State Champ Radio Lists
No matter how quick the wit, no stand-up comic starts out a success. Forget the top: on the way to the bottom rung, comics need to endure endless open-mic tryouts, log thousands of miles for little or no money and be thankful for 1:00 a.m. slots in front of drunken hecklers. And that’s just for starters. The further up the ladder they climb, the more pressure they face to consistently write and hone hour-plus sets that will power tours, specials and social media. Increasingly, they also choose to engage in a weekly form of digital improv known as the podcast.
As the first quarter of the 21st century comes to an end, Billboard set out to determine the best of that A-list: the top 25 stand-up comics of the last 25 years. To come up with these rankings, we polled experts that work with comics on a daily basis: bookers with a long histories of breaking comic talent.
The panel consists of William Burdett-Coutts, who heads the Assembly venues at the Edinburgh Fringe festival; Michael Cox, stand-up booker for The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon; Adam Eget, manager at Joe Rogan’s Comedy Mothership in Austin, Tx, and before that, the Comedy Store in Los Angeles; Bruce Hills, who, for 36 years booked and eventually ran Montreal’s Just For Laughs festival; Caroline Hirsch, the founder of Caroline’s Comedy Club and co-founder of the New York Comedy Festival; Chris and Steve Mazzilli, owners of the Gotham Comedy Club in Manhattan; Patrick Milligan, the booker and proprietor of The Stand NYC comedy club; Susan Provan, director of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival; and Samantha Schles, director of comedy at the SXSW Festival. (Billboard‘s parent company, PMC, owns a 50% stake in SXSW.)
Thanks to all our panelists for taking time out of their hectic schedules to participate. (And special thanks to Hill, who provided valuable advice on voting parameters, helped create a well-rounded and authoritative judges panel and generously provided means to contact them.)
The process began with our panel helping put together a ballot of more than 150 nominees. The talent pool was limited to comedians with active stand-up careers over the last 25 years — as opposed to sketch, sitcom, film or improvisational performers, such as the cast of Saturday Night Live, Second City or Upright Citizens Brigade. Overseas comedians with a presence in the United States were also considered.
From there, the judges each ranked their top 25 comics. Voting was anonymous, and a weighted system was used to determine the top 25. As a number of judges remarked when returning their ballots, winnowing such a large batch of nominees was extremely difficult. There are a lot of exceptional stand-up comics out there.
For the next week, Billboard will present the results of the voting — the top 25 stand-up comedians of the last 25 years — in ascending order, five at a time, with the complete list unveiled on Friday (Dec. 6). Nos. 25 through 21 follow below.
25. Jon Stewart
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The Coca Cola Flow Fest, the biggest reggaetón party celebrating Latin urban music, held its 2025 edition this weekend (Nov. 22 and 23) in Mexico with a powerful lineup that brought together legends of the scene and young stars, from Don Omar, Wisin y J Balvin a Young Miko, Álvaro Díaz and Myke Towers.
Nicky Jam, Lenny Tavárez, Omar Courtz, Bad Gyal, De La Ghetto, Sech, De La Rose, Yailin La Más Viral, Jowell & Randy, El Alfa, Andy Rivera, Easykid, Sayuri & Sopholov, Daaz, Katteyes, Mexican rap star Santa Fe Klan, and the queen of Mexican reggaetón Bellakath were also part of the dazzling lineup for the eighth edition of the festival, held annually at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez, home of the F1 in Mexico City.
Likewise, the popular event brought regional Mexican superstar Natanael Cano with the full power of his corridos tumbados as one of the main acts, marking a precedent in the festival for a genre outside of urban music.
Great guests lit up the five stages of the festival, including Colombian icon Carlos Vives, who headlined one of the acts on the Sessions Stage and later reappeared during Wisin’s set to perform “Nota de Amor” together. Mexican star El Malilla fired up the stage alongside DJ Chaka, and on Sunday, joined his Mexican friends with J Balvin during the closing performance. The event also brought some exclusives, such as the announcement of Álvaro Díaz’s new album, OMAKASE, set for release in 2026, which the artist revealed at the end of his performance on Saturday.
