Greatest Pop Stars of 21st Century

On this week’s (Sept. 6) episode of the Greatest Pop Stars of the 21st Century podcast, we take a look at a pair of unpredictable pop powerhouses: K-pop icons BTS and R&B mystery man turned pop megahitmaker The Weeknd. Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news First, host Andrew […]

With the first quarter of the 21st century coming to a close, Billboard is spending the next few months counting down our staff picks for the 25 greatest pop stars of the last 25 years. We’ve already named our Honorable Mentions and our No. 25, No. 24, No. 23, No. 22, No. 21, No. 20 and No. 19 stars, and now we remember the century in The Weeknd — who emerged in the shadows as an early-’10s mixtape sensation, before making a more successful pivot to pop stardom than anyone could have guessed.

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About a dozen years ago, nobody would’ve believed the hedonistic, alt-R&B, then-cult figure known as The Weeknd would become one of the 21st century’s most decorated and durable pop artists, dominating both the Billboard charts the and world’s biggest stadiums. Global superstardom might not have seemed immediately on the horizon upon his 2011 mixtape arrival, but his ability to carve his own path in R&B before successfully switching lanes to pop has made his journey one of the most fascinating ones to follow this century.  

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Born Abel Tesfaye to Ethiopian immigrant parents in the Toronto suburb of Scarborough, The Weeknd dropped out of high school at 17 with his best friend and now creative director La Mar Taylor and moved out of his family’s home one weekend (wink wink). Homelessness, substance abuse and run-ins with the law forced him to get his act together, so he translated the ill-advised lifestyle of his youth to his music.  

In 2010, The Weeknd anonymously uploaded three moody, atmospheric R&B tracks – “What You Need,” “Loft Music” and “The Morning” – onto his YouTube. Fellow Torontonian (and then rap’s brightest budding star) Drake noticed the songs and featured them on his OVO Blog – a key co-sign that projected The Weeknd’s name (and still not his face) in the media before he dropped his debut mixtape House of Balloons for free on his website in March 2011. The songs stretched for five, six, even seven minutes, with The Weeknd’s wailing falsetto and supple tenor from the Michael Jackson vocal academy reliving his pill-popping and bed-hopping escapades and other foggy morning-after memories, through the perspective of someone who’s perpetually attempting to replace his pain with pleasure in a numbing rinse-and-repeat cycle.  

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Meanwhile, his sampling of indie and post-punk rock bands like Siouxsie & the Banshees, Cocteau Twins and Beach House, along with other hip-hop and electronic influences, forever shifted the R&B landscape — and helped usher the genre’s alternative shift, alongside other enigmatic artists like Frank Ocean. And when it was finally time to reveal himself at his now-iconic debut concert at Toronto’s 600-capacity Mod Club in July 2011, it was the must-see show of the city: The promotional flyer indicated there was “no guestlist,” but that didn’t stop major U.S. label executives from catching last-minute flights up north to see what the hell The Weeknd was even about and if he lived up to the internet hype. (A former MuchMusic employee tells me she remembers one even offering her $1300 CAD for her ticket that she bought for $20.)  

Later that same year, he released two more mixtapes –Thursday and Echoes of Silence – that invited us to venture deeper into The Weeknd’s world of debauchery and self-destruction. With his cult-classic trilogy, The Weeknd firmly established himself as lord of the R&B underworld. In the four-month period between the latter two tapes, he was also all over Drake’s emo magnum opus Take Care, co-writing five songs and being featured on the chant-along banger “Crew Love.” The kinship between the two Canadian phenoms generated a lot of speculation that Drake would sign The Weeknd to OVO, but he continued carving out his own lane, and founded his XO label (fans have debated on Reddit threads whether it stands for “hugs and kisses” or “ecstasy and oxycontin”), signing to Republic Records the following year. Given The Weeknd’s “I thank God that I never signed my life away” line from Future and Metro Boomin’s “All to Myself” during 2024’s Great Rap Beef™, it’s safe to say he believes he made the right decision there.  

The Weeknd

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The Weeknd

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Tesfaye had steadily built up momentum for his major label debut studio album Kiss Land in 2013, but takeoff there was a bit turbulent. It sounded like he had exhausted his nihilistic, narcotic-fueled aesthetic – and having already consumed what felt like three albums in under one calendar year, we were kind of exhausted, too. Maybe why Kiss Land fell a bit flat was because the air of mystery behind The Weeknd was also fading, especially with his face and Jean-Michel Basquiat-esque dreads front and center on the album cover. Even though Kiss Land entered the Billboard 200 at No. 2, it wasn’t the optimal introduction for an artist who had been cranked out of the internet hype machine – and it received mixed reviews, while failing to produce a hit single. 

But the false start didn’t stop Tesfaye from building a bigger breakout moment. Ariana Grande, the Nickelodeon-bred pop princess who signed to Republic the year before The Weeknd, recruited him for her My Everything single “Love Me Harder.” The lip-biting ruminations about rough sex gave Grande more edge, while the song’s throbbing synthwave-R&B production – courtesy of 21st century-defining producer Max Martin (who would go on to play a crucial role in Tesfaye’s career) – softened The Weeknd’s. It’s the first song to affirm his mainstream ambitions, as Tesfaye earned his first Billboard Hot 100 top 10 hit. Grande would go on to become one of his most reliable hit collaborators a decade later, hopping on the remixes of “Save Your Tears” from his 2020 album After Hours, which they performed together at the 2021 iHeartRadio Music Awards, and “Die For You” – which experienced a TikTok resurgence six-plus years after it first appeared on his Starboy album – both of whichwould then shoot to No. 1.  

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Four months after “Love Me Harder,” Tesfaye was tapped to record “Earned It” from the Fifty Shades of Grey soundtrack. The most sexually explicit R&B singer of the time making a song for the year’s most pornographic film? It felt so wrong, but oooh was it so right. The orchestral pop ballad introduced The Weeknd’s slow-burning seductive vocals to a much wider audience. “Earned It” became The Weeknd’s first solo Hot 100 top 10 hit (No. 3), won a Grammy Award for best R&B performance and scored an Oscar nomination for best original song.  

