Greatest Pop Stars of 2022
For this year’s update of our ongoing Greatest Pop Star by Year project, Billboard is counting down our staff picks for the top 10 pop stars of 2022 all this week. At No. 1, we remember the year in Bad Bunny — who made the jump from being the world’s greatest Latin pop star to simply the world’s greatest pop star.
In the summer of 2021, Billboard talked to Bad Bunny about him producing Tommy Torres’ new album, El Playlist de Anoche – his first run at producing an album outside the urbano realm. “Everything in life is a risk,” he said then. “I made this album because I wanted to do it and because it fulfilled me.” If there’s one that’s clear about the Puerto Rican chart-topping artist, it’s that any project he works on, he does it for those two reasons — which allows him to deliver genuine projects that connect with countless millions of fans across the globe.
Billboard’s Greatest Pop Stars of 2022:Introduction & Honorable Mentions | Rookie of the Year: Steve Lacy | Comeback of the Year: Sam Smith | No. 10: Nicki Minaj | No. 9: Future | No. 8: Jack Harlow | No. 7: Doja Cat | No. 6: Lizzo | No. 5: Drake | No. 4: Beyoncé | No. 3: Taylor Swift | No. 2: Harry Styles
Benito Antonio Ocasio Martínez, or in his own words, “Benito Martínez el más hijueputa (the biggest motherf–ker),” has proven to be a force to be reckoned with — and, in a matter of two years, has unsubtly transitioned from Latin star to global superstar, penetrating the mainstream in a way that no other Latin artist has. Just last year, Bad Bunny was No. 10 on our Greatest Pop Stars of 2021 list. This year, he’s unequivocally No. 1.
Statistically both Billboard’s Top Artist of the Year and (for a third consecutive year) Spotify’s most streamed artist globally, El Conejo Malo been on a wild ride since he made his grand return to the stage with El Último Tour del Mundo at the top of 2022, winding his way to the spring release of his blockbuster album Un Verano Sin Ti — which catapulted Bunny to unprecedented heights, on and off the charts.
By 2022, Bad Bunny’s success was already an anomaly. Between 2020 and 2021, he had released three consecutive Top Latin Albums-topping sets (YHLQMDLG, Las Que No Iban a Salir and El Último Tour del Mundo), had a WWE sting during a tag-team match against The Miz and John Morrison at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, and produced that album for Torres — which landed the veteran singer-songwriter his first top 10 entry on Top Latin Albums in nearly a decade. He’d also announced an ambitious tour for 2022, which would mark his grand return to live touring since the pandemic. “POR FIN!!! ESTÁN LISTOS??? (Finally! Are you all ready?),” he captioned the announcement on social media.
Boy, were they ready. After becoming the fastest-selling trek since 2018, with 480,000 tickets sold in less than a week, Bad Bunny finally kicked off his El Último Tour del Mundo stint in the U.S. in February, marking the start of a blockbuster year for the artist. With El Último Tour, Bunny embarked on his biggest stage tour yet, earning $116.8 million in North American arenas, according to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore. It then became the highest grossing Latin tour in Boxscore history, breaking local records in more than half of the markets where he played. (It’s worth noting that even before he began the U.S arena tour, in January, he announced an ambitious 29-date stadium tour that would kick off in the summer, following El Último Tour.)
It made sense that he’d tour again. When Bunny revealed plans for a second trek, he also announced he was releasing a new album. The new set would be a follow up to 2020’s El Último Tour del Mundo, which earned him his first No. 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart, marking the first all-Spanish-language album to reach No. 1 in the then-64-year history of the all-genre chart. Could Bad Bunny best his last album? Probably, given his career-long upward trending. But no one was expecting that Un Verano Sin Ti, which was released in May, would rewrite records broken not just by a Latin artist, but by any artist in general.
Un Verano Sin Ti debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 (dated May 21), earning 274,000 equivalent album units in the U.S., according to Luminate. And with 356.66 million on-demand official streams for the set’s songs in its first week, the album registered the largest streaming week ever for a Latin music album. Verano – which spent 13 nonconsecutive weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 – also placed 22 songs from the set on the May 21-dated Billboard Hot 100, the most in a week for a core Latin music artist and the most in a week performed all in Spanish.
There’s no one reason for the unprecedented success of this particular album, but there are many contributing factors. For one, Latin music market share has been on the rise for some five years now after “Despacito” opened the floodgates for a wave of Spanish-language songs to become global. And, for the first time ever, Latin music expected to reach billion dollars in revenues by year-end in the U.S., according to the RIAA. Its 23% increase is outpacing overall market growth.
Then there’s the obvious. Bad Bunny’s Un Verano Sin Ti is packed with back-to-back hits that, sonically, all sound completely different (from dembow to mambo and alt-rock). He’s completely deviated from the traditional to innovate, pushing all popular music forward and expanding pop in a way few major artists are right now. There weren’t just one or two singles that were being pushed from Verano — rather, the entire album was being streamed on repeat. Everyone had a different answer when asked which song was their favorite from the set, because there’s a song that just about everyone can relate to – which helps explain why a stunning 11 of the tracks stuck on the Hot 100 for double-digit weeks.
Within a few months, Verano had grown into easily the biggest non-English-language album of the century — without Bunny having to record in English or do a major non-Latin collaboration – and in early August, he expanded his multi-platform stardom with his first major film role, as an assassin in the Brad Pitt-starring action-comedy Bullet Train. But despite being intended as a summer album, UVST’s dominance carried over to Fall — thanks to Bunny’s stadium tour, which kicked off with three sold-out performances at El Choli in his beloved Puerto Rico in July.
The U.S. leg officially opened in August, with shows that began very much on brand for the album: a seagull call filled the stadium; Bad Bunny appeared sitting on a beach chair with a neverita (cooler) next to him. His UVST vision literally came to life in every show. Later that month, his Yankee Stadium performance was beamed into the VMAs, with the superstar stealing the awards show without even attending. “I always knew that I could become a huge artist without changing my culture,” he said while accepting the artist of the year award — the first Latin act to win that category.
His second tour of 2022 doubled the gross of his prior record-breaking trek: The World’s Hottest Tour grossed $232.5 million and sold 944,000 tickets from just 21 shows in the U.S. The combination of El Ultimo Tour Del Mundo & World’s Hottest Tour landed him at the top of Billboard‘s annual Boxscore recaps. Moreover, Un Verano Sin Ti became the first non-English album to ever top the year-end Billboard 200 albums ranking, and tied Drake’s Views and Disney’s Frozen soundtrack for the most weeks at No. 1 on the chart in the last decade. In November, it also earned the first ever nomination for album of the year at the Grammys for an all-Spanish release, one of three nods Bad Bunny garnered for the 2023 ceremonies.
Bad Bunny wasn’t the only artist who dominated this year. There were Harry Styles and Taylor Swift, too, and many other stars who had stellar years with new album releases. But while those artists had years that felt momentous, Bunny’s was truly historic — capturing the zeitgeist not just of Latin music, but for all of global pop.
For this year’s update of our ongoing Greatest Pop Star by Year project, Billboard is counting down our staff picks for the top 10 pop stars of 2022 all this week. At No. 2, we remember the year in Harry Styles — who had a 2022 for the ages, with one of the biggest albums, one of the biggest songs and one of the biggest tours of the year.
Coming into 2022, Harry Styles already ranked among the biggest pop stars in the world. He was fresh off a successful Love on Tour stint in support of his Billboard 200 chart-topping sophomore album, Fine Line, which got him three Grammy nominations and his first-ever win for best pop solo performance (for his first Billboard Hot 100 chart-topper, the breezy “Watermelon Sugar”). While the first two years of his 2020s were hard to top, it turned out to be only the beginning for Styles – who, over the course of 2022, completely let go of any shallow stereotypes surrounding a former boy band member and solidified his supremacy in the pop world.
