hook, while follow-up “Nice For What” -- which had both, plus a star-studded female takeover video -- followed it for seven non-consecutive weeks immediately after. (Even third single “I’m Upset,” which failed to match those commercial heights, provided a valuable diversion when its Degrassi-reuniting video dropped in the weeks following Pusha’s verbal assault.) Ultimately, and unsurprisingly, Drake’s bet was validated. Fifth studio solo album Scorpion was released in June -- a double album, many of whose tracks addressed the Adidon controversy without furthering the tête-à-tête with its progenitor. Those songs still captured headlines and inspired trending topics, but not as many as a new track that had nothing to do with Drake’s son at all: “In My Feelings,” a New Orleans bounce-inspired banger that both sampled and shouted out ascendant Miami duo City Girls, and even invoked Wayne (via his own crossover classic “Lollipop”) as a NoLa patron saint. The dance challenge “Feelings” quickly inspired blew up over social media, the song rocketed to No. 1, and Scorpion made all kinds of chart history while posting the year’s best first-week numbers. By the end of the summer -- which “In My Feelings” owned almost exclusively -- the Pusha feud was again a footnote. The year cemented Drake as finally having reached the same level of commercial invincibility as the giants of the Reagan era. After all, what MTV was to the early ‘80s, social media is to the late ‘10s, and in Drake the moment had officially found its Michael Jackson: one whose videos dominated through memes and gifs rather than TV rotation, one whose albums subsequently racked up historic Spotify play counts instead of unprecedented retail numbers, and one whose dance crazes didn’t even have to be performed by the man himself to become iconic. What’s more, he made it clear to future rap adversaries that he’s now playing by pop rules -- and as his 2018 foe should understand better than anyone, he’ll never be taken down as long as he’s still putting numbers on the boards. Honorable Mention: Ariana Grande (Sweetener, “No Tears Left to Cry,” “Thank U Next”); Cardi B (Invasion of Privacy, “I Like It,” “Finesse (Remix)”); Post Malone (Beerbongs and Bentleys, “Psycho,” “Better Now”) ROOKIE OF THE YEAR: DUA LIPA America took its time with Dua Lipa, the Albanian-English pop singer-songwriter who’d already become massive just about everywhere else by the time “New Rules” started to creep its way up the Hot 100 at the end of 2017. It entered the top 10 in early 2018, thanks to its brain-sticking refrain -- which took a proactive and highly memeable approach to heartbreak -- and viral music video, whose refined choreography and inspired art direction framed Lipa as the star that she really already was. She closed the year as the house diva of choice for Calvin Harris (“One Kiss”) and Diplo/Mark Ronson superduo Silk City (“Electricity”), scoring international hits that made her unavoidable even between album cycles, as true a star sign as any. COMEBACK OF THE YEAR: LIL WAYNE Really, Lil Wayne deserves the title here for the Carter V announcement video alone: a charming mini-tour through his domicile and house studio, in which he announced with a gleaming-as-ever smile that the long awaited fifth installment in his signature LP series was imminent. The hype was instant, and the album delivered: a 23-track set that delighted fans and even impressed critics, featuring Wayne’s most invigorated rapping in years and some of his most personal bars ever. A decade of label drama and disappointment was seemingly washed away in the record’s first week, where it posted nearly half a million in units moved, littered the Hot 100 with new entries, and proved that Dwayne Carter was still very much Weezy F. Baby, and the “F” ain’t for “finished.”