The Weeknd’s mid-2010s pop pivot was well underway, but now he wanted to prove he could pull it off without the assist of an A-list artist or buzzy movie franchise with “Can’t Feel My Face.” The certified smash earned him more MJ comparisons than when Tesfaye put his skeletal cover of “Dirty Diana” on Echoes of Silence, especially his screeching ad-libs that felt plucked straight from Jackson’s “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough” and his slick footwork and signature spin in the music video. With his dependable hitmaking team from “Love Me Harder” – Max Martin, Savan Kotecha, Ali Payami and Peter Svensson – Tesfaye had successfully broken though pop’s ceiling after initially cracking it with “Love Me Harder” and “Earned It.” “Face” eventually became The Weeknd’s first solo Hot 100 chart-topper, and a runaway radio smash that had us just as hooked as Tesfaye was on blow (or so he semi-subtly sang). It also earned a favorite song of the year nomination at the 2016 Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice Awards, which he hilariously referenced in the Starboy cut “Reminder”: “I just won a new award for a kids show/ Talkin’ ‘bout a face numbin’ off a bag of blow.” The Weeknd’s lyrical knack for disguising his NSFW fixations in PG-rated, radio-friendly hooks would give him a clever edge. 

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Surprisingly, follow-up “The Hills” would be even bigger. Horrifying shrieks, sparse trap beats and Tesfaye’s hoarse verses about life in the fast lane felt like a return to form to his mixtapes’ murkier R&B – with its outro sung in his native Amharic, the primary language of Ethiopia, to further ground himself in his roots – and without compromising “the real me,” it became the fundamental crossover smash of his career. The Weeknd replaced himself at No. 1 on the Hot 100, with “The Hills” dethroning “Can’t Feel My Face” after its three-week run and remaining on top for six weeks.  

His chart reign gave him the confidence to make his mainstream bid with Beauty Behind the Madness. The album, which completed his transition from reputable R&B singer-songwriter to perennial pop star, was marked by even more irresistible MJ-inspired bangers (“In The Night”) and lovelorn, instrumental-driven ballads (“Angel” and “Shameless”). On the Ye-produced, soul-sampling “Tell Your Friends,” The Weeknd sums up just exactly who he is: “I’m that n—a with the hair/ Singin’ ‘bout popping’ pills, f—kin’ b—-es, livin’ life so trill.” Beauty became The Weeknd’s first No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 and planted him firmly in the spotlight he had shied away from just a few short years ago.   

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And as he started sounding more like a pop star, he also started looking like one, too, with a headline-making haircut. He kills his former self and smashes his accolades to the beat of the title track’s snare in the music video for his third Hot 100 No. 1 “Starboy,” featuring Daft Punk. Starboy became his second Billboard 200-topping album and earned him his second best urban contemporary album Grammy win, proving that lightning can strike twice.  

His high-profile relationships with model Bella Hadid and fellow singer Selena Gomez inspired his 2018 EP My Dear Melancholy,. Revealing he volunteered to donate his kidney to Gomez (who got a transplant in 2017 amid her battle with lupus) on the desolate opener “Call Out My Name” set the tone for the heart-wrenching six-song set, which represented a sobering sonic departure from the resplendent pop of Beauty Behind the Madness and Starboy. But the vulnerability – which was on full display at his first Coachella headlining gig the following month – recaptured the dark magic of his early mixtapes. And it was a winning formula: My Dear Melancholy, earned Tesfaye his third consecutive Billboard 200 No. 1. 

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The album rollout for 2020’s After Hours era unfolded like a masterclass in world-building, with The Weeknd playing a red suit jacket-, black leather glove-, black sunglasses-wearing character, his face further concealed by bloodied facial bandages, that would bring mischief and mayhem to music videos and late-night TV and award show performances. We would first meet him in the visual for “Heartless,” a hedonistic trap-tinged R&B record where The Weeknd boasts in the first line, “Never need a b—h, I’m what a b—h need” and licks a psychedelic-laced frog.  

The song became The Weeknd’s fourth No. 1, but it would be the LP’s second single that would alter pop music history. As Billboard’s top Hot 100 song of all time, “Blinding Lights” is an adrenaline-pumping, synth-pop juggernaut that beamed brighter than the marquee lights of its Las Vegas Strip backdrop and entered the cultural zeitgeist. Only The Weeknd could turn a song about drunk driving to a hookup (that premiered in a Mercedes Benz commercial, no less) into the longest-running Radio Songs No. 1 (26 weeks) and the most-streamed song on Spotify while also soundtracking over a million TikTok dance videos featuring frontline healthcare workers and quarantined families alike.  

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With its parent album After Hours, he nailed one of pop music’s tenets – making personal themes universal – and with the pandemic, The Weeknd’s motifs of loneliness and escapism felt even more relatable. That’s why After Hours and Dua Lipa’s ‘70s disco-inspired album Future Nostalgia came at the right time, because they cranked up the BPMs of top 40 and helped usher in pop’s retro dance-driven renaissance (years before Beyoncé’s Renaissance) during one of the world’s darkest years in recent history.  

After Hours debuted atop the Billboard 200, but when it and “Blinding Lights” shockingly received zero nominations at the 2021 Grammys, critics and his peers like Drake and Kid Cudi sneered at the snub. “The Grammys remain corrupt,” The Weeknd retaliated on X (formerly known as Twitter), adding in a statement to The New York Times that he “will no longer allow my label to submit my music to the Grammys.” (He still took home a statue in 2022 for his feature on Ye’s “Hurricane” with Lil Baby.) While The Weeknd was missing from Music’s Biggest Night, he was front and center on the world’s biggest stage a month earlier: the Super Bowl LV Halftime Show. And the penultimate performance of his House of Balloons title track, backed by a marching army of bandaged lookalikes, that eventually revved up to the exhilarating speed of “Blinding Lights,” made for a true career-spanning victory lap moment.  

The Weeknd

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The Weeknd

Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for TW

As he continued riding the highs of his blockbuster After Hours era, fans wondered where The Weeknd could possibly go next. On his highly anticipated follow-up, Dawn FM, he showed us exactly where he was taking us: With the help of Jim Carrey, who was posing as purgatory’s radio DJ, we were headed toward the light at the end of the tunnel. The Weeknd soundtracked the ominous journey by zeroing in on After Hours’ synth-pop infatuation to create levity on tracks like the spellbinding dancefloor number “Take My Breath,” which peaked at No. 6 on the Hot 100, and “Sacrifice,” where Tesfaye gets as close as he ever has to sounding like the King of Pop. But unlike its blockbuster predecessor, Dawn FM failed to produce a surefire hit. Dawn FM entered the Billboard 200 at No. 2, a slight misstep for someone who’s notched four consecutive No. 1 albums, but an inconsequential one for someone who had already been crowned pop royalty. 

