Billboard Staff’s Greatest Pop Stars of 2024: Honorable Mentions

Their Year in Pop: While our favorite Hooligan was mounting massive shows around the world in early 2024, there was little news regarding his post-Silk Sonic musical moves. Then, in August, Mars announced “Die with a Smile,” a country-inflected pop-rock ballad with Lady Gaga, which quickly became an undeniable smash, reaching No. 2 on the Hot 100 and spending eight weeks atop the Billboard Global 200. Nominated for two Grammys (including song of the year), “Die with a Smile” was a winning duet — and in October, Mars would follow it up with another one in “APT.,” a delightfully bratty, Ting Tings-evoking link-up with BLACKPINK solo star ROSÉ, which also reached the Hot 100’s top 10 (No. 8) and spent seven weeks atop the Global 200. The combined success of the two hits helped Mars recapture the solo pop powers he put on the backburner during his Silk Sonic era, expertly setting the tone for whatever he has planned in 2025. 

Why Not Top 10? Few stars have two songs as massive as “Die with a Smile” and “APT.” this year… but when those are your only two musical releases for an entire calendar year, it’s hard to say you’re one of the year’s 10 greatest pop stars.

Their Year in Pop: Drake’s 2024 represented an indisputable downturn for the longtime superstar, but he still reminded the world that his pop stardom is unshakeable. Spillover success from 2023’s For All the Dogs kept Drake a consistent chart presence at the top of the year, as he continued his It’s All A Blur / Big as the What? trek, now one of the highest-grossing hip-hop tours in live events history. Then came Kendrick Lamar’s “Like That” verse; while the Compton MC scored the feud’s biggest commercial wins, the 6ix God still got some licks in, with “Family Matters” (No. 7) reaching the Hot 100’s top 10, and he generally pushed Lamar to new heights throughout. From sidestepping his label, Universal Music Group (UMG), with his unconventional 100 Gigs archive dump to eventually filing two potentially seismic legal actions against them, Drake’s most notable 2024 moves could bring massive change to the music industry as we know it. Meanwhile, all five of the 100 Gigs tracks that eventually made it to streaming landed on the Hot 100, and Drizzy ended the year as Spotify’s most-streamed English-language rapper in the U.S. and globally. 

Why Not Top 10: His resilience is admirable, but that Kung Fu Kenny K.O. was undeniable.  

Their Year in Pop: A lot of big names put in work in 2024, but only one of them can lay claim to three No. 1 albums on the Billboard 200 this year. That would be the legendary rapper born Nayvadius Wilburn, who upped his tally of toppers on the chart to 11 this year with his own Mixtape Pluto, and his pair of Metro Boomin team-ups, We Don’t Trust You and We Still Don’t Trust You. And of course, the first of those two Metro collabs also spawned perhaps the year’s single most consequential hit, the Hot 100-besting and hip-hop civil war-starting “Like That.”

Why Not Top 10: Despite the chart dominance, Future still played more of a key supporting role than a starring one in the year’s biggest stories — after all, it isn’t his “Like That” verse that will likely still be cited by college professors in lectures generations from now.

Their Year In Pop: After GloRilla’s 2022 momentum stalled a little in 2023, everything changed for the rapper this February with the arrival of “Yeah Glo!,” a self-affirming banger that reached No. 28 on the Hot 100 and earned a pair of 2025 Grammy nods. “Yeah Glo!” served as the lead single for Glo’s Ehhthang Ehhthang mixtape, which also housed “Wanna Be” — a hit Megan Thee Stallion collab that gave way to the duo’s arena-packing Hot Girl Summer Tour and two more fiery 2024 teamups. Amid a fiery feature run, GloRilla released “TGIF,” which became her highest-peaking unaccompanied Hot 100 hit (No. 21), got a Rihanna co-sign and began the campaign for Glorious, her star-studded debut studio album, which bowed at No. 5 on the Billboard 200. The set spawned a handful of fast-rising hits, including the Sexyy Red-assisted “Whatchu Know Bout Me” (No. 17), which Taylor Swift used in a BTS TikTok of her Eras Tour. And as if show-stealing BET Awards and VMAs performances weren’t enough, Big Glo closed out the year back in the Hot 100’s top 10 on Tyler, the Creator’s “Sticky.”

Why Not Top 10: GloRilla unequivocally cemented her spot as a leading MC and successfully made the case for her pop stardom, but just one Hot 100 top 10 hit (as a featured artist) means other stars had some higher pop peaks this year.