DRAKE
For a while, Ariana Grande did everything by the book. She worked with the biggest and best producers (Babyface, Max Martin) to create radio-friendly singles (she had eight top 10 tracks on the Hot 100 pre-2018) that featured just the right of-the-moment guest stars (Mac Miller, Iggy Azalea, Nicki Minaj) and showcased her superlative voice. But she was stuck in top-tier pop limbo: big enough for an insatiable, powerful army of fans, but not quite big enough to claim ubiquity -- much less coolness. Then she released Sweetener in 2018: the bubbly, optimistic response to both surviving a terrorist attack on her Manchester concert and getting engaged to SNL star Pete Davidson. The shift in her sound from Top 40-oriented pop to eclectic, glitchy (via Pharrell) R&B -- plus the album’s clear message of resilience -- was enough to push her fully into the critical and popular mainstream. But just when Grande seemed on track to finally graduate out of pop princess-dom, she (and the rest of the music world) were hit by another tragedy when Mac Miller, her close friend, collaborator and ex, died from an overdose. She and Davidson split not long after. Despite the fact that she was just a couple months removed from Sweetener, Grande elected to give the people what they wanted -- some reaction to the turmoil in her personal life -- in a form they never expected: a surprise-released, baldly confessional, irresistibly catchy single called “Thank U, Next.” That song, with its bouncy, call-and-response chorus and tabloid-inciting namechecks of Grande’s famous exes, became her first Hot 100 No. 1 that November -- and would still rule that chart when 2019 began. Just because Grande started 2019 at the top of the Hot 100 didn’t necessarily mean she would end the year as its defining pop star. But then she released her tour de force album, also called Thank U, Next -- a project that drove home the fact that she had finally won over both critics and, well, everyone. As Next garnered near-universal critical endorsement, Grande cornered the top 3 spots on the Hot 100 with “7 Rings,” “Break Up With Your Girlfriend, I’m Bored” and “Thank U, Next” -- the first artist to wrangle the top three on the chart simultaneously since The Beatles nearly half a century earlier. In essence, she’d turned lemons into a multi-platinum pitcher of lemonade. Her previously announced Sweetener World Tour expanded from 59 arena dates to 101, mostly sold out to tens of thousands of screaming fans who were then documented on her live album, K, Bye For Now -- released the day after the tour’s late-2019 finale at the Forum in Los Angeles. Grande had grabbed the reins, eschewing the conventional release schedules and promo tours she’d hewn to for most of her career -- instead, she was releasing music more or less as she made it. Finally, the spontaneity and reactiveness that had long been de rigueur in hip-hop was working for a star used to the set schedule of the pop machine. After releasing two big albums in a six-month span, Grande refused to space out singles in a methodical way. Soon after her history-making run at the top of the Hot 100, she started ignoring the albums altogether, in favor of trading verses with 2 Chainz and Lizzo and sharing one-off tracks made with her closest collaborators to boost their careers (Victoria Monet’s “Monopoly” and Social House’s “Boyfriend”). She produced her first soundtrack for the Charlie’s Angels reboot, a star-studded affair that included the minor hit “Don’t Call Me Angel” with Lana Del Rey and Miley Cyrus. Somehow in between all of that, Grande sorted through live tracks for the album after her shows and shared that process with her tireless fans on social media, effectively balancing effortless pop star gloss with the more confessional, real-time pace that medium requires. The K, Bye live album seemed like the cherry on top of a year that Grande had dedicated to showing her work. It hadn’t been enough to simply make good or even great pop songs, to be pretty and charming. So Grande put everything she had on the line, taking personal and musical risks, sharing more of herself than is really fair to expect of anyone -- and it worked. It became impossible to ignore that she was not only a generational vocal talent, but a thoughtful, audacious, vulnerable artist wrapped up in pop star packaging. On K, Bye, you hear her voice soar, and then crack as she cries. It’s mostly exposed, not cloaked in reverb: just one more risk that Grande has the skill to make pay off. Honorable Mention: Post Malone (Hollywood’s Bleeding, “Sunflower,” “Circles”); Billie Eilish (When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?, “Bad Guy,” “Everything I Wanted”); Lizzo (Cuz I Love You, “Truth Hurts,” “Good As Hell”) ROOKIE OF THE YEAR: LIL NAS X It’s always refreshing when, even as increasingly precise analytics and data shape the music industry, something truly surprising happens -- in 2019, that something was the literally unprecedented mainstream success of a country-trap hybrid by a gay, Black artist. No one in 2018 would or could have guessed that a song called “Old Town Road,” comprised of a Nine Inch Nails sample and a truly spectacular hook, would become the longest-running Hot 100 No. 1 of all time. Perhaps most importantly, the song’s ascendance alongside the “yee-haw agenda” proved once again that hand-wringing about what constitutes real country is as futile as any other kind of genre orthodoxy. COMEBACK OF THE YEAR: JONAS BROTHERS The JoBros and their purity rings may have ridden out of the industry almost a decade ago as a punchline, but the potent combination of recent nostalgia and an album of unexpectedly solid jams -- aided by the successful side careers of Nick and Joe -- made their return hit significantly harder than those of most aging boy bands. “Sucker,” the first single the group had released in six years, became their very first Hot 100 No. 1; the album, Happiness Begins, was 2019’s biggest debut until Taylor Swift dropped Lover. The Jonas Brothers may have gotten older, but people’s enthusiasm for bright, fun harmonies and massive pop hooks hasn’t changed a bit.