The Weeknd didn’t put out any new solo studio releases in 2023, but his status as a no-doubt superstar allowed him to rest on his laurels and enjoy the fruits of his labor. With the Grande-assisted “Die for You” going No. 1, The Weeknd joined Michael Jackson as the only male soloists with multiple leaders on the chart from three different albums. Not bad for a guy who’s spent his entire career emulating the King of Pop. Guinness World Records also named him the world’s most popular artist after he became the first artist to reach 100 million monthly listeners on Spotify. He was Spotify’s most streamed monthly artist for over a year, until Billie Eilish recently took the title – and his premature supportive response suggested a heavyweight like him wasn’t threatened by someone else holding the championship belt. The Weeknd also headlined Coachella again alongside Swedish House Mafia, entering an elite group of acts who’ve headlined the festival twice (and being the first non-alternative/rock act to do so). His set served as a warm-up for his After Hours Til Dawn Tour, with its first leg and second leg earning spots on 2022 and 2023’s top 10 grossing tours list. 

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And for a split second, his stadium stint doubled as the set for his HBO series The Idol, which follows troubled pop star Jocelyn (played by Lily-Rose Depp) who develops a complicated relationship with Tesfaye’s character Tedros, a sleazy nightclub owner/cult leader who yearns to pilot her career comeback. Despite critics and viewers largely rebuking the controversial series, which received a 19% score on Rotten Tomatoes and was swiftly canceled after five episodes, The Idol managed to win an Emmy this year and win back some credibility with its soundtrack. The Weeknd formed an unusual, yet effective alliance with the Queen of Pop Madonna and the King Vamp Playboi Carti on the platinum-certified “Popular” that harkened back to the slinky 2000s pop&B that The Neptunes dominated, and entered into a musical threesome with BLACKPINK’s Jennie and Depp on the erotic, down-tempo “One of the Girls,” which reached No. 10 on the Billboard Global 200.  

Earlier this September, he announced the third and final installment of his After Hours/Dawn FM trilogy, Hurry Up Tomorrow, a bittersweet way of sunsetting this chapter of his career: He told W Magazine last year that this album “is probably my last hurrah as The Weeknd.” Its lead single, “Dancing in the Flames,” is out Friday (Sept. 13), and the shimmering snippet suggests he’s delivering yet another slice of retro-pop brilliance. But even when The Weeknd as we’ve come and known to love him ceases to exist, his transition from subterranean R&B auteur to ubiquitous genre-bending superstar – and the countless alt-R&B neophytes and would-be eletro-pop stars he’s fathered in the years between – he will forever go down as one of the most remarkable artists, with one of the most remarkable career arcs, in modern pop music history.  

Read more about the Greatest Pop Stars of the 21st Century here — and be sure to check back on Tuesday when our No. 17 artist is revealed!

With the first quarter of the 21st century coming to a close, Billboard is spending the next few months counting down our staff picks for the 25 greatest pop stars of the last 25 years. We’ve already named our Honorable Mentions and our No. 25, No. 24, No. 23, No. 22, No. 21 and No. 20 stars, and now we remember the century in BTS — the septet that took K-pop to new global heights, and set the standard for high-level hitmaking and fan devotion over the past decade of pop music.

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When you think of what it takes for a group to become pop stars, imagine having seven individual talents who can each do it all well: sing, rap, dance, and amass a love and fandom that even some of the biggest pop stars could only dream of. That’s what you have with BTS, who crashed through every door of what it takes to be a successful pop act and expanded that with a scope never quite seen before. The group has broken through ceilings for boy bands, K-pop and South Korean artists in general, all while creating a meaningful community that is continually inspired by BTS’ message of positivity, love and connection. 

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The global senesations have amassed Beatles-sized success and have become the new blueprint for everything pop: When it comes to maintaining fan hysteria and consistent hitmaking, they are it. In the U.S. alone, the K-pop septet has notched six Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 hits and six Billboard 200 No. 1 albums. And as solo artists over the past few years, they’ve all individually created their own lane, and grabbed historic accolades of their own along the way. 

BTS

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BTS

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It all started in 2013, when BTS (short for the Korean phrase Bangtan Sonyeondan, which translates to “Bulletproof Boy Scouts”) was created by Big Hit Entertainment. The group, comprised of RM, Jin, Suga, J-Hope, Jimin, V and Jung Kook, released the debut EP 2 Cool 4 Skool in June 2013. 

In Korea, BTS was not instantly welcomed. In the band’s biography Beyond the Story, the members speak on the highly competitive genre, and being shunned by peers in the industry, and even by some fans of K-pop. But through the style of vlogging, BTS was able to great a more unique relationship with their fans. Want to hang out and cook along with BTS? You could. That was something that was far from the extremely polished K-pop norms. 

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Though BTS was not the first K-pop group to find huge success at home and abroad — and won’t be the last — throughout the group’s journey to global superstardom, there were numerous things that made it special. 

The massive fan group ARMY (Adorable Representative M.C. for Youth) has been with the septet every step of the way. In the 2021 hit “Butter,” the group’s leader RM confidently says, “got ARMY right behind us when we say so.” BTS has over 75 million followers on Instagram and over 48 million followers on X (formerly Twitter). It has grown the group past what people normally see in boy band fandoms: ARMY boosts a diverse community of all ages, races, religions and beyond. 

BTS

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One of the top qualities that makes BTS stand out as pop stars is the members’ ability to bend and blend genres. This is largely due to the group being comprised of different members cast in different roles — K-pop groups will often split different members into a rap line, vocal line, and dance line — giving everybody the ability to shine. They all have their own styles and voices, yet they all blend well together. This individual uniqueness has even led fans to celebrate their “bias” as they connect with their favorite member of the OT7 (One True 7). 

Being trained in the K-pop methodology prepared all seven to be strong in all areas of performance. To get to know them as great singers, take note of V’s chilling vocals on “Spring Day,” Jimin’s sweet sensuality on “Serendipity,” Jin’s flawless belting on “Let Go,” or Jung Kook’s effortless falsetto on “Euphoria”. The group’s earliest music was also heavily influenced by hip-hop — and members Suga, RM, and J-Hope’s inspiration from the American hip-hop scene and the underground culture in Korea heavily shaped BTS’ sound. By 2018, Nicki Minaj was even joining the group for an iconic verse on the Love Yourself: Answer single “IDOL”. 