Billboard’s Greatest Pop Stars of 2022:Introduction & Honorable Mentions | Rookie of the Year: Steve Lacy | Comeback of the Year: Sam Smith | No. 10: Nicki Minaj | No. 9: Future | No. 8: Jack Harlow | No. 7: Doja Cat | No. 6: Lizzo | No. 5: Drake | No. 4: Beyoncé | No. 3: Taylor Swift
Styles kept the wheels turning almost immediately into 2022. In March, he announced that his third studio album, Harry’s House, was on the way — and dropped his wildly popular lead single, “As It Was,” which quickly set the record for the most streamed track on Spotify in 24 hours among male artists and became his first single to debut atop the Hot 100. Beyond its streaming and charts feats, “As It Was” represented a new chapter for Styles, with intimate, wistful lyrics bursting over indie-pop synths. It introduced fans to a more mature side of the star, and brought in new listeners from all demographics who might not have given his music a chance before.
Styles was inescapable throughout the spring, due to “As It Was” dominating radio and TikTok, and his somewhat unexpected promotional campaign for the upcoming Harry’s House — including a Better Homes and Gardens cover. In April, the 28-year-old headlined Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, validating his superstar status in furry coats and sequins, with assistance from guest appearances by Shania Twain and Lizzo.
The singer, however, stayed true to his humble self throughout the wins. “Finally, it doesn’t feel like my life is over if this album isn’t a commercial success,” he told Better Homes and Gardens. “I just want to make stuff that is right, that is fun, in terms of the process, that I can be proud of for a long time, that my friends can be proud of, that my family can be proud of, that my kids will be proud of one day.”
He had reason to be proud when Harry’s House dropped on May 20, as the album separated itself from his two previous albums and won the hearts of critics with its experimental pop nature, from playing with bustling horn sections on “Music for a Sushi Restaurant” to groovy and hooky funk on “Late Night Talking” and vintage, Beatlesque guitar riffs on “Grapejuice.” The release was complete with a one-night-only celebratory show at UBS Arena in New York, where he performed the new album in its entirety. “Over the past however many years of my life, you’ve changed it over and over again,” he told the crowd at the show, maintaining his characteristic graciousness. “I’m so grateful for every single one of you here and every single one of you that’s not here. Thank you all so, so, so much.”
The hype leading up to the album’s release soon manifested into staggering numbers, as it spent two weeks atop the Billboard 200. In its debut week, the album earned a whopping 521,500 equivalent album units earned in the U.S., the largest week of 2022 for any album at the time. Even the vinyl edition of the album sold over 146,000 copies in the U.S. through May 22, according to initial reports to Luminate — breaking the modern-era record for the largest sales week for a vinyl album in the U.S. The album also went on to develop some more radio hits with songs like “Music for a Sushi Restaurant” and “Late Night Talking,” though nothing quite reached the same level as “As It Was,” which spent 15 nonconsecutive weeks at the Hot 100 summit and topped Billboard‘s 2022 Songs of the Summer chart.
And after all that, Styles still wasn’t done. While dominating the music world, the star dipped his toes into film, playing a gay police officer in My Policeman and co-starring with Florence Pugh in Don’t Worry Darling, directed by Styles’ then-girlfriend Olivia Wilde. The film’s promo was embroiled with backstage drama, starting with rumors about Shia LaBoeuf getting fired from (or quitting?) the lead role, and Wilde’s subsequent feud with Pugh amid the director’s romantic fling with Styles. The highly publicized promo tour was equally rife with controversy, including Pugh’s noticeable absence, and a much-analyzed moment in which Styles appeared to spit on his co-star, Chris Pine. The messiness seemed to be driving the film into a major disaster zone — but Don’t Worry Darling was a hit, topping the U.S. box office and earning a global total of $78 million, proving that there’s no such thing as bad publicity when it revolves around Styles.
Not surprisingly, Styles wrapped up 2022 even better than his already jaw-dropping 2021, with a whopping six Grammy nominations – including album, song and record of the year. The achievement marks a rare accomplishment from a former boy band member, as alums of male pop groups are rarely afforded that level of grown-up respect in the music industry. However, Styles separated himself not only from association from One Direction in 2022, but also from most of his hitmaking peers, making himself into simply one of the greatest male pop stars of his generation.
For this year’s update of our ongoing Greatest Pop Star by Year project, Billboard is counting down our staff picks for the top 10 pop stars of 2022 all this week. At No. 3, we remember the year in Taylor Swift — who got started a little late in the calendar, but certainly didn’t need long to make up for lost time.
After back-to-back years of releasing two full-length projects, Taylor Swift began 2022 on a relatively low-key note – well, as low-key as things can ever be for a global superstar still at the peak of her powers, at least.
There was the out-of-nowhere feud with the frontman of Blur and Gorillaz (yes, Damon, she really writes her own music), the first of two college courses announced in her honor (one at NYU, the next at Texas), a nostalgic reunion with one of her musical besties (Ed Sheeran’s “The Joker & The Queen” remix) – and let’s not forget the Virginia Tech scientists who cemented their Swiftie status in April by naming a new species of millipede “Nannaria Swiftae.” In May, the singer/songwriter emerged to make her biggest public appearance of the year so far to give the NYU commencement address, urging the Class of 2022 to hold on to their enthusiasm, coolness be damned. “Never be ashamed of trying,” she said in the 20-minute pep talk. “Effortlessness is a myth.”
Billboard’s Greatest Pop Stars of 2022:Introduction & Honorable Mentions | Rookie of the Year: Steve Lacy | Comeback of the Year: Sam Smith | No. 10: Nicki Minaj | No. 9: Future | No. 8: Jack Harlow | No. 7: Doja Cat | No. 6: Lizzo | No. 5: Drake | No. 4: Beyoncé
Things started to pick up in the Swift cycle in the late spring/early summer, when the pop auteur continued to make strides in the film and TV worlds, including three new soundtrack moments: “This Love (Taylor’s Version)” was re-recorded for Netflix’s teen drama series The Summer I Turned Pretty, the woodsy “Carolina” was written specifically for the book-to-big-screen adaptation of Where the Crawdads Sing, and “Bad Blood (Taylor’s Version)” was brought out of the kennel for DC League of Super-Pets. She also kicked off a still-ongoing film-festival circuit, promoting her self-directed All Too Well: The Short Film at June’s Tribeca Film Festival.
So now that we’ve reviewed the first eight months of our reigning 2021 Greatest Pop Star, forget everything you just learned about Taylor’s 2022 — because the Swift Calendar Year didn’t truly begin until Aug. 28. That’s when she hit the MTV Video Music Awards – a stage where she’s made more than a few headlines over her 16-year career – to not only collect the evening’s highest honor, but also to announce that she had a brand-new album called Midnights coming in October. All year, fans had been speculating about which of her Big Machine releases she’d re-record next (all signs pointed to either 2010’s Speak Now or 2014’s 1989 as the likely contenders), never stopping to think that they might get a whole new album instead.
Thus began Swift’s master class in modern-day album promotion, during which she set out to hit every corner of the music-buying public. There were the TikTok song-title reveals that kicked off on Sept. 21; then Midnights lyrics popped up on billboards from New York to London to Sao Paolo, Brazil, starting Oct. 17; and on Oct. 18, she began unveiling five things “that kept me up at night and helped inspire the Midnights album” via Spotify, also in daily doses. But if you’re not on TikTok or Spotify and missed the global billboards, do you watch football? Because Swift’s final pre-release push was an album teaser that premiered during Thursday Night Football, hours ahead of the album’s arrival.
With all of these teasers and previews, there was one thing that wasn’t revealed ahead of midnight on Oct 21: any music. Despite almost two months of lead time, no lead singles or music videos were released — which only bolstered the intrigue surrounding the album. Would it be stripped-down and understated like her most recent original albums, 2020’s folklore and evermore? Would it channel the adrenaline-rush pop of the trio of projects before that, 2019’s Lover, 2017’s reputation and 2014’s 1989? Or would Swift be newly inspired by revisiting the young country songwriter behind 2008’s Fearless and 2012’s Red for her pair of 2021 re-recordings?
The answer was really all of the above. You could recognize bits and pieces from all of Swift’s eras throughout the project, with songs that are alternately dreamy (“Snow on the Beach” with Lana del Rey, “Sweet Nothing” written with boyfriend Joe Alwyn), dancey (the shiny “Anti-Hero” and “Bejeweled”), and razor-sharp (“Vigilante Shit”). A lot of the familiarity could be attributed to the omnipresence of Jack Antonoff, who’d worked with Swift since 1989 and was the lone co-producer credited on the 13 songs. In the headline for its review, The New York Times said Swift was “caught between yesterday and tomorrow” on the album, but it feels more apt to look at Midnights like a massive snowball that has all of Taylor’s previous albums rolled up inside it, while still glistening and new on the outside.