ARIANA GRANDE
BY NATALIE WEINER
2016 2017 2018 2019 2020
BACK TO START
Americans have a checkered history of dismissing things they don’t understand -- the metric system, universal healthcare, and of course, K-pop. Until the last few years, the colorful world of Korean pop was a genre that was on the periphery of the American pop mainstream, marked by viral-hit outliers like PSY’s “Gangnam Style” and groups like 2NE1 and Girls’ Generation gracing the lower reaches of the Billboard charts. But after half a decade of internationally successful tours, three No. 1 albums on the Billboard 200, and a steadily amassed fan ARMY that includes followers from all over the world, RM, Jin, Suga, J-Hope, Jimin, V and Jungkook -- better known as the world-conquering boy band BTS -- heralded the genre’s true U.S. breakthrough, and became the greatest pop stars of 2020. In February 2020, the septet released their fourth studio album Map of the Soul: 7, led by the electrifying “On.” The album earned the group their fourth No. 1 on the Billboard 200, with critics noting their musical diversity and maturity as songwriters. Despite such acclaim and a strong chart debut, the group remained largely off the U.S. radio airwaves. In a push to win over stateside listeners, the track was accompanied by three stunning visuals, a remixed rendition featuring English-language pop star Sia, and a tour of the hottest tickets on late night TV. “On” became their first entry to land in the top five on the Hot 100, debuting at No. 4. With their international stadium tour slated to kick off in April, things were revving up for BTS to officially take over the U.S. market. But by March, the COVID-19 pandemic had dashed the live hopes for BTS and every other touring artist. While many acts scrambled to pivot, every move of the group’s in the consequent months was made with precision -- securing both financial and cultural gains in the U.S., South Korea, and the rest of the world. With the support of its dedicated fan base, BTS instead dominated in the livestream and virtual space, holding June’s widely successful Bang Bang Con virtual concert (which drew in $19 million) and making a heartfelt commencement speech (delivered in both English and Korean) at Youtube’s Dear Class of 2020, a virtual event for students graduating in the time of COVID. While A-list stars tend to be selective with their appearances, BTS doubled down on performances, as they made rounds at the Billboard Music Awards, the MTV Video Music Awards, and even a more intimate set at NPR’s Tiny Desk -- ultimately maintaining their visibility and social media presence all throughout the year. Beyond the numbers, the group also translated the social consciousness of their music into action by responding to the racial reckoning in America. In June, following the national protests over George Floyd’s killing, BTS donated $1 million to the Black Lives Matter movement. When asked about this decision, Jin recalled how “when we’re abroad or in other situations, we’ve also been subjected to prejudice.” (BTS' rise in US popularity has also persisted despite the alarming rise in discrimination and hate crimes against Asian-Americans in 2020, likely stemming from the rhetoric surrounding COVID-19.) When August rolled around, the group still had a few tricks up their pastel-colored sleeves. Even with their growing list of achievements, BTS remained absent from American pop radio until they released their first ever English-language single, the explosive megapop track “Dynamite.” Dropping the single became the group’s crowning moment in mainstream U.S. music, making its way to radio stations, awards shows, TikTok trends, and the top spot on the Hot 100. The track even grabbed the attention of the Recording Academy, with a Grammy nomination for best pop duo/group performance -- the first-ever Grammy nomination for a K-pop artist, a feat long coveted by the band. By October, BTS’ label Big Hit Entertainment