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Of course, you can’t be a great pop star without top-notch visuals. From music videos to merchandise, everything BTS is produced to the highest quality. Take for example their song “ON”: The music video alone is a spectacle of massive dance numbers and sprawling sets. The group took that same performance to The Tonight Show in Grand Central Station and inside a stadium for the 2020 MAMA Awards. Everything BTS does is BIG. (And yes, all the BTS members are good looking: Jin is famously nicknamed by their fans as Worldwide Handsome.) 

The group’s dance ability is also next-level. Choreography isn’t new to boy bands, as pop groups from the Jackson 5 to *NSYNC made it a key performance element. But look no further than BTS’ performance of “Black Swan” at the 2020 Melon Music Awards and you know what we are seeing is different here: Often members show off not just hip-hop dance skills, but aerial, ballet, and interpretive dancing. A quick dive into fan edits online and you will surely find several videos comparing the members to Michael Jackson and other greats. 

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It was these performances, and a new lean into a more pop-friendly sound, that really introduced them to a mainstream American audience in the late ‘10s. They brought “Fake Love” to the Billboard Music Awards in 2018, one of their first major US awards show performances, with huge (and clearly audible) ARMY support in the crowd. “Boy With Luv” featuring Halsey, released the next year off Map of the Soul: Persona, was another catchy banger and became one of their biggest hits at the time, reaching the Hot 100’s top 10. They performed that track at the BBMAs in 2019, also receiving a rapturous reception. 

Though there was no denying BTS’ massive success as the septet sold out stadiums across the world by 2019, there really was no preparation for what happened with “Dynamite” in 2020. The group’s first single released in all English can only be described as pop perfection. From the sticky-sweet lyrics to the colorfully choreographed music video, the song catapulted the already massively popular group to new levels of crossover American success. The song became BTS’ first No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 — and the first song ever by an all-South Korean musical act to reach that spot, with only Psy’s “Gangnam Style” (No. 2) getting close previously.  

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BTS followed that up with even more chart-toppers, several while linking up with English-language pop acts– lending an assist to Jason Derulo for “Savage Love” and getting recruited by Coldplay for “My Universe,” which became another No. 1 for both groups. BTS even had a No. 1 co-written by Ed Sheeran – with a personal favorite, “Permission to Dance.” Which isn’t to say the septet actually needed help from any other hitmakers, though  – as “Butter,” the delectable 10-week No. 1 that stands as the group’s longest-reigning Hot 100-topper to date, clearly demonstrated in summer 2021.  

Songs like “Dynamite,” “Butter” and “My Universe” have been able to secure BTS five Grammy nominations. They were also invited to the stage at both the 2021 and 2022 Grammys, with highly anticipated performances that brought the awards some of their buzziest and best-received moments. 

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The seven members have continued that success as solo artists while BTS has paused most group activity as its members participate in their mandatory South Korean military service. (Jin was the first member to enlist, doing so in Dec. 2022, and this June, also became the first to be discharged.) In 2022 J-Hope became the first South Korean artist to headline the main stage at a major U.S. music festival when he headlined Lollapalooza. In 2023 Suga took his solo show worldwide as he completed the Agust D Tour in support of his debut studio album D-Day. Jimin made history with the release of his first solo album, FACE, as the single “Like Crazy” became the first song by a Korean solo artist to top the Billboard Hot 100. Jung Kook performed at the World Cup and notched his own Hot 100 No. 1, with “Seven” featuring Latto. V, Jin and RM have also all released successful solo music. 

Meanwhile, even as they’ve become global pop crossover stars, the BTS members have continued to stay true to their hip-hop roots – as seen as recently as RM’s new feature on Megan Thee Stallion’s “Never Play” this September. He’s also worked with Erykah Badu, Wale and Anderson .Paak, while in 2023, J-Hope teamed up with a rap icon in J. Cole for the single “On the Street.” 

Jung Kook and Jimin

Courtesy of BIGHIT MUSIC

No K-pop group — or group in general — has been able to accomplish what Bangtan has this century. From creating a global community to expanding K-pop well outside of its genre and delivering seven successful pop star solo acts, BTS truly paved the way. 

Read more about the Greatest Pop Stars of the 21st Century here — and be sure to check back on Thursday when our No. 18 artist is revealed!

On this week’s (Sept. 6) episode of the Greatest Pop Stars of the 21st Century podcast, we take a look at a pair of “Mirror” men: all-time rap legend Lil Wayne (No. 21) and classic pop entertainer Bruno Mars (No. 20). Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news First, […]

With the first quarter of the 21st century coming to a close, Billboard is spending the next few months counting down our staff picks for the 25 greatest pop stars of the last 25 years. We’ve already named our Honorable Mentions and our No. 25, No. 24, No. 23, No. 22 and No. 21 stars, and now we remember the century in Bruno Mars — one of the century’s great writers, performers and hitmakers, who essentially arrived to early-’10s pop already on top of the world and has scarcely left his perch since.

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Before Bruno Mars became synonymous with near-flawless Grammy track records and surefire Billboard Hot 100 smashes, the 21st century’s preeminent old-school musical showman was cutting his teeth in the pop songwriting trenches. By racking up hits and placements across pop and R&B on both sides of the pond, Mars set a sturdy foundation for one of the most towering male pop careers of the 21st century. 

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Born Peter Gene Hernandez – “Bruno” comes from a childhood nickname and “Mars” is because he’s “out of this world,” and wouldn’t you agree? — and hailing from Hawai’i, Mars grew up in a family of musicians and began his performance career at the ripe age of four years old. That Mars got his start performing in his family’s band, The Love Notes, and developed an early reputation as his Hawai’i’s own Little Elvis is nothing short of cosmically poetic given how his career and positioning in the American pop ecosystem is informed by that of both Elvis and Michael Jackson. 

After four years of false starts with a failed label deal and a slow-burner of a publishing deal, Mars began to hit his stride in 2008. By then, Mars had cracked the code of his personal twist on pop songwriting in collaboration with Philip Lawrence and Ari Levine, collectively known as The Smeezingtons: explorations of love and pain rooted in grand, sweeping metaphors and live instrumentation steeped in cross-genre ‘80s influences. Just two months into 2009, Mars netted his breakthrough hit as a songwriter: Flo Rida and Kesha’s 2009 Billboard Hot 100-topper “Right Round.”  