And to keep that snowball rolling, only three hours after the standard album’s release, Swift surprised fans with the expanded 20-song 3am Edition, this time teaming up with her other go-to producer, Aaron Dessner, for six of the seven songs. Fans who had already had time to listen to the 44-minute original at least four times since midnight were thrilled to have even more lyrics to decode and soundscapes to live in – including the buzziest bonus track “Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve,” which fans speculated was about her brief relationship with John Mayer and their 13-year age gap. Five hours after that, Swifties had yet another new release to devour: The “Anti-Hero” video – the first of many Midnights Music Movies promised in the Thursday Night Football teaser – dropped at 8 a.m. ET on Oct. 21 and features the pop star attending her own funeral, with Mike Birbiglia, John Early and Mary Elizabeth Ellis playing her adult children. That wasn’t the only release-week music video either: On Oct. 24, the appropriately blingy clip for “Bejeweled” arrived, co-starring Laura Dern and Haim as the wicked stepmother and stepsisters in Swift’s very own Cinderella story.
While all of this is a lot, even by Swift’s overachieving standards, the full-court press paid off in spades when Midnights scored the largest week for any album since Adele’s 25 in 2015, moving 1.578 million equivalent album units in its debut frame, and the biggest sales week since Taylor’s own reputation in 2017, with 1.14 million in traditional album sales. The blockbuster easily conquered the Billboard 200, and over on the Billboard Hot 100, Swift became the first artist in history to hold all top 10 slots, led by the chart-topping “Anti-Hero”; in addition, all 20 songs from the project hit the tally.
In the month-plus since Midnights’ release, Swift has continued to fend off some pretty fierce competition on the chart, with the catchphrase-spawning “Anti-Hero” besting new music from both Rihanna and Drake to hold strong at No. 1 on the Hot 100 for six weeks – only falling to Mariah Carey’s perennial Christmas chart-topper this week. In the early frames, she got a sales boost from a series of “Anti-Hero” remixes, including one featuring Antonoff’s band Bleachers. (Drake seemingly took notice of his Republic labelmate’s aggressive strategy, covering up Swift’s No. 1 slot with emojis when he re-posted the Hot 100 top 10 the week that Her Loss, his joint album with 21 Savage, hit the chart.)
While this year has been another monumental one for Swift, 2023 is shaping up to be even more massive, with the Nov. 1 announcement of the Eras Tour, her first proper trek in nearly five years, which is setting out to encapsulate all the material she’s released in the past decade and a half. The overwhelming demand to be at one of Taylor’s 52 shows just about broke Ticketmaster (in both the immediate and long-term senses), which is currently being sued by disgruntled Swifties locked out of the ticket-buying process and was even taken to task by Swift herself. “It’s truly amazing that 2.4 million people got tickets, but it really pisses me off that a lot of them feel like they went through several bear attacks to get them,” she said in an Instagram statement on Nov. 18. Following her crusades to get better pay for artists from Apple Music and grant ownership of master recordings to musicians, perhaps reforming Ticketmaster can be Swift’s next pet project.
In addition to her tour and whatever Taylor’s Versions that may await her, Swift has several major awards shows to attend next year too. After being the top winner at the 2022 American Music Awards, MTV EMAs and People’s Choice Awards – and being named songwriter-artist of the decade at the Nashville Songwriter Awards – Swift has a shot at winning her first Golden Globe in January (original song for “Carolina”) and could nab four more Grammys in February to add to her 11, including one Big Four possibility: song of the year for “All Too Well (10 Minute Version) (The Short Film).” Then there’s her new side hustle as a filmmaker: After getting a taste of directing with her music videos and All Too Well (The Short Film), Swift is set to make her directorial debut with an unnamed Searchlight Pictures production for which she wrote the original script.
Given Swift’s staggering accomplishments in 2022, it might be hard to believe that she doesn’t repeat as Billboard’s Greatest Pop Star this year — but the wildest part is just how much of her year was piled into these past few months. Looking at what’s on the horizon, it looks like she’s ready to snatch the crown right back in 2023. Remember what she told those college kids: “Never be ashamed of trying.”
For this year’s update of our ongoing Greatest Pop Star by Year project, Billboard is counting down our staff picks for the top 10 pop stars of 2022 all this week. At No. 6, we remember the year in Lizzo — who once again used a runaway viral smash as a springboard to total pop cultural ubiquity.
The year 2022 was not just a ‘Special’ one for Lizzo – it was the year she proved that she could navigate and command the pop landscape alongside splashy newcomers and veterans alike.
Three years removed from her seismic breakthrough with Cuz I Love You, Lizzo had entered the new decade unproven as a major force in pop music. In 2021, she unveiled “Rumors,” a Cardi B-assisted standalone single that debuted at No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 and fizzled out too quickly to really maintain the excitement from her previous hit singles “Truth Hurts” and “Good as Hell.” But the brief silence that followed would eventually give way to a year that yielded Lizzo the fastest-moving and highest-charting album of her career — while she expanded her reach in different fields of entertainment and cultivated a coherent and powerful public image to complement her pop stardom.
Billboard’s Greatest Pop Stars of 2022:Introduction & Honorable Mentions | Rookie of the Year: Steve Lacy | Comeback of the Year: Sam Smith | No. 10: Nicki Minaj | No. 9: Future | No. 8: Jack Harlow | No. 7: Doja Cat
When Lizzo reemerged in 2022, she chose television, not music, as her entry point. Lizzo’s Watch Out for the Big Grrrls, an unscripted reality competition series chronicling the journey to becoming one of Lizzo’s dancers, debuted on Amazon Prime — her first project under her production deal with Amazon Studios. Lizzo smartly used the launch of the show, which was met with a generally positive critical reception, to launch her proper return to the music scene. A day before Watch Out for the Big Grrrls went live, Lizzo announced the release date for “About Damn Time.”
The following week, in a move straight from the playbook of pop titans past and present, Lizzo previewed yet another venture: This time, she was entering the world of shapewear with Yitty, her collaboration with Fabletics. Through a series of smartly sequenced announcements and releases, Lizzo reemerged as a full-fledged pop star — one whose brand permeated different industries and yielded successful returns in each.
By April, Lizzo fixed her attention squarely on music. “About Damn Time,” an uplifting disco-tinged anthem of affirmation, was released on April 15, alongside the announcement of its parent album, Special. With a quiet debut at No. 50, “About Damn Time” got off to a much slower start on the Hot 100 than “Rumors.” Nonetheless, Lizzo used the familiarity and bottled momentum she accrued on TikTok in 2020 to inform her aggressive promotion of the song on the platform. Thanks largely to added exposure from a dance trend created by TikTok personality Jaeden Gomez, “About Damn Time” reached the Hot 100’s top 10 in its fourth week.
In a move that shifted Lizzo’s promotional approach from that of a mid-level pop star to one that more closely mirrored a superstar’s, she tapped into how the song connected with audiences on an emotional and political level. Obviously, “About Damn Time” made people feel good, hence the cute dances that Lizzo would often stitch and repost on her official TikTok page. But she also knew that the song would make people feel empowered: In an April 8 TikTok, Lizzo used a snippet of “About Damn Time” to celebrate Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s historic appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court. During her performance of the song at the 2022 BET Awards, Lizzo proclaimed, “It’s about damn time we stand in our power. Black people, my people.” This combination of marketing savvy and innate ability to make music that can mean different things to different audiences at different times resulted in “About Damn Time” becoming both Lizzo’s second Hot 100-topper in late July, and ultimately one of the defining hits of 2022.
When “About Damn Time” reached the pole position on the Hot 100, its parent album, Special, zoomed to a No. 2 finish on the Billboard 200. Although the set earned a less rapturous reception than its predecessor, Special earned the best first week of Lizzo’s career so far, with 69,000 units moved. Special debuted alongside “Lizzoverse,” a Twitch-streamed cosmic light show extravaganza that found Lizzo tapping into yet another media platform to expand the reach of her music and brand.
