Billboard Lists
Dance music can often really complex — with all the styles of music that fall under the umbrella term and the countless sounds, artists, fans, parties, opinions and cities that make up the global culture and community we usually just refer to as “the scene.” It’s also quite simple, when one considers that what’s ultimately […]
12/10/2024
Our favorite albums from a year filled with country crossovers, traditional country-tilted albums and projects that highlighted the songwriting talents of both artists and songwriters.
12/10/2024
Cult classic in your eardrums.
Well, that was fast. Wicked has been making box-office history since it opened on Nov. 22. The long-awaited film adaptation of the 2003 Broadway musical has already grossed $372.9 million worldwide, a total topped by only three other films that were based on Broadway musicals.
Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo star in the film, which was directed by Jon M. Chu, whose hit-studded résumé includes a previous film adaptation of a Broadway musical, the 2021 movie version of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s breakout hit In the Heights.
Seven film adaptations of Broadway musicals appear on Box Office Mojo’s list of the top 1,000 films in terms of lifetime worldwide grosses. That counts Mamma Mia!, a film adaptation of the 2001 stage musical built around ABBA music, but not its Cher-featuring sequel Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again, on the grounds that the latter was really just a sequel to a hit movie, not a Broadway musical. (The sequel did astonishingly well, with a worldwide gross of $395.6 million.) Of course, not all sequels are guaranteed to become box-office successes. Grease is here, but its 1982 sequel, Grease 2, which grossed just $15 million worldwide, didn’t come close. (Michelle Pfeiffer, the star of Grease 2, is represented on this list with Hairspray.)
Wicked Part Two is due for release on Nov. 21, 2025. Will it follow its predecessor to box-office glory? If it does, Chu will join Rob Marshall as the only director with two films on this list; Marshall directed both Chicago and Into the Woods.
One disclaimer about this list right at the top: You can’t really compare box-office grosses of films from different eras. The biggest blockbusters of earlier eras simply can’t match the grosses of today’s hits. (It’s not just your imagination that ticket prices are much higher than they used to be.) The Sound of Music has grossed $159.5 million worldwide, according to Box Office Mojo – not enough to make their list of 1,000 top-grossing films. But that 1965 adaptation of the 1959 Broadway musical is one of the biggest hits in film history.
Other film adaptations of Broadway musicals that have grossed more than $50 million worldwide, but not enough to make the list, include Dreamgirls ($155.5 million), the 2021 version of West Side Story ($76 million), My Fair Lady ($72.7 million) and Funny Girl ($52.2 million).
Here are the seven top-grossing film adaptations of Broadway musicals. All appear Box Office Mojo’s list of the top 1,000 films in terms of lifetime worldwide grosses.
Hairspray
Image Credit: ©New Line Cinema/Courtesy Everett Collection
Our 100 favorite songs from a year where pop was really back in full effect.
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Rania Aniftos, Katie Atkinson, Katie Bain, Eric Renner Brown, Anna Chan, Stephen Daw, Kyle Denis, Angel Diaz, James Dinh, Thom Duffy, Josh Glicksman, Paul Grein, Lyndsey Havens, Elias Leight, Jason Lipshutz, Jessica Lynch, Meghan Mahar, Heran Mamo, Taylor Mims, Gail Mitchell, Danielle Pascual, Jessica Roiz, Dan Rys, Michael Saponara, Andrew Unterberger, Christine Werthman, Kristen Wisneski
Holiday music is one area of pop music where being dead isn’t a hindrance. A slight majority of the songs on Billboard’s Holiday 100, which relaunches this week, are by artists who have passed on. (The exact tally is 52 out of 100 – and six of the top 10.)
Several of the artists who provide the soundtrack to holiday specials, parties and trips to the mall have been dead longer than most of the current pop audience has been alive. Bing Crosby, who sang the Oscar-winning “White Christmas” in the 1942 film Holiday Inn, died in 1977. Elvis Presley, who gave us “Blue Christmas” in 1957, also died that year.