That anthem arrived in the first month of the last year of the ‘00s decade, and Mars quickly followed it up with a pair of tracks – K’Naan’s “Wavin’ Flag,” Coca-Cola’s 2010 FIFA World Cup anthem, and Sugababes’ “Get Sexy” — that both hit No. 2 in the U.K. the following year. Recognized and respected for his songwriting chops, Mars closed out 2009 with the release of the song that would launch him into pop’s mainstream as a vocalist and artist in his own right: B.o.B.’s bubbly Hot 100-topping “Nothin’ On You.” 

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Positioned as the lead single from B.o.B.’s — then a buzzy Blog Era emcee – major label debut LP, “Nothin’ on You” still stands an era-defining rap&B love ballad, and its success foretold the hip-hop collaboration template Mars would return to throughout his navigation of Top 40’s zenith. Mars would release another pop-rap collab — “Billionaire” (with Travie McCoy) just three months later, earning him another Hot 100 top five hit (No. 4) and more good will with Top 40 radio, while helping usher in 2010s social media’s obsession with speaking things into existence.  

Two months after “Nothin’ on You” topped the Hot 100 in May 2010, Mars properly launched his recording career with “Just the Way You Are,” his debut solo single and lead single from his career-launching Doo-Wops & Hooligans LP. Although some critics initially discounted the song’s sappy lyrics, “Just the Way You Are” eventually became Mars’ first solo Hot 100 chart-topper and earned him his first Grammy, for best male pop vocal performance. That sappiness – which is often just a dual heavy-handed dose of earnestness and appreciation for eras of pop music’s past – is what drew listeners to Mars’ heart-on-your-sleeve anthems throughout the 2010s, especially as the decade began its descent into the kind of cynicism that now derides such displays of ardor. 

Bruno Mars

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Bruno Mars

Kevin Winter/Getty Images for iHeartMedia

Doo-Wops & Hooligans peaked at No. 3 on the Billboard 200 and has since spent nearly 700 weeks on the ranking. In addition to “Just the Way You Are,” the set also spawned the No. 1 hit “Grenade,” while third single “The Lazy Song” hit No. 4. Doo-Wops, a whimsical debut that melded Mars’ love of R&B and reggae with his pop appeal, found Mars taking his trademark tenor to soaring new heights, delivering feel-good anthems and love-proclaiming power ballads in one fell swoop. The spirit of Elvis shined through his look – hipster era fedora-toting artsy guy who occasionally sports a pompadour-inspired haircut – and his stage show.  

Mars’ music didn’t yet call for the physicality of funk, so he found a sweet medium playing a coy multi-instrumentalist heartthrob who wasn’t afraid to bust out a few hip thrusts to get some pulses racing. His debut LP was the kind of smash album that spun gold out of deep cuts: Though they weren’t officially promoted as U.S. radio singles, you’d be hard pressed to find an American over the age of 15 who doesn’t know “Runaway Baby,” “Count on Me” or “Marry You.” Even “Talking to the Moon” got an unexpected TikTok-led resurgence in 2021. 

Though Mars went straight for pop music’s zeitgeist with Doo-Wops, he always kept several toes in the worlds of hip-hop and R&B. For one of the tours he went on to promote the album, he co-headlined a 29-date joint trek with Janelle Monáe — who also released her debut LP in 2010, cementing herself and Mars as the decade’s mainstream torchbearers of funk. In 2011, the year between his debut and sophomore efforts, Mars also scored three consecutive Hot 100 top 20 hits alongside rappers: Bad Meets Evil’s “Lighters” (No. 4), Lil Wayne’s “Mirror” (No. 16) and Snoop Dogg & Wiz Khalifa’s “Young, Wild & Free” (No. 7). 

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By 2012, Mars had morphed into a more evolved synthesis of his inspirations as opposed to just a 2010s-tinted reflection of them. Unorthodox Jukebox, which featured his first collaborations with one Mark Ronson (wink wink), effortlessly cemented Mars’ status as one of the most commercially dependable male pop stars of his time. Lead single “Locked Out of Heaven,” ushered in a friskier Mars, who had traded the saccharine doe-eyed glimmer of Doo-Wops for the more explicit musings of an embattled lothario. Just over a year removed from notching one of the young decade’s earliest surefire wedding anthems with “Marry You,” Mars brought a chorus of “your sex takes me to paradise” all the way to the top of the Hot 100.  

With influences ranging from Jackson to The Police, Unorthodox Jukebox appropriately cast a wider sonic net than its predecessor, but the piano-and-vocal ballad “When I Was Your Man” proved to be the album’s most enduring hit. A heart-wrenching beg-on-your-knees ballad, “When I Was Your Man” became just the second exclusively piano-and-vocal song in Billboard history top the Hot 100. The first track? None other than Adele’s “Someone Like You” the year prior, a neat chart stat that reveals Mars as something of a parallel to Adele – two 2010s commercial juggernauts whose old-school affects and robust vocals made them pop music powerhouses in the aftermath of the EDM takeover. With “When I Was Your Man,” Mars racked up his first five Hot 100 No.1s faster than any male soloist since Elvis. How’s that for a guy who spent his childhood professionally impersonating The King of Rock ‘N’ Roll? “Treasure” — whose funky disco synths laid the foundation for Mars’ next sonic evolution – was the final hit single from Unorthodox Jukebox (No. 5) and remains a staple in his live shows.  

Bruno Mars

Ethan Miller/WireImage

Bruno Mars

Steve Granitz/WireImage

Unorthodox Jukebox was another triumphant era for Mars, so much so that it helped launch him to one of pop music’s biggest stages: the Super Bowl halftime show. Yes, Mars had netted a Grammy for both of his LPs, alongside a hefty bag of hit singles, but it was still borderline unfathomable that a pop artist under the age of 30 with just two studio albums was asked to headline Super Bowl halftime . Mars wasn’t just one of pop’s biggest stars, he arguably had the widest appeal of any musician at the time – thanks to his diverse background and the fondness for both the classic and modern, he’s been embraced by audiences across generations and genres — and if the 2010s have taught us anything, it’s that those two things aren’t always synonymous. (Of course, it also helped his Super Bowl gig that his special guests were Red Hot Chili Peppers.) 

Mars’ halftime show – which was the highest-rated at the time and drew more viewers than the game itself – found him powering through his small, but mighty, discography, flaunting his chops as a vocalist, dancer and instrumentalist. This era also spawned Mars’ first and only theatrical role: Roberto in the $500 million-grossing animated film Rio 2. The modern pop star template normally includes flashy relationships, major brand deals, and flirtations with other lanes of the entertainment industry, but Mars has avoided all of that for pretty much his entire career. Yes, he has a handful of brand deals and endorsements under his belt, but Mars’ stardom is almost uniquely tied to his music and not much else. Nobody really cares who Bruno Mars might be dating or what he might be wearing or what products he might use. We care about the hits, and few can deliver them as consistently as he does. 