Although Special was blocked from the top of the Billboard 200 by Bad Bunny’s monstrous Un Verano Sin Ti, the album’s strong performance proved that Lizzo had built herself a legion of fans that were guaranteed to show up for her, regardless of whether her albums were packed with buzzy guest artists. Special also spawned one more minor hit in “2 B Loved (Am I Ready),” which Lizzo spotlighted in a characteristically impressive performance in a medley with “Time” at the MTV Video Music Awards in August. Outside of hit singles, the Special campaign showed how deftly Lizzo could maneuver controversy after, she humbly changed a lyric in “Grrrls,” one of the set’s promotional singles, that was criticized as ableist.
Although the singles campaign for Special seemed to end with “2 B Loved,” Lizzo remained a leading pop culture figure in 2022, and she only continued to amass more cultural capital. In September, Lizzo embarked on her first headlining arena tour; the tour boasted openers such as Latto and Saucy Santana, two rappers who each turned 2022 into career-defining years, and surprise guests at different stops, including Missy Elliott (“Tempo”), Cardi B (“Rumors”), and SZA (“Special”).
A week into the tour, Lizzo, a classically trained flautist, found herself at the center of a firestorm of controversy when she played James Madison’s 209-year-old crystal flute while twerking onstage. Ultimately, the controversy didn’t stick because, as the Library of Congress tweeted, Lizzo’s performance with the historic instrument was “not all that unusual.” In fact, the controversy did more to expose her detractors’ own misogynoir and fatphobia – and showed that the general public would be quick to come to Lizzo’s defense. Two weeks before she launched the Special Tour, Watch Out for the Big Grrrls took home three trophies at the Primetime Emmy Awards, lifting Lizzo halfway to EGOT status.
As 2022 drew to a close, Lizzo continued to rack up awards and nominations. She earned nods for herself and “About Damn Time” at the American Music Awards, as well as triumphs at the Soul Train Music Awards (best dance performance), MTV Video Music Awards (video for good), and the People’s Choice Awards (song of 2022). At the People’s Choice Awards, Lizzo used her acceptance speech for the People’s Champion award to uplift and amplify the marginalized voices of 17 activists including Tamika Palmer, the mother of the late Breonna Taylor. Yet again, Lizzo found a way to use her passion for activism and political empowerment to continue to transcend and reinvent what pop stardom can look like.
Closing out the year with the premiere of her Love, Lizzo documentary on HBO Max, a writing credit on SZA’s acclaimed SOS album, and five Grammy nominations including album, record, and song of the year, Lizzo ends 2022 a solidified capital-letters Pop Star — and it’s about damn time.
For this year’s update of our ongoing Greatest Pop Star by Year project, Billboard is counting down our staff picks for the top 10 pop stars of 2022 all this week. At No. 7, we remember the year in Doja Cat — who dominated pop radio and the charts all year without even releasing a new album.
Since breaking out with her viral hit “Mooo!” Doja Cat has made it evident that she’s not your average pop star. Armed with a penchant for defying genre confines – in addition to being a jane-of-all-trades vocalist, rapper and performer – the 27-year-old supernova continues to prove she’s in a lane all her own.
Billboard’s Greatest Pop Stars of 2022:Introduction & Honorable Mentions | Rookie of the Year: Steve Lacy | Comeback of the Year: Sam Smith | No. 10: Nicki Minaj | No. 9: Future | No. 8: Jack Harlow
The Cali native began the year by continuing to ride the wave of her successful third studio album, the double-platinum Planet Her. Months after the LP’s June 2021 release, songs like “Need to Know” and “You Right” still resonated with listeners, hanging around the Hot 100 well into the new year. The spritely pop-rap bop “Kiss Me More,” the project’s most successful single, nabbed Doja and featured artist SZA their first Grammy Award wins for best pop duo/group performance at the 2022 ceremony – a tear-jerking moment that conveyed the vulnerable side of the quirky figure.
But even before she grabbed her Grammy, it was exceedingly clear that Doja Cat was the name on everybody’s lips. From being the titular figure in songs by $NOT and A$AP Rocky and Central Cee, to Wale dubbing her “one of the best rappers out” after her stand-out Coachella performance, she received flowers from virtually all corners in 2022.
In February, Courtney Love tweeted that the experimental artist should “add rock goddess to [her] resume” after covering Hole’s “Celebrity Skin” for a Taco Bell Super Bowl commercial. Later on, Post Malone praised Doja for her “epic” feature on his Twelve Carat Toothache ditty, “I Like You (A Happier Song)” — which continued her commercial winning streak, hitting No. 3 on the Hot 100 and scoring a 2023 Grammy nod in the best pop duo/group performance category.
Betwixt her spirited cover and standout guest verse, Doja also released the solo single “Vegas” for Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis soundtrack. Interest in the Big Mama Thornton/Shonka Dukureh-interpolating song was slow to start, but in a similar fashion to her first Hot 100-topping single “Say So,” it found its crowd through TikTok virality and radio airplay. It eventually made the top 10 in October in its 19th week on the chart, and garnered a 2023 Grammy nom for best rap performance. (Additionally, the Planet Her singles “Woman” and “Get Into It (Yuh)” continued rising on the Hot 100 this year thanks to TikTok, with the Grammy-nominated “Woman” eventually peaking at No. 7 in May.)
Despite life and career accomplishments, burnout and fatigue are potential worries for any high-achieving, forward-facing individual. Amidst her accolades and growing acclaim, Doja Cat rocked the music world and fans alike by announcing via Twitter in March that she was “quitting music.” This came after being on the receiving end of online vitriol following a canceled headlining festival performance, and a few months after tweeting and deleting that she was overworking herself. However, a few months later, she admitted she wanted to focus on creating new music instead of “doing a bunch of other things.” While Doja didn’t retire from the music scene, she did become less visible, beginning with exiting her opening stint on The Weeknd’s After Hours tour due to tonsil surgery.
During her break from the spotlight, she began sporting a new bald ‘do and experimented with various eye-catching makeup looks, prompting many to speculate that her new style corresponded with new music. Concrete details surrounding her forthcoming era haven’t been pinned down; however, she’s offered various teases of the material, which she says toys with unchartered sounds and shifting trends. She notes that the project will be “mostly rap,” with one of her key inspirations being The Beastie Boys, though she also includes Death Grips and ‘90s German rave as additional sonic influences. (That said, there’s still the considerable chance that many of the hints about the next phase of Doja’s career are said with a wink, as it’s often difficult to discern her serious plans from her often-trolling behavior.)
“I don’t know if what I’m doing is going to be pop, but I want to keep that in mind for when I go into the studio,” she told Dazed in November. “The album will come and it’ll be its own moment on Earth.”
While some celebrity’s URL antics have yielded catastrophic effects on their careers IRL, Doja Cat’s commitment to embracing chaos and reveling in unpredictability has been crucial to her success thus far. The controversy she faced in mid-2020 regarding her past appearances in incel internet chat rooms threatened to derail her budding success, however, it proved to be just a bump in the road. As her mainstream popularity continued to build momentum, she’s ultimately proven that a star doesn’t have to be uber-polished to shine bright.
It also doesn’t hurt that Doja’s music has lasting power, thanks to her ability to keep fans and pop lovers on their toes. She ends 2022 with seven appearances on the Hot 100 this year, the most of any artist (tied with Bad Bunny), showcasing a variety of styles and sounds indicative of her versatility. She’s open about enjoying the ride she’s on as an artist and the learning process that comes with growing as a human. Doja Cat doesn’t have it all figured out, but pop music is much more exciting because of her place in it.
For this year’s update of our ongoing Greatest Pop Star by Year project, Billboard is counting down our staff picks for the top 10 pop stars of 2022 all this week. At No. 8, we remember the year in Jack Harlow — who built on the momentum of his previous couple years and made the leap to full-on pop stardom.
Jack Harlow possesses a disarming self-awareness of his charm, his moment, and his detractors. In his 2020 single “Rendezvous,” the Kentucky rapper unloads on the idea that he hadn’t earned his status: “Kills me when they act like this was overnight/ Like we didn’t do a tour in a tiny van.” The couplet documented life in the short time after the release of “What’s Poppin,” his breakout single that helped propel him into the mainstream consciousness. It basks in stark contrast to an epiphany buried in his “First Class” line, “They say, ‘You a superstar now,’ damn, I guess I am.” Two years after the release of his debut album, That’s What They All Say, Harlow is an undisputed commercial hip-hop force, dictating when and where lightning struck in 2022.