Vince Guaraldi, whose music for A Charlie Brown Christmas has been a part of every holiday season since that Peabody-winning TV special first aired in 1965, died in 1976. Judy Garland, whose “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” has made us misty she introduced it in her 1944 film Meet Me in St. Louis, died in 1969. Nat “King” Cole, who introduced “The Christmas Song” in 1946 when he was fronting The King Cole Trio, died in 1965.
Crosby has seven songs on the current Holiday 100, more than any other departed artist. Cole is tied for second place with Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra and Andy Williams, with four songs each.
Holiday music has greatly extended these and many other artists’ era of relevance. Williams’ last non-holiday song to crack the Hot 100 was in 1976. Martin last charted with a non-holiday song in 1969; Crosby in 1957, the year before the inception of the Hot 100.
When it comes to holiday music, whether an artist is alive or dead doesn’t matter very much. In a way, that’s fitting. Family members who are no longer with us are still frequently part of our holiday traditions. You may serve your holiday dinner on your Grandma’s treasured china, or always make your aunt’s special cranberry sauce, or make a point of playing your mom’s favorite Johnny Mathis Christmas album. You may remember these departed family members when you say grace before dinner – or even bother to say grace at all because they would have wanted it that way.
More than any other time of the year, it’s a time for tradition. And music is very much part of those traditions.
Here are all the artists on the current Holiday 100 (dated Dec. 7, 2024) who are no longer with us. They are ranked in order of the current chart position of their highest-charting song, with other charted songs by the same artist grouped with them. Songs by duos and groups are included if the lead singer on that song has died. We also include the departed leaders of two mostly instrumental acts – Guaraldi, the leader of the Vince Guaraldi Trio, and Paul O’Neill, the founder, instrumentalist and composer of Trans-Siberian Orchestra. The year shown in parentheses is the year the song was first released by that artist. (Some were re-recorded by the same artist multiple times.)
George Michael
Our favorite albums from a big year for pop blockbusters.
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Katie Atkinson, Katie Bain, Anna Chan, Hannah Dailey, Stephen Daw, Kyle Denis, Angel Diaz, Frank DiGiacomo, Ingrid Fajardo, Josh Glicksman, Griselda Flores, Quincy Green, Paul Grein, Rylee Johnston, Elias Leight, Jason Lipshutz, Joe Lynch, Meghan Mahar, Heran Mamo, Gail Mitchell, Taylor Mims, Melinda Newman, Jessica Nicholson, Eric Renner Brown, Kristin Robinson, Jessica Roiz, Dan Rys, Michael Saponara, Damien Scott, Andrew Unterberger
Dolly Parton may be the only person surprised that Billboard named the country icon to the No. 1 spot on its list of the 100 Greatest Country Artists of All Time, which rolled out throughout November.
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“I just learned that Billboard Magazine just released their list of greatest country artists of all time, and they have my name sitting at the top! Can you believe that?” Parton exclaimed in a video she made in response to the honor.
Since releasing her 1967 debut album, Hello, I’m Dolly, Parton has scored 25 No. 1s on Billboard’s Country Songs chart, the most among all women, and 49 top 10s on Country Albums, including nine No. 1s, most recently in 2023 with Rockstar. At 78, the much-beloved entertainer and renowned songwriter is still at the top of her game.
From an early age, Parton wanted to make country music. “Now, when I was a little girl, I would sit around the radio and listen to the Grand Ole Opry and hearing all those great big stars like Hank Williams and Kitty Wells and Johnny Cash, I dreamed about what my life could actually become as well,” she continued.
Parton thanked Billboard but saved her biggest thanks for her fans: “Thank you for giving me the opportunity to take my music all around the world and to see all my dreams come true.” Then she concluded by singing a line from one of her most famous songs. See the complete video above.
In determining these rankings for the list, members of the Billboard editorial staff selected their top artists from a list of nearly 200 names spanning the past century. Certain parameters were set, including focusing primarily on mainstream country artists, instead of embracing adjacent genres like Americana or bluegrass
While commercial success was a factor, artistry, longevity and enduring influence counted just as much. Because it’s too early to gauge the long-term impact of many of the newer acts yet, the list leans largely on artists whose place in country music history is already secure. But everyone on the list has in their own way moved the genre forward.