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Mars would take four years to drop off his third studio album, but the years in the interim between Unorthodox Jukebox and 24K Magic were anything but quiet. After opening the year with his Super Bowl performance, Mars closed it out with the release of “Uptown Funk!” As Billboard’s No. 1 Hot 100 Song of the 2010s, “Uptown Funk” is the kind of genuine cultural phenomenon and musical juggernaut that feels damn near impossible in this age of hyper-fragmented social media silos. From Mars’ annoyingly charming vocal performance to an irresistible brass breakdown, “Uptown Funk” was simply inescapable. Mars’ presence on the track was also so outsized that many forget it’s not even his song. “Uptown Funk,” the lead single from Ronson’s Grammy-nominated 2015 Uptown Special LP, gifted the famed producer his biggest hit in close to a decade. The song was such a big hit that it didn’t even really feel like Mars was between album cycles — a period that also found him co-writing “All I Ask” from Adele’s 25 album and staging an epic dance battle alongside Beyoncé during Coldplay’s Super Bowl halftime show. 

To usher in 2016’s 24K Magic era, Mars traded in the snazzy slightly unbuttoned sex appeal of Unorthodox Jukebox for matching silk sets and gold rings galore. After dropping heavier hints with each subsequent release, Mars’ R&B era was finally here in full effect. 24K Magic – a lovingly crafted ode to funk and new jack swing – arrived during something of a transitional period for mainstream R&B. The genre’s future stars – SZA, Summer Walker, etc. — hadn’t yet made their major label debut, while The Weeknd’s rise to stardom thrusted murky blogosphere soundscapes to pop’s mainstream, upending expectations for what male R&B crossover stars could and should sound like. Enter Bruno Mars doubling down on some of R&B’s most vocally and physically intensive styles in the face of an era that all but formally rejected classic entertainers in favor of Internet mystique. It’s no wonder 24K Magic landed the way it did; here was someone making classic R&B jams during a time when we were debating whether half the stuff labeled as “R&B” even belonged under that umbrella. 

24K Magic launched three Hot 100 top five hits: the title track (No. 4), “That’s What I Like” (No. 1) and “Finesse” (No. 3). Now six years into his recording career, Mars was able to bend top 40 radio to his will, sending some genuine R&B jams to the top of Pop Airplay in an era where hip-hop had all but eclipsed R&B as far as Top 40 was concerned. Though he himself still side-stepped becoming an all-around cultural figure, Mars showed off his eye and ear for what makes the interwebs buzz by tapping Zendaya for the “Versace on the Floor” music video and Cardi B – in the midst of her breakout year – for the “Finesse” remix and its accompanying In Living Color-themed music video. 

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At the 2017 BET Awards, Mars opened the show with “Perm,” a 1960s James Brown-indebted funk track in which he sings, “Throw some perm on your attitude/ Girl, you gotta relax.” It was quite the sight to watch a non-Black man open a Black awards show using a perm metaphor to tell (presumably Black) women to calm down. That performance perfectly encapsulated the tension that lay at the heart of the 24K Magic era: What were we to do with this non-Black pop star taking overtly Black sounds and styles to the apex of mainstream music while actual black R&B artists struggle to get a second look? Claims of cultural appropriation hounded Mars throughout this era, and Black music elders (somewhat unsurprisingly) came to his defense.  

Mars himself would address the discourse years later in a 2021 Breakfast Club interview where he said, “The only reason why I’m here is because of James Brown, is because of Prince, Michael [Jackson] … that’s it. This music comes from love and if you can’t hear that, then I don’t know what to tell you.” To a degree, he’s right. Mars’ case isn’t like Iggy Azalea’s or Miley Cyrus’ or Post Malone’s, but it’s still one of the more uncomfortable byproducts of a music industry constructed with the building blocks of racial capitalism. Just as his inspiration Elvis proved decades prior, it’s always easier to sell Black music to America with a non-Black face. 

By the end of the album cycle, 24K Magic netted five Soul Train Music Awards, his first two BET Awards, his first three NAACP Image Awards and seven Grammys – including album, record and song of the year, as well as his first wins in the R&B field. Moreover, the set’s supporting tour earned Mars his first $300 million-grossing trek. If it wasn’t clear already, anything Bruno Mars touched turned into 24k gold. 

In the period following 24K Magic, Mars laid low – and there was no “Uptown Funk”-level hit to blow his cover. Anderson .Paak served as the opening act on the European leg of the 24K Magic World Tour, beginning a fruitful period of collaboration between the two funk and R&B aficionados. Meanwhile, he dropped “Please Me” with Cardi B (one of the more forgettable singles in both of their catalogs), dipped his toes into hard rock alongside Chris Stapleton on Ed Sheeran’s “Blow,” and earned rhythmic radio smash with “Wake Up in the Sky” (with Gucci Mane & Kodak Black). 

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After spending the majority of the pandemic’s first year writing, Bruno emerged in 2021 alongside .Paak as the superduo Silk Sonic. The move was as left-field as Mars gets: He was undoubtedly the bigger star of the two, but the slightly edgier .Paak held the key to the kind of critical acclaim that sometimes evaded him as a more crowd-pleasing entertainer. .Paak — who is half-Black – also helped cover that base as Mars moved into his most R&B-indebted era yet. Zeroing in on Philadelphia soul, Mars and .Paak effectively became a tribute act, from their sultry falsetto-laden harmonies to their snazzy earth toned costumes. “Leave the Door Open,” the lead single from An Evening With Silk Sonic, was met with near-universal acclaim, earning the No. 1 spot on the Hot 100 and four Grammys. For many listeners, “real” R&B was back on top after years of vibey trap&B dominating the airwaves and streaming playlists alike.  

To an extent, “Leave the Door Open” was lightning in a bottle: Between the hype of Mars’ comeback, the promise of a new musical superduo and the strength of its melody, “Leave the Door Open” reached heights unmatched by any of its follow-up singles. “Smokin Out the Window” was the album’s lone additional top 10 hit, reaching No. 5. Silk Sonic’s debut LP entered the Billboard 200 at No. 2, shifting 104,000 units in its first week with 42,000 copies sold in traditional album sales – a solid showing for what could have easily been written off as a side project, but still somewhat eyebrow-raising considering Mars’ past opening week totals. 