Billboard’s Greatest Pop Stars of 2022:Introduction & Honorable Mentions | Rookie of the Year: Steve Lacy | Comeback of the Year: Sam Smith | No. 10: Nicki Minaj | No. 9: Future
In January, Harlow captioned an Instagram post, “More inspired than I’ve ever been…never had a better pen…never felt truly understood until now….I knew I was a star but I finally got the evidence.” As this year unfolded, it became increasingly clear that the crux of Harlow’s star power isn’t how brightly he beams but his inclination to remain part of a constellation. He clocked his first career No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart in October 2021 alongside Lil Nas X for “Industry Baby,” simultaneously nominated for a Grammy and targeted by homophobes. Harlow promptly shot down any notion that he shouldn’t have aligned with an LGBTQ+ artist: Black members of the hip-hop community warmly welcomed him, a white rapper whose fan base is shouldered by Black women, so it was unsurprising to see him wear a Lil Nas X graphic tee to June’s BET Awards to protest his friend’s snub.
February netted Harlow a deal with New Balance, a start in the NBA Celebrity All-Star Game, and the release of “Nail Tech,” his first solo drop since That’s What They All Say. The ostentatious single earned praise from Kanye West, a childhood idol of Harlow’s, and found Harlow again venting about his inbetween position in the first verse, “I love music and stress ‘bout it,” and second, “I’m not on top of this s–t yet, but I’m that guy, though.” The single wasn’t as sticky as the quotable lyrics and TikTok tease promised, however. “Nail Tech” spent one week on the Hot 100 at No. 18, and it was something of a distant memory by the end of March.
Harlow was cast in the remake of White Men Can’t Jump, ambitiously tackling Woody Harrelson’s iconic 1992 role as his film-acting debut – but “First Class” will be remembered as his leading man turn. The TikTok snippet racked up 69.2 million views, the first rock in an avalanche that ended with “First Class” debuting at No. 1 on the Hot 100 chart dated April 23 with the biggest streaming week of the year (54.6 million total). The lavish earworm’s backbone is the sampling of Fergie’s 2007 No. 1 smash “Glamorous” featuring Ludacris. Harlow, as he told Jimmy Fallon while co-hosting The Tonight Show in October, went from wanting to perform “Fergalicious” for his fifth-grade talent show to performing “First Class” with Fergie to open August’s 2022 MTV VMAs, which he also co-hosted with LL Cool J and Nicki Minaj.
Suddenly, it felt as if Harlow had been around forever, but there were endearing reminders that the spotlight was new to him. To start May, he ended a red carpet interview with Emma Chamberlain at May’s Met Gala by awkwardly saying, “Love ya!” Come Home The Kids Miss You was given a lukewarm reception by critics struggling to put a finger on Harlow’s identity. Arguably, the 15-track sophomore offering serves as a transparent portrait of Harlow as he works through that very question.
Come Home made up for that by yielding three 2023 Grammys nominations: best melodic rap performance (“First Class”), best rap song (“Churchill Downs” featuring Drake) and best rap album. This album’s (or any album’s) quantifiable success is not Harlow’s end game, though: As he expressed in his Rolling Stone April cover story, which announced Come Home The Kids Miss You’s impending May 6 arrival, he’s in it to become the best. He even quit drinking to ensure unobstructed clarity as he traded his real estate on the fringes of the mainstream for inescapable fame. Hits didn’t come beyond “First Class” this album cycle, but Harlow bolstered his foundation for the long game.
The rapper also earned co-signs from his formative heroes, such as Justin Timberlake, Lil Wayne, and Pharrell and Drake, via guest appearances on the Come Home tracklist. In particular, Harlow has proved himself Drake’s heir apparent as rap’s resident flirt – an idea illustrated by adoring fans swarming him and Aubrey at the Kentucky Derby, where the “Churchill Downs” video was filmed. Harlow had his whole team in his Churchill Downs box, including his childhood best friend-turned-photographer Urban Wyatt, comedian Druski and sports journalist Taylor Rooks. The aura around “Churchill Downs” solidified him as a main character who doesn’t suffer from main character syndrome. All Harlow ever wanted was to be loved by Louisville and put Kentucky on the map, and it was never more reciprocal than on that May afternoon.
Harlow looked right at home on every stage he commanded through the back half of the year, tangibly executing his much-quoted “Industry Baby” bar, “I didn’t peak in high school, I’m still out here gettin’ cuter.” He didn’t miss a beat during a surprise performance of “First Class” at the 2022 Billboard Music Awards, and then his Generation Now boss DJ Drama welcomed him to the BET Awards stage to deliver “First Class” with Brandy (as well as Come Home deep cut “Poison” with Lil Wayne) in June. His headlining Come Home The Kids Miss You World Tour kicked off in July, upgrading to arenas from the more intimate 2021 Creme De La Creme Tour. Still, he wasn’t too busy to be there for his Louisville day-one EST Gee’s September single “Backstage Passes” and its Lyrical Lemonade video directed by Cole Bennett, who directed Harlow’s seminal 2020 “Whats Poppin” video.
Harlow’s mainstream glow-up hit its apex when he pulled double duty as host and musical guest on the Oct. 29 episode of Saturday Night Live. His magnetism radiated during a monologue aimed to again reclaim criticisms lobbed his way — comparing his signature curly hair and scraggly beard to Narnia’s Mr. Tumnus and joking about people who “have even gone as far as to accuse me of being white.” The vast exposure afforded him more opportunities to be transparent, and people couldn’t help falling in love with Harlow’s authenticity.
Harlow’s dad, Brian, “built houses with his hands,” and Harlow didn’t skip any steps in building his empire. En route to mastering his craft, he also mastered the art of manifestation: In January 2018, he played to an audience of seven in Madison, Wisconsin; next week, he’ll check off a bucket list item by playing Louisville’s KFC Yum! Center on Dec. 18. He named a Come Home track after Dua Lipa, telling The Breakfast Club he “admired her” then got her permission to release it over FaceTime. Seven months later, the Atlantic labelmates are reportedly romantically linked. Maybe Harlow doesn’t dictate how he captures the zeitgeist anymore – the final step of pop stardom initiation is to find your alleged love life in the tabloids, after all – but he’s never subscribed to outside noise.
The people rooting for the lovable underdog are complemented by the inevitable crowd watching for Harlow’s downfall. The relentless pursuit of power that Harlow detailed to Zane Lowe in May doesn’t figure to be his fatal flaw, because he thrives in sharing the wealth with his people — the day-ones, predecessors and peers. Harlow has always understood his place in hip-hop’s sprawling story, and if 2022 taught us anything, he won’t waste his turn with the pen.
For this year’s update of our ongoing Greatest Pop Star by Year project, Billboard is counting down our staff picks for the top 10 pop stars of 2022 all this week. At No. 10, we remember the year in Nicki Minaj — who topped the Hot 100, owned the VMAs, and generally reasserted her dominance in 2022.
The presence of women in hip-hop has surged over the last decade, but Nicki Minaj never lost her ‘Queen of Rap’ title. Throughout 2022, Billboard’s 2019 Game-Changer honoree skillfully demonstrated prestige in music, from occasional guest features to being lauded by MTV for her iconic evolution. Over a decade on from the release of her 2010 debut album Pink Friday, the 40-year-old remains a force to be reckoned with.
Four years after dropping her fourth LP Queen, 2022 kicked off the era of Minaj’s long-awaited comeback. Post-Queen, Minaj had spent the earlier part of the decade surprising her dedicated Barbz with standalone singles (“Megatron,” “Yikes”) and hit collaborations with Doja Cat, BIA, Ty Dolla $ign and others, while also re-releasing her fan favorite mixtape, 2009’s Beam Me Up Scotty, to DSPs. The Queens-raised artist – who continued her musical impact over the past three years without so much as a full-length solo project – powered into the new decade laser-focused on being a versatile rap mainstay.
In February of this year, Minaj and Atlanta rhymesayer Lil Baby teamed up for the ruthless trap anthem “Do We Have a Problem?” The track ruled Billboard‘s Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, while also debuting at No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100. After the birth of her son in 2020, Minaj’s re-emergence was sealed as she followed that up a week later with second Lil Baby collaboration “Bussin,” also reaching the chart’s top 20.