had positioned itself to go public on the Korea Exchange. The label raised the equivalent of $840 million in its initial public offering (IPO) -- making Big Hit founder/co-CEO Bang Si-hyuk a billionaire. On the heels of their first No. 1, BTS notched two more buzzer-beating Hot 100-toppers to round out the year. On Oct. 2, BTS racked up their second No. 1 with their appearance on the remix to Jawsh 685 and Jason Derulo’s “Savage Love,” helping the song catapult from No. 8 to the top spot following the new version’s first week of release. Then, to cap their historic 2020, BTS dropped their fifth studio album Be in November, along with its melancholy, quarantine-appropriate single “Life Goes On.” Both album and single simultaneously debuted at No. 1, on the Billboard 200 and Hot 100, respectively. Impressively, “Life Goes On” became the first primarily Korean No. 1 in the latter chart’s 62-year history (beating the previous No. 2 peak of PSY’s “Gangnam Style” in 2012). It's impossible to ignore that BTS is the first Asian artist to appear on this list alongside undeniable, no-questions-asked English-language superstars. While non-English works of art are often sidelined into “foreign” categories, this level of recognition for a predominantly Korean-language band from Western media -- the group was even named 2020 Entertainer of the Year by TIME -- feels like a changing of the guard at the gates of American top 40. With each milestone and new No. 1 in 2020, BTS made it harder for U.S. audiences to deny not only the group’s own supreme superstardom, but also K-pop’s much-deserved place in mainstream music. And now that we’re finally listening, it pains us to imagine all the potential pop classics we missed out on simply because of the language barrier between us. Honorable Mention: The Weeknd (After Hours, “Blinding Lights,” “In Your Eyes”), Dua Lipa (Future Nostalgia, “Don’t Start Now,” “Break My Heart”), Taylor Swift (Folklore, Evermore, Miss Americana documentary) ROOKIE OF THE YEAR: RODDY RICCH “Stream yummy by justin bieber.” That message, along with a flex emoji, was Compton, CA rapper Roddy Ricch’s tweeted response to the Belieber fan movement -- also promoted by Bieber himself -- to get the pop superstar’s new single to No. 1 on the Hot 100. But Ricch knew that the song then occupying the top spot, his own cinematic blockbuster “The Box,” was likely unmovable; indeed, the captivating, flow-shifting breakthrough smash would end up spending 11 straight weeks atop the chart. He’d add on another seven weeks to that tally in the summer with his guest spot on DaBaby’s “Rockstar,” and spent three additional weeks atop the Billboard 200 with his action-packed debut LP Please Excuse Me For Being Antisocial after it debuted at No. 1 at the end of 2019, proving his solo star power. His response when Selena Gomez’s fans tried to mount a challenge to it for one of those weeks? “Stream rare by selena gomez.” COMEBACK OF THE YEAR: BLACK EYED PEAS “I want to make fantasy, feel-good, people-travel-the-world music,” Black Eyed Peas frontman will.i.am told Billboard of his ambitions in June 2020 -- a time when not a lot of people were traveling the world or feeling good. Still, fantasy has always been a specialty of the pop-rap group, whose commercial peak came with a series of celebratory party jams released in the wake of the ‘08 financial crisis. The world was once again ready for will & co. in 2020, when the reunited group’s globetrotting took them to the world of Latin pop and reggaetón, resulting in their first visits to the Hot 100 since 2011, via collabs with international stars J Balvin (“Ritmo (Bad Boys For Life)”) and Ozuna (“Mamacita”). Their comeback year was capped by a closing set at the MTV Video Music Awards, ending with them playing signature smash “I Gotta Feeling” while a gigantic UFO appeared from above to beam them up; for 2020, it felt about right.
BTS
BY MIA NAZARENO
2020
ILLUSTRATION BY Viktor Miller Gausa