Now over a decade into his recording career, Mars has once again returned to the top of the charts. This time, he tapped Lady Gaga for “Die With a Smile,” a soaring ballad that blends pop, soul, country and rock. Already both artists’ first No. 1 hit on the Billboard Global 200, it wouldn’t be surprising in the slightlest if the Grammy-contending duet soon notched both superstars their latest Hot 100 chart-topper. 

In addition to his breathless catalog of hit singles and smash albums, Bruno Mars also has some of the century’s biggest tours and residencies under his belt. In many ways, Mars is a true songwriter’s pop star. Sure, there are jokes about his past cocaine use and alleged (and debunked) Vegas debt, but the vast majority of his cultural pull comes from his dependability as a commercially successful pop singer and prodigious pop songwriter. Who needs a cult of personality or a decade’s worth of lore to sustain a 21st century pop career when you’ve got that level of talent and charm, and a hefty bag of enduring wedding-level classics to boot? Bruno Mars is complete proof that the pop templates of past eras can still thrive in the 21st century – as long as they come in the form of a curly-headed and superhumanly talented short king. 

Read more about the Greatest Pop Stars of the 21st Century here and check back on Tuesday when our No. 19 artist is revealed!

Earlier this month, we here at Billboard began our staff countdown of the 25 Greatest Pop Stars of the 21st Century — the artists who, by our estimation, have best exemplified and influenced pop stardom over the course of the past 25 years. We’ve been rolling out two of them a week, and will continue […]

With the first quarter of the 21st century coming to a close, Billboard is spending the next few months counting down our staff picks for the 25 greatest pop stars of the last 25 years. We’ve already named our Honorable Mentions and our No. 25, No. 24 and No. 23 stars, and now we remember the century in One Direction — who helped to redefine pop music, pop stardom and pop fandom in their brief-but-dominant 2010s run, while also minting five future solo hitmakers (including one absolute superstar).

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Piles of headshots were accumulating on a table in front of The X Factor judges Simon Cowell, Nicole Scherzinger and Louis Walsh. Tasked with deciding which contestants would make it to the next round of the competition, the panel analyzed each photo – and as they sorted through the contestants, an idea started to form. “You can’t get rid of little stars, you know?” Scherzinger said. “So you put them all together.” And in a twist of fate, five journeys that were in peril merged paths to become One Direction.

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As the boys spent more time together, their roles became clearer: Liam Payne, with his standout audition, would be the leader; Louis Tomlinson’s charm would make him the lovable prankster; Niall Horan, the humble boy from Ireland would be the down-to-earth sweetheart; Zayn Malik, reserved with undeniably striking looks, would be the mysterious one; and Harry Styles, with his curly locks, dimples and wide smile, would be the heartthrob. Together, they were 1D, and they would take over the world.

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One Direction’s ascent to global stardom proved that the boy band archetype could still thrive in the 21st century, albeit in a new and distinctly modern way. In just five years, 1D released five albums that brought up-tempo British pop-rock to the States and laid the foundation for today’s international pop groups. A new online community, “stan Twitter,” rallied around the group, and their superfans, called “Directioners,” helped their idols achieve astronomical mainstream success, changing fan-to-fan communication and fan-to-artist relationships forever.

Back in 2011, One Direction won the hearts of The X Factor’s U.K. audience with a mix of pop covers ranging from Coldplay’s “Viva la Vida” to Snow Patrol’s “Chasing Cars” – and even though they didn’t win the competition, they won something bigger: an already-devout fan following, and a contract with Simon Cowell’s Syco Records. Cowell moved swiftly to capitalize on One Direction’s momentum, pairing the group with established hitmakers to churn out their debut single “What Makes You Beautiful.” Savan Kotecha, whose writing credits already included songs for Britney Spears, Katy Perry and Usher, penned the track, and perfected it with the help of fellow writer Carl Falk, who would go on to write for Ariana Grande, Jason Derulo and Madonna.

“What Makes You Beautiful” was a work of bubblegum pop perfection that popped the top 40 bubble. When the track was released in the U.K. and Ireland in September of 2011, pop was dominated by EDM, turbo-pop and Young Money-style hip-hop – but managed to break through the noise and rise to the top of the charts. The single was so commercially successful that it drummed up interest overseas – by the time One Direction’s debut album Up All Night was released in the U.K. and Ireland in November of 2011, #Bring1DtoUS was trending regularly on Twitter, with fans organizing their own marketing efforts to catch the group’s attention, including flash mobs and DIY music videos combining clips from fans from all over the country.

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As soon as One Direction touched down on American soil, the quintet was breaking records and taking names. “What Makes You Beautiful” was digitally released on Valentine’s Day of 2012, debuting at No. 28 on the Billboard Hot 100 and marking the biggest debut for a British act in over a decade. It peaked at No. 4 less than two months later, when Up All Night was released in the U.S. to a No. 1 bow on the Billboard 200, cementing 1D as the first U.K. group to score that achievement with a debut album. When One Direction made their first stateside TV appearance on the Today Show to promote the release of Up All Night, 15,000 fans showed up, comparable to audiences pulled by Justin Bieber and Lady Gaga. 

Straddling the line of being child-friendly, brand-safe public figures and being young men in their late teens and early twenties was critical to One Direction’s success, as the lads were ubiquitous in what seemed like every way possible. The group was booked to open for Big Time Rush, a Nickelodeon-bred boy band that was taking off in the states, on their already sold-out tour – but their presence was so overwhelming that they overshadowed their headliner, and the Up All Night Tour sold out in venues across the U.S. soon after. 

One Direction had a je ne sais quois that set them apart from other boy bands. Unlike most of their predecessors, the five members didn’t follow choreography or dress alike, but they still possessed the same level of charisma – just in different packages. Their distinct personalities shined in interviews, video diaries and Twitter Q&As, and even more so when they interacted with one another. Watching five young men come together like brothers to live out their dreams was inspiring, and their camaraderie warmed the hearts of millions. The fans treasured the group’s relationships so deeply that they declared allegiance to every possible combination of inter-band dynamics, including “Narry,” “LiLo,” and “Ziam.”