The following month, Minaj went deep into her fashion bag, becoming the face of Marc Jacobs’ Spring 2022 “Heaven” collection, donning edgy couture and colorful wigs reminiscent of her early mainstream career. Also in March, Minaj passed the rap torch to Trendsetter artist Coi Leray, featuring on Leray’s fiery “Blick Blick,” which reached No. 10 on Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs. The “Blick Blick” rollout was slightly chaotic, as Leray’s father, rapper Benzino, prematurely revealed the collaboration on Clubhouse, sending Minaj to nearly pull her verse.
Keeping her appearance on “Blick” – even popping up in the technicolor music video – Minaj went full steam ahead, tapping Fivio Foreign for the one-off single “We Go Up.” The five-minute braggadocious drill rap cut would eventually receive a gritty music video filmed in Foreign and Minaj’s NYC hometown, and exclusively appeared on Minaj’s greatest hits compilation Queen Radio: Volume 1. “We Go Up,” which landed at No. 15 on Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs, would be the fourth collaborative single under Minaj’s belt in 2022. The momentum she built on features resembled her 2010s phase, where the rapper could make any song her own with a knockout verse, and would later help her explode on her first solo Hot 100 chart-topper.
But before that, in May, Minaj appeared arm-in-arm with fashion designer and Burberry chief creative officer Ricardo Tisci at the 2022 MET Gala. After gracing the red carpet with a memorable all-black Burberry ensemble and body embellishments from British makeup artist Pat McGrath, Minaj would also embark on a new business deal that month, announcing her new role as creative director of Maxim. The venture would also place Minaj as MaximBet’s special advisor for licensed sports betting and iGaming. Burgeoning as a tastemaker in music and entrepreneurial moves, Minaj utilized 2022 as a year to flex her transcendent influence over the new generation of female rap.
By July, the summer music festival season saw a Minaj takeover, as the artist headlined New Orleans’ Essence Music Festival and London’s Wireless Festival. Her return to festivals since making a surprise guest appearance during Ariana Grande’s Coachella set in 2019, Minaj hit the New Orleans’ Caesars Superdome as a seasoned virtuoso. 75,000 fans clamored over Minaj’s extensive catalog during an hour-long set, rapping along to classics both of her own (“Beez In the Trap,” “Super Bass,” “Chun-Li”) and in a supporting role (Beyoncé’s “Flawless (Remix),” BIA’s “Whole Lotta Money (Remix)”, A$AP Ferg’s “Plain Jane (Remix)”).
Although Barbz were disappointed that Essence Fest opted not to livestream Minaj’s set at the last minute, more festival pandemonium ensued as the rapper went across the pond for Wireless Festival. Coordinating multiple outfit changes for the show at London’s Finsbury Park – which experienced a 30-minute delay. Minaj closed out her energetic Wireless Festival set as rap royalty. The Queen of Rap even attempted to hold a meet and greet with fans at Camden’s Cafe Koko following her Sunday performance, but police officials shut down the event as crowds flooded nearby roads.
In the weeks following Minaj’s festival sets, she promised a six-part docuseries and new music under a “Nick James” alter ego, teasing lustful single “Super Freaky Girl,” which sampled Rick James’ 1981 funk smash “Super Freak.” “Super Freaky Girl” played as a near-spinoff to Minaj’s 2014 “Baby Got Back- sampling hit “Anaconda,” which made the song a viral sensation on TikTok. In August, Minaj, Drake and Lil Wayne held a triumphant Young Money reunion during the first “October World Weekend” of Toronto’s OVO Fest, where Minaj debuted “Super Freaky Girl” on the Budweiser Stage.
Contributing to the recent sample and interpolation trend in pop music, “Super Freaky Girl” made a massive debut atop the Billboard Hot 100 following its full August release , marking Minaj’s first No. 1 single as a solo artist. “Super Freaky Girl” was also just the second solo single by a female rap artist to top the chart since Ms. Lauryn Hill’s 1998 song “Doo Wop (That Thing).” Accompanied by a Barbie and Ken-inspired music video directed by Joseph Kahn, Minaj continued to support the chart-topper by reviving her zany alter ego Roman Zolanski on “Super Freaky Girl (Roman Remix).”
Minaj kept the heat scorching near summer’s end, releasing Queen Radio Volume 1 and delivering a career-spanning Video Vanguard Award performance at the 2022 MTV Video Music Awards. The artist, who co-hosted the 2022 VMAs with fellow Queens native LL Cool J and Jack Harlow, made her telecast awards show comeback, offering a 10-minute set with self-referential easter egg nods for longtime Barbz. Minaj opened her set in a plastic box replica of her 2007 mixtape Playtime Is Over, while the Head Barb reimagined her dominatrix Roman Zolanski role in Kanye West’s 2010 “Monster” music video. The camera then panned out to reveal that Minaj was her own Barbie Dreamhouse, with one section resembling Queens nail salon Poly Nails, where Minaj filmed her 2007 music video for Playtime Is Over cut “Wuchoo Know.” Without missing a beat, Minaj ended her incandescent performance with “Super Freaky Girl” fun, turning the VMAs into a full-blown celebration of her legacy.
After accepting the Video Vanguard Award, Minaj was off to more “Super Freaky Girl” promotion, partnering with restaurant chain Chili’s in September for ‘Barbz Day’ and cranberry-flavored $5 Barbaritas. Minaj also curated a third “Super Freaky Girl” official remix, an all-star “Queen Mix” featuring JT of City Girls, BIA, Maliibu Miitch, Akbar V and Katie Got Bandz, where the femcees repped their respective cities. Also on the Queens Radio compilation was a remix to “Likkle Mix” by dancehall artist Skeng, and in late-September, Minaj would co-star in the song’s graffiti-music video. “Likkle Mix” would ultimately nab a “Fine Nine” remix to make the “Super Freaky Girl (Remix)” look modest by comparison. Minaj and Skeng recruited eight women from across dancehall and rap, including Spice, Lisa Mercedez, Lady Leshurr, London Hill, Patrice Roberts, Destra Garcia, Pamputtae, and Dovey Magnum.
Minaj continued to hop from one genre to the next, featuring on Yung Bleu’s “Love in the Way” and 2022 FIFA World Cup anthem “Tukoh Taka” with Colombian vocalist Maluma and Lebanese singer Myriam Fares. The rapper didn’t ease up on dominating festival stages, headlining New York’s Powerhouse and Rolling Loud New York at Queens stadium Citi Field. Minaj would also rack up additional awards, from MTV Europe Music Awards’ best hip hop artist and best song and the American Music Awards’ favorite female artist – rap/hip-hop. She would also later get into an all-out Twitter spat with Atlanta rapper Latto over the 2023 Grammy nominations – Minaj was upset that her own crossover hit was moved from the rap categories to the pop ones while Latto’s was allowed to stay. But it would be Latto’s Hot 100 top five hit “Big Energy” that scored a best melodic rap performance nomination, while “Super Freaky Girl” received none.
“Say So” collaborator Doja Cat protested the Grammy slight, but let 2022 show that Minaj can’t be phased. In separate features with Interview and i-D – conducted by actress Jada Pinkett Smith and City Girls’ JT, respectively – the year’s digital songs best-selling rap artist talked up her fifth solo album, teasing that her best work has yet to come. With her eyes on the future, Minaj’s year as a hip-hop luminary has positioned the artist back at the top of her game.
For this year’s update of our ongoing Greatest Pop Star by Year project, Billboard is counting down our staff picks for the top 10 pop stars of 2021 all this week and next. First, a salute to the artist who made the most impressive comeback this year: resurgent (and reinvented) pop star Sam Smith.
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By 2015, Sam Smith’s name was synonymous with global success. The U.K. singer-songwriter achieved hits and acclaim in Britain as early as 2013 — and in 2014, that acclaim built to stateside recognition, after they released a career-defining single in “Stay With Me” and unveiled their debut album In the Lonely Hour. Capping the year off with their first U.S. tour, the star would go on to win four Grammys in ‘15, including a near-sweep the Big Four categories.
While Smith never lost the cultural capital they’d accrued at the outset of their career, the next half-decade saw diminishing returns for the singer. With hits becoming more sporadic and album sales trending in the wrong direction, it seemed as though Sam Smith’s star was dimming.