Their Year in Pop: Despite her 2024 Grammy nomination for best new artist, Gracie Abrams was still more of a cult favorite than a proper pop star when the year started. That changed over the last 12 months, however, as Abrams used her opening slot on Taylor Swift’s globe-conquering Eras Tour as a springboard to pop’s A-list. Her 2024 sophomore set The Secret of Us debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 — and still ranks in the chart’s top 10 nearly half a year later — while increasingly sizeable crossover hits “Close to You,” “I Love You, I’m Sorry” and “That’s So True” made her a fixture on streaming and radio, and a just-announced arena tour for 2025 confirmed she’d graduated to headliner status.

Why Not Top 10: In truth, if we were doing this list in a couple months, she might be; that’s how impressive and how consistent her rise has been in late 2024. But she’s still had a relatively late start here, so she may have a better chance at making the top 10 once we flip the calendar.

Their Year in Pop: After making our top 10 for the first time last year, Karol G kept her momentum going into 2024, as her Mañana Será Bonito World Tour took her to stadiums all through Central America, South America and Europe, and her album of the same name took home her first Grammy in February, for best música urbana album. Meanwhile, she kept the hits rolling, with the star-studded “+57,” the Tiësto-assisted “Contigo,” and most notably, the 21-week Latin Airplay-topping Hot 100 top 40 hit “Si Antes Te Hubiera Conocido” — which even got Taylor Swift and Post Malone up and dancing at this year’s VMAs.

Why Not Top 10: No album in 2024 for Karol, which made this feel a little more like an in-between year for her than one she loomed over the entirety of like 2023.

Their Year in Pop: Morgan Wallen didn’t even release an album in 2024, but you probably wouldn’t have known it from his dominance on the Billboard charts this year. He had four songs as a lead artist that peaked within the Hot 100’s top 40 (including the No. 1 “Love Someone”) and another two as a featured artist (including Post Malone’s Song of the Summer “I Had Some Help”), while also becoming the first artist since the Country Airplay chart’s debut in 1990 to appear on five No. 1 hits on the listing in a calendar year. Meanwhile, his 2023-launched One Night at a Time Tour kept rolling through the year, finally wrapping in October after 87 total dates, and his One Thing at a Time album continues to hang on the fringes of the Billboard 200’s top 10, nearly two years after release.

Why Not Top 10: While Wallen’s music again had massive chart impact, his overall presence in pop culture felt relatively muted — which, in a year packed to the gills with culturally omnipresent superstars (and even some conspicuously ubiquitous country hitmakers), leaves him on the outside looking in.

Their Year in Pop: Billboard‘s Touring Artist of the Year electrified the globe on her first-ever arena trek, taking in nearly $185 million (according to Billboard Boxscore) across almost 100 dates, and proving herself already one of pop’s top live performers at just 21 years old. And after one of the fan favorites from that live show setlist — the previously vinyl-only Guts bonus track “Obsessed” — was released as one of the half-dozen added cuts to her (Spilled) deluxe edition of the sophomore set, it became her latest hit single, peaking at No. 14 on the Hot 100 and helping Guts return to No. 2 on the Billboard 200.

Why Not Top 10: Outside of “Obsessed,” Rodrigo didn’t have a ton of new music making a pop impact this year, and while she was busy with the Guts World Tour, other 2024 superstars were generally a little more present in the headlines.

Their Year in Pop: The buzz from Tate McRae’s late-2023 breakout hit “Greedy” was still building into early 2024, as the pop smash reached a new peak of No. 3 on the Hot 100 in January. That was followed later in the year by a world tour (which saw her make her Madison Square Garden headliner debut), a Britney-referencing VMAs appearance, and a pair of new top 40 hits: “It’s OK I’m OK” and “2 Hands,” both of which also came with well-received music videos. It all helped further establish McRae as a pop star for old-school pop fans, as capable of creating memorable looks, striking choreography and generally big moments as she is major top 40 hits.

Why Not Top 10: Despite peaking this year, “Greedy” still feels like it belonged a little more to 2023, and McRae has yet to quite equal that song’s ubiquity with her subsequent releases — though with a new album scheduled for February (and another world tour starting the next month), she certainly seems like a strong bet for 2025.

Their Year in Pop: After headlining Coachella for the first time in April, Tyler, the Creator waited until both late in the calendar and late in the week to make his grand return for 2024 — but when he did, it was with ear(f)quake-sized force. Chromakopia appeared on a Monday morning in late October, already halfway through the chart tracking week, but still moved nearly 300k units in its first week — a career-best number, and best for any hip-hop album in 2024 to that point — and ultimately topped the Billboard 200 for three weeks, while drawing some of the strongest reviews for any album this year.

Why Not Top 10: Before, after and in between the big events of his 2024, Tyler was a little absent on the pop scene — and while he’s got the biggest rap radio single of his career in the hitmaker-loaded “Sticky” (also featuring Sexyy Red, Lil Wayne and fellow 2024 GPS HM GloRilla), he still hasn’t scored that no-doubt crossover smash to make him totally unavoidable to pop fans.