Ever since Ralph Peer held his famous recording sessions in Bristol, Tennessee in the late 1920s with such acts as Ernest Stoneman, Jimmie Rodgers and the Carter Family, country music has uniquely told the story of American life.
Those early country stars and other artists recorded songs that reflected the down-home appeal of rural living, a nostalgia for what seemed to be a simpler past, a lure of a good old-fashioned murder ballad or a longing for an absent love.
The pioneers and trailblazers who brought these songs to the masses through the Grand Ole Opry weekly radio show (which celebrates its 100th anniversary this year) or by traveling the nation’s highways and byways helped establish country music, perhaps more than any other genre, as a storytelling medium.
Billboard looks at the those early, mid-century and 21st-century contemporary country artists who have delivered, and in some cases written, the songs that have made us cry in a tear in our beer –and who have widened the scope of what it means to be a country artist, without every sacrificing the genre’s heart.
In determining these rankings, members of the Billboard editorial staff selected their top artists from a list of nearly 200 names spanning the past century. Certain parameters were set, including focusing primarily on mainstream country artists, instead of embracing adjacent genres like Americana or bluegrass (therefore, no Jason Isbell or Sturgill Simpson).
While commercial success was a factor, artistry, longevity and enduring influence counted just as much. Because it’s too early to gauge the long-term impact of many of the newer acts yet, the list leans largely on artists whose place in country music history is already secure. But everyone on the list has in their own way moved the genre forward.
Lists such as these are always lightning rods for debate — and while our No. 1 choice, which will be revealed Nov. 19, feels pretty unassailable, there are certainly others in the Top 10 who many will feel deserved the top spot. In fact, we had a healthy staff debate over who it would be. That just goes to show the depth and richness of the talent in country music. The list will unfold over the next two weeks in five parts, starting with Nos. 100-76.
100. Brothers Osborne
Image Credit: John Shearer/2021 CMT Awards/Getty Images
Just after POW reached their first anniversary, the rock-inspired K-pop boy band dropped a new EP, Boyfriend, whose lead single title track paid homage to one of the scene’s favorite artists — pop-punk princess Avril Lavigne.
For “Boyfriend,” the quintet reinterpreted Avril’s 2007 single “Girlfriend,” the Canadian superstar’s first No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and one of the year’s biggest tracks. POW kept the original’s stomping production and undeniably catchy chorus intact for the hybrid track with a new mix of Korean and English lyrics.
POW members Jungbin, Yorch, Hyunbin, Dongyeon and Hong tell Billboard that the superstar played a significant role in their musical backgrounds and made a song like “Boyfriend” happen.
“We’ve loved band sounds and Avril Lavigne’s songs were always on our playlist,” the group says. “We think she was the first to show how punk can be so appealing in pop music. We’re grateful she made it possible for us and so we’ve worked hard to release ‘Boyfriend.’”
“For this remake, I listened to all of Lavigne’s albums,” adds POW eldest member Yorch. “I was drawn to her timeless drum sounds and couldn’t get over the rawness and cool beat of the drums. I recently got an electric guitar and she’s opened my eyes to acoustic real sound. And, it’s something K-pop should also look out for.”
When honoring both the sound and aesthetics from Avril’s debut in 2002, the A&R for POW’s record label, GRID Entertainment, saw their work as helping connect K-pop more extensively to music culture today.
“We believe that youth culture is the essence of mainstream K-pop,” a representative from GRID’s A&R says. “Rebellious, grunge-like, and youthful innocence defines K-pop and POW’s music is grounded in real rock and band sounds. It still feels like the 2000s era, a period where analog and digital collide. That is why we find Avril Lavigne’s music relevant, powerful and resonating with people in their teens, 20s, and 30s. It’s her greatest strength and the reason her music inspires us for interpretation.”
From bands like POW, SEVENTEEN and Stray Kids to solo superstars like BoA and former LOONA members Yves and Heejin, here is a collection of K-pop stars who have expressed their admiration for Avril Lavigne.
POW
Image Credit: Courtesy Grid Entertainment