Yet 2022 proved the opposite — not only is Smith back, but they are reinventing their own fame. With the release of their first Hot 100 No. 1 single – one whichreinvented their tried-and-true sound — and even more new music to come, 2022 may well be as important a year for Smith as their breakthrough year in the mid-‘10s.
Public transformation is perhaps something of a theme for Smith; in 2019, the singer publicly came out as non-binary. Changing their pronouns to “they/them,” Smith quickly captured the attention of the world as the most publicly recognized artist to identify as such.
Their first album after coming out, 2020’s Love Goes, didn’t appear to benefit much from that increased awareness — debuting at No. 5 on the Billboard 200 (compared to No. 2 and No. 1 debuts, respectively, for Lonely Hour and The Thrill of It All) and moving a mere 41,000 equivalent album units in its first week, the project was not the triumph that some had hoped it could be.
By the time 2022 had rolled around, the British singer understood that it was time for a change. In April, they unveiled their single “Love Me More,” a self-love anthem that appeared to safely straddle the two musical worlds that Smith has always inhabited — euphoric dance-pop (as in their breakthrough release “Latch” with Disclosure) and brooding ballads (“Stay With Me, “I’m Not the Only One,” etc). The lyrics and vocals of the single sounded like they could have been deep cuts off of their debut album, with Smith’s signature croon placed front and center. But in the background, a groovier, bass-and-drum-focused production hinted at something more.
Smith made it clear what their intention was when speaking to their fans about the song. In an Instagram post for the video — which celebrates chosen family, as Smith and a group of queer friends go out clubbing in London — Smith said the song marked “the beginning and the end of something.” The rest of their year would prove that sentiment right; gone was “the old Sam Smith,” now replaced by a newer, truer self with more confidence, a keener eye for trends, and the ability to follow-through with major results.
“Love Me More” performed largely the same way that their last few singles had — it reached a peak of No. 73 on the Hot 100 almost three months after its release, while growing a steady Top 40 radio audience, peaking at No. 34 on Billboard’s Radio Songs chart. It wasn’t the smash hit success that they may have hoped for, but “Love Me More” managed to put Smith’s name back in the pop conversation.
Speaking to Billboard for our August cover story, Smith revealed that the slow-burn, transitional appeal of “Love Me More” was, in fact, the point. “People sometimes come out the gate in such a big way,” they said, revealing that their fourth studio album was on its way. “This album, for me, is the best album I’ve ever made, and it’s the most excited I’ve ever been about [my work]. So, I really wanted to start things off in a kind way, because there’s some big messages on the record.”
Smith would go on to reveal that they had gotten involved on the production side of their new album, working with a team of producers to tweak their sound to create what they would go on to call their “first non-heartbreak album.” The defining theme of their upcoming work, they said, was “me doing exactly what I want to do,” and having a ball while doing it. “I think joy for me, and for a lot of queer people, is quite a dangerous place. We’re all masters of pain, and I think it’s actually a very courageous act to step into the queer joy of it all.”
It didn’t take long for them to follow through on their promise of “queer joy.” In a TikTok post midway through August, Smith showed themself in the studio with rising pop singer Kim Petras, playing a snippet of something new; a clanking industrial beat punctuated their voice as they wailed, “Mummy don’t know Daddy’s getting hot/ At the body shop/ Doin’ something unholy.”
For the first time in their career, Sam Smith went viral. In a matter of days, the chorus of their single “Unholy” was circulating TikTok, as users soundtracked their videos of everything from glow-ups to cosplay to thirst traps with it. In the four months since it was first shared, the sound has been used over 500,000 times.
“Unholy” naturally caught fans off guard — while dabbling in dance-pop was not necessarily new for Smith, the implicit eroticism of the lyrics signaled a complete tonal shift from the superstar. The innuendo and subtlety of past dance-adjacent hits like “Dancing With A Stranger” or “How Do You Sleep?” were gone, replaced by brazen sexuality and unbridled confidence.
Enjoying more buzz than they had ever experienced around an unreleased track, Smith finally unveiled “Unholy” in its entirety in September, complete with a gloriously queer, cabaret-inspired music video. The result of reinventing their image and sound was suddenly clear as day — “Unholy” debuted at No. 3 on the Hot 100, eventually overtaking Steve Lacy’s “Bad Habit” for the No. 1 position on the chart dated Oct. 29. The song even earned Smith their first Grammy nomination since their big night in 2015, for best pop duo/group performance.
Not only was this moment monumental for both Smith and Petras’ personally — the song marked both artists’ first No. 1 single — but it demonstrated a key milestone for queer performers; “Unholy” was the first song by publicly transgender or non-binary solo artists to go No. 1.
Breaking that record with “Unholy” also meant more than personal victory for Smith; by having the biggest hit of their career release after they’d been publicly out as non-binary for over three years, Smith effectively dispelled any dormant ideas of the “marketability” of queerness from label boardrooms of ages past. The song definitively proved that audiences aren’t turning away from LGBTQ art – if anything, they’re interested in hearing from voices that have often been left out of our pop milieu.
With a sudden burst of career momentum from a surprise smash-hit, Smith finally announced their new album Gloria in mid-October. Citing “emotional, sexual and spiritual liberation” as the album’s primary inspiration, Smith set a Jan. 27 release date for the LP. The project has already garnered plenty of attention, thanks in large part to Smith capitalizing on the viral success of “Unholy” by sharing short teasers of songs off the project in a series of TikTok clips.
It’s no small feat to become a near-overnight success at the outset of your music career; to replicate that success nearly a decade after your debut is practically unheard of. Yet Sam Smith proved that they are more than just the heartbroken balladeer persona that was pushed onto them after smash hits like “Stay With Me.” They are a preeminent voice of pop stardom, one who isn’t going anywhere any time soon
In 2020, Billboard‘s staff revealed its picks for the greatest pop star of every year dating back to 1981 (the first year of MTV, essentially the birth of the modern pop era), with essays making the case for each as the biggest, brightest and most important star in their solar system that calendar year. After adding BTS as the greatest pop star for 2020, we decided to expand the project a little bit. Last year, we counted down our picks for the 10 greatest pop stars of the year, with full essays for everyone from No. 10 (Bad Bunny) to No. 1 (Taylor Swift), as well as bonus write-ups for our picks for Rookie (Olivia Rodrigo) and Comeback (WILLOW) of the year, and even 10 close-but-not-quite honorable mentions.
This year, we’re doing it all over again. Over the next week and a half, we’ll be revealing our top 10 with one or two new year-in-review essays daily, until we name our No. 1 next Friday (Dec. 16). And just like last year, we’ll also make our picks for Rookie of the Year and Comeback of the Year, which we’ll unveil tomorrow (Dec. 9) before launching into the proper countdown.
But first, a reminder that unlike with our Year-End Charts, we don’t use hard numbers or chart positions to determine these Greatest Pop Stars. They’re important to our determinations, of course — but so are more intangible factors like cultural importance, industry influence and overall omnipresence. (And of course, playing the whole season helps: If you took some months off to start or end of the year, or had a long break in the middle, that’s not helping your MVP argument.)
If you’re joining us for the first time and still don’t quite get what we mean, you’ll understand better once we start counting down. Before that, though: the honorable mentions. These 10 artists still all had huge years, but for whatever reason couldn’t quite get over the hump — because they didn’t cross over quite far enough, because their impact was too contained to the chart metrics, or simply because they didn’t hang around for enough of the year. Here they are, presented in alphabetical order:
21 SAVAGE
21 Savage
Prince Williams/Wireimage
Their Year in Pop: Talk about a late-season surge. 21 Savage had an OK first half of 2022, with fun guest appearances on Latto’s “Wheelie” and Pharrell Williams’ “Cash in Cash Out,” and even a Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 thanks to his well-received appearance on Drake’s Honestly, Nevermind closer “Jimmy Cooks.” But none of us would’ve considered 21 Savage a Greatest Pop Star contender until November, when he teamed up with Drake for the blockbuster Her Loss album, briefly feuded with Nas (and then quickly reconciled via a collab single), and then stole the show in early December on Metro Boomin’s star-studded Heroes & Villains, with a gleeful verse playing Diddy to The Weeknd’s Mario Winans on breakout cut “Creepin’.”