One Direction

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Directioners wanted more – and they got what they wished for. A Pepsi Super Bowl Halftime commercial with NFL star Drew Brees aired, guest appearances on iCarly and SNL premiered on the same day in April, and the quintet took the stage at the closing ceremony of the 2012 Olympics. You couldn’t walk into a drugstore without encountering a One Direction toothbrush or turn on the radio without hearing “What Makes You Beautiful” – it was Beatlemania for the 2010s, powered by fans who were online 24/7, 365 days a year and watching their every move – literally, sometimes going as far as hacking security cameras in elevators and airports just to catch a glimpse of their favorite band. 

The release of One Direction’s sophomore album Take Me Home ushered in a new era: The set also debuted atop the Billboard 200, making One Direction the first group to best the Billboard 200 with their first two albums since American girl group Danity Kane, and the group became the first boy band in U.S. chart history to land two No. 1 albums in a calendar year. But the accolades were not as significant to the group as how the release helped them evolve their image. Each member had writing credits on this album, showing that they were involved artists who had control of the development of their music; and bolder, more blatantly suggestive lyrics on songs like “Live While We’re Young” and fan favorite “Rock Me” reminded their audience that despite their Radio Disney-friendly appeal, the members were all adults by then, ranging from 18 to 20 years old. While critics were not convinced that One Direction could shake its bubblegum pop sound, fans loved it, and the Take Me Home Tour was the band’s biggest yet, wrapped with an accompanying concert film.

With so much commercial success, nonstop touring and more, fans and critics alike began to wonder: how long can this all be sustained? Repeating the cycle of Take Me Home, One Direction released their third album Midnight Memories in November of 2013, earning their third consecutive No. 1 on the Billboard 200, and highest debut on the Hot 100 (No. 2) with accompanying lead single “Best Song Ever.” The group was making what critics would finally admit was “great rock music” – but fans and outsiders alike could sense that they were tired; this was, after all, their third No. 1 album in just over a year and a half since their U.S. debut. Still, One Direction pushed forward with the Where We Are tour, playing stadiums two years into their careers – and packing them with 3.4 million fans, while also flipping said tour into a concert film. Everything 1D touched turned to gold.

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At the tail end of the tour, One Direction announced their fourth LP, Four. Their aptly named fourth studio album rollout began with “Steal My Girl,” drawing praise and comparisons to Journey. This old-school rock and alt-folk inspiration was present throughout the record, and it made 1D’s music feel more elevated than prior releases. It felt like the group had collectively matured and improved, and the set notched the group’s fourth consecutive debut at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 in November of 2014, making them the first group in history to bow atop the chart with each of its first four albums. Its most critically acclaimed album was celebrated by fans – but what those fans didn’t know was that the LP would also mark the beginning of the end.

Commercial success kept 1D booked and busy, but it couldn’t make up for the toll it had taken on the group’s wellbeing. Shortly after the start of the On The Road Again tour, Malik left for home in hopes of dealing with the stress; less than a week later, on March 25, his departure from the group was announced via Facebook. “I am leaving,” Malik shared, “because I want to be a normal 22-year-old who is able to relax and have some private time out of the spotlight.” At that moment, millions of girls around the world had their hearts broken: not only did Malik’s imminent departure become permanent, but the future of the band officially came into question. The official One Direction account followed Malik’s statement, assuring fans that the remaining four members would continue on and release their fifth studio album, but the plans felt more daunting than reassuring.

The seismic shift caused by Malik’s departure crumbled the foundation that One Direction stood upon, and their final album, Made in the A.M., would ultimately be their swan song. Its lead single “Drag Me Down” was released in July, with an uncharacteristic lack of pre-promotion – and in August, a hiatus was announced for 2016. Made in the A.M. was released in November, and while it was not as commercially successful as their past work, it didn’t matter: It was what the fans needed so that they could say a proper goodbye. “Love You Goodbye,” “History” and the album’s final track “A.M.” memorialized five years of international superstardom and closed the door on a One Direction era for the last time. 

Zayn Malik, Harry Styles and Niall Horan

Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for iHeartRadio; Anthony Pham via Getty Images; Dave J Hogan/Getty Images

Freed from the obligations of being in a band, the members of One Direction explored solo ventures. They each released successful top 40 singles: Malik debuted first with “Pillowtalk,” soaring to the top of the Hot 100 in January of 2016 — higher even than 1D ever got as a quintet. Horan followed suit, releasing “This Town” in September with a No. 20 debut, and Tomlinson closed out the year by dropping “Just Hold On,” a collaboration with Steve Aoki, in December, which landed at No. 52. The remaining two members, Styles and Payne, made their solo debuts the year after: Styles’ first single “Sign of the Times” peaked at No. 4 in April of 2017, and Payne’s “Strip That Down” featuring Quavo dropped in May. Payne’s No. 10 debut with “Strip” hammered the final nail into the 1D coffin – and now that each member had their solo debut, the public would decide who would be the most successful outside of the group. 

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By December 2019, four of the five former bandmates had released their debut album – all except Tomlinson, who would release his debut Walls in January 2020 – and Malik, Styles and Horan each notched No. 1 Billboard 200 debuts, showing similar promise across the group post-break up. But as Styles’ sophomore album Fine Line began to roll out, with singles like “Adore You” and “Watermelon Sugar” achieving increasingly higher levels of pop success, it was clear that his sustained stardom would be difficult for the other members to match. By the time Harry’s House was released in 2022, Styles was respected by Directioners, new fans and critics alike – so much, in fact, that Harry’s House won Album of the Year at the Grammys the following year. Still, despite Styles’ well-earned superstardom, he always pays tribute to his past, continuing to perform the song that started it all: “What Makes You Beautiful.”

One Direction’s legacy survives in both obvious and unexpected ways. The British pop invasion that the group led in the early 2010s amplified related acts like Ed Sheeran, The Wanted and Little Mix for all the world to hear, and helped bring rock-based pop music back to the mainstream – starting with 5 Seconds of Summer, the Australian band whose hitmaking career skyrocketed after opening for 1D on the Where We Are Tour. The quintet’s greatest contribution, though, was how it changed the blueprint for pop superstardom. While there is no exact formula for fame and success, the Directioners created and normalized a more intense version of “stan” culture than ever before: one that shows devotion through chronic online-ness and community building all day, every day, which has shaped entire industries like K-pop. And even though One Direction only lasted for five years as a group, the impact of its discography — ranging from enduring smashes to beloved deep cuts — continues to shape a generation of pop connoisseurs, and hold a particularly special place in the hearts of Millennials and Gen Z’ers everywhere.

Read more about the Greatest Pop Stars of the 21st Century here and check back on Tuesday when our No. 21 artist is revealed!