Why Not Top 10? As many big moments as he had this year, the great majority of them were featured assists or alongside bigger names, without Savage having to do much of the heaviest lifting. If we had a Best Supporting Pop Star distinction, though, it’d be Savage’s to lose — pretty much every year, really.
BLACKPINK
BLACKPINK
YG Entertainment
Their Year in Pop: The biggest girl group in the world had another triumphant year in 2022, topping the Billboard 200 albums chart for the first time in their career with their BORN PINK album, besting the Global 200 songs chart twice (with advance singles “Pink Venom” and “Shut Down”), storming the VMAs stage and continuing to break nearly every YouTube record possible.
Why Not Top 10? Their stateside resumé is still lacking That One Single — the unavoidable hit that lingers around streaming and radio forever, ensuring that even your local librarian knows who they are — but given how little they seem to need that kind of stateside crossover support to keep making pop history, it’s doubtful they’re sweating it much.
ED SHEERAN
Ed Sheeran
Jamie McCarthy/GI
Their Year in Pop: Sheeran didn’t release a new album in 2022, but that didn’t stop him from having two of the top 15 songs on our Year-End Hot 100 — with 2021 holdovers “Bad Habits” (No. 13) and “Shivers” (No. 5). But Sheeran’s year was arguably more impressive for the way he spread himself around as a special guest, scoring Hot 100 hits alongside artists from the worlds of rap (Russ’ “Are You Entertained?”), reggaetón (J Balvin’s “Sigue”) and Afrobeats (Fireboy DML’s “Peru”), all while trekking the globe on yet another impossibly lucrative world tour. And lest it be lost to time, let’s not forget there was a Pokémon song in there somewhere, too.
Why Not Top 10? Though Sheeran remains unmissable on radio and one of the world’s biggest live attractions, he doesn’t quite have the same culture-wide impact he did at his mid-’10s peak — particularly during an in-between year, album-wise.
ENCANTO CAST
Encanto
DISNEY
Their Year in Pop: If we cut these rankings off in April, you can bet you’d be seeing Mirabel, Abuela, Luisa, Pepa, Félix, Bruno, and the rest of the Family Madrigal in the top 10. For those three months, they were everywhere — including on the charts, where Stephanie Beatriz and Diane Guerrero were suddenly as unavoidable as Dua Lipa and Doja Cat. But also on TikTok, at award shows (with Megan Thee Stallion at the Oscars!), and most of all, at your little cousin’s birthday party, where you’d better believe they had memorized all six parts of “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” and were just dying to act them all out at once for you.
Why Not Top 10? While the Encanto cast helped fill the void left by the absence of most of our major pop stars early in 2022, eventually those stars returned, and we didn’t hear much from the Family Madrigal again after that.
GUNNA
Gunna
Jamie McCarthy/GI
Their Year in Pop? If you didn’t spend the opening months of 2022 not talking about Bruno, chances are good you instead spent it pushin’ P, as Gunna’s Hot 100 top 10 smash (alongside Future and Young Thug) gave the year its first great pop catchphrase. Acclaimed parent album DS4Ever also debuted at No. 1 — even beating out Dawn FM, the much-anticipated new set from 2021’s sixth-greatest pop star — and earned Gunna a music guest spot on SNL in April.
Why Not Top 10? Unfortunately, what was looking like a true level-up year for the rapper born Sergio Kitchens was cut short in May, when he was arrested (along with Young Thug) on a controversial RICO indictment — for which he’s still in jail, as he awaits his January trial.
KAROL G
Karol G
Pablo Escudero
Their Year in Pop: Every year, Latin pop star Karol G burrows her way a little further into the U.S. pop mainstream. Though she didn’t release an album in 2022, she did release three singles — “MAMIII” with Becky G, “Provenza” and “Gatúbela” with Maldy — all of which debuted in the Hot 100’s top 40, with “MAMIII” becoming her highest-peaking hit to date (No. 15). That song also won hot Latin song of the year, vocal event at the 2022 Billboard Latin Music Awards — one of three awards Karol picked up on the night. And you know an artist has reached a level of true stardom when they can make headline news merely by changing the color of their hair.
Why Not Top Ten? A big album to cash in on her crowing pop clout would certainly help her case, as would a crossover single on American top 40 radio — though as a Latin star you’ll see in our top 10 has shown, the latter’s not necessarily a pre-requisite for stateside superstardom anymore.
KENDRICK LAMAR
Kendrick Lamar
Renell Medrano
Their Year in Pop: For about two weeks in May, the country belonged to Kendrick, as his long-awaited comeback (following the twin triumphs of 2017’s DAMN. and 2018’s Black Panther soundtrack) was trumpeted first with the release of “The Heart Part 5,” a Marvin Gaye-interpolating one-off with an jaw-dropping, deepfaking music video that instantly took over the internet. Then five days later, he made his full return with fifth album Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers, drawing rave reviews and debuting atop the Billboard 200 (while simultaneously charting each of its 18 tracks on the Hot 100).
Why Not Top 10? Neither Mr. Morale nor any of its cuts stuck around the culture the way Lamar’s last two efforts and their accompanying hits did. But it’s hardly been forgotten about — Lamar earned eight nominations for the 2023 Grammys, while Mr. Morale and its lead single “N95” finished in the top 10 of our staff’s year-end albums and songs lists, respectively.
LIL BABY
Lil Baby
Taylor Hill/FilmMagic
Their Year in Pop: Lil Baby notched a staggering 39 titles on the Hot 100 this year — a tally that nonetheless basically registers as light work for one of the most prolific major rappers of the 2020s. Most of those of course came from his Billboard 200-topping October effort It’s Only Me, though he also scored big hits in support of DJ Khaled (“Stayin’ Alive”), SleazyWorldGo (the “Sleazy Flow” remix) and even Ed Sheeran (the “2step” remix), while also notching a pair of big debuts alongside Nicki Minaj early in the year — including the No. 2-bowing “Do We Have a Problem,” tying for the highest Hot 100 peak of his career.
Why Not Top 10? Despite the dozens of Hot 100 visits, Lil Baby didn’t have a single quite as unavoidable as his My Turn-era 2020 hits “Emotionally Scarred,” “The Bigger Picture” or “We Paid” this year, as the buzz around It’s Only Me faded much quicker than for its predecessor.
TEMS
Tems
Jeff Spicer/GI for BMI London Awards
Their Year in Pop: One of the breakout stars of 2021, thanks largely to her star-marking turn on Wizkid’s global smash “Essence,” Nigerian singer-songwriter Tems defied the odds by having an even bigger 2022 — without even releasing any new music of her own outside of a Bob Marley cover for the Wakanda Forever soundtrack. Still, she appeared on one of the year’s biggest hits when Future sampled her 2020 From Broken Ears cut “Higher” for his own Hot 100-topping “Wait for U” — even scoring her an artist credit on the track — and also earned her first major solo hit when TikTok (and eventually R&B radio) resurrected her “Free Mind,” from the same 2020 EP. You know you’ve got the juice when Queen Bey is calling you in as one of just a handful of featured guests on her new album, with the legendary Grace Jones as a co-star, no less.
Why Not Top 10? She’s still yet to even release an official full-length debut — so we’ll have to see how the Afrobeats sensation fares when all eyes are on her for actual brand-new music of her own.
THE WEEKND
The Weeknd
Brian Ziff
Their Year in Pop: While The Weeknd’s March 2020 LP After Hours was such a blockbuster that he was still enjoying its victory lap well into 2021, this January’s Dawn FM did not have quite the same reach or endurance. But critics were kinder to the album than the masses (it finished in the top 10 of the Billboard staff’s year-end ranking), and we still saw plenty of Abel this year between his long-awaited After Hours til Dawn stadium tour, a series of typically eye-popping Dawn FM visuals, and the TikTok and radio resurrection of 2016 Starboy cut “Die for You,” a bigger chart hit than anything he actually released in 2022. (And his year’s not over yet: Next week, he’ll debut “Nothing Is Lost (You Give Me Strength),” his Swedish House Mafia-co-produced theme to the much-anticipated Avatar: The Way of Water.)
Why Not Top 10? After a year where you play the Super Bowl and celebrate having the biggest Hot 100 hit of all-time, there might just be nowhere to go but down.
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