In total, the Flow Fest 2025 gathered approximately 163,000 people over its two days — 79,000 on Saturday and 84,000 on Sunday — according to the promoter Ocesa. Here are the 10 best moments from the Coca Cola Flow Fest 2025, ranked all the way down to our favorite.
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The memes that have deepened our relationships with our favorite pop stars for the last two decades and beyond.
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The third day of the Corona Capital 2025 festival on Sunday (Nov. 16) delivered an epic finale to Linkin Park’s From Zero World Tour 2025, with the alternative rock band paying tribute to Mexico by rocking lucha libre masks. It also marked the long-awaited and powerful return of Deftones to the Mexico City stage after nearly […]
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Fred Armisen has few equals when it comes to committing to the bit. Whether he’s playing Prince or gold-toothed Venezuelan timbales player Fericito on Saturday Night Live, Dave, Spyke or Bryce on Portlandia, or Uncle Fester on Wednesday, he inhabits his characters so completely that they can be uncomfortable to watch—especially when those characters lack any self-consciousness, are painfully naive, talentless or annoying. It’s a trick he brought to his public persona as well, especially his bits with Seth Meyers as the drummer of the 8G Band on Late Night, explaining that he was releasing his first fragrance (a suspiciously dark liquid that smelled like ink) or launching his own celebrity circus.
So when Armisen appeared on Netflix’s Everybody’s Live With John Mulaney last March and announced he was about to release an album of sound effects on the Drag City label, it was hard to tell if it was real, a joke, or an Andy Kaufman-esque bit that lived in the space between reality and comedy. Even Mulaney seemed uncertain. And when Armisen played a few sound effects, the straightforwardness of it all only fed the uncertainty.
Turns out, Armisen was not kidding — at least not joking about releasing an album of unadorned recordings of . . . sounds. Drag City released 100 Sound Effects in late September. As the Chicago label’s co-founder Dan Koretzky put it: “Fred proposed a sound effects record, and thinking he meant a tribute to The Jam, we were thrilled! When we realized it was a record of actual sound effects, we were overjoyed!” Koretzky was referring to Paul Weller-led band’s 1980 near-masterpiece Sound Affects, and the cover of Sound Effects pays homage to that album. It is also dedicated to the late producer and indie rock icon Steve Albini, who helped Armisen find L.A. recording studios for the project before he died last year.
100 Sound Effects actually contains a 101st bonus track — a throwback to the full flowering of the CD format in the 1990s and 2000s. The recordings range from seven seconds to one minute and 49 seconds. (A nine-track compilation on Spotify combines a number of effects by subject.) Comedian friends also feature on some of the tracks, including Tim Heidecker, Mary Lynn Rajskub (remember her in that torture procedural 24?) and his wife Riki Lindhome.
In interviews for the album, Armisen has said he hopes some of the recordings will actually be used by the entertainment industry. Licensing fees are a little unlikely, given the ready availability of royalty-free sound libraries. But Koretzky does not sound like someone concerned about how much the album sells or streams. Asked why his label would commit to an album with little commercial potential, he replied via email: “We may have different definitions of commercial success.”
Given Armisen’s commitment to the project and his craft, Billboard committed to listening to and ranking the tracks on 100 Sound Effects. That said, 101 entries do not follow. Some of the sound effects are slight variations on a theme, such as breaking glass, and, for the purpose of this article, are evaluated as a group.
Fred Armisen, “100 Sound Effects”
Courtesy Photo
Track 101: “Fred Walking to Control Room”
What a difference 10 years can make. That was the last time Billboard tackled the monumental feat of ranking the top R&B artists, dating back to the ‘50s. Michael Jackson, whose grew from his R&B roots to capture the King of Pop crown, ruled over that 2015 tally. Now as the music industry and fans celebrate Black Music Month 2025, Billboard is picking up the “best of all time” gauntlet once again.
Expanding from 35 to 75 entries and substituting artists with singers, this latest iteration begins its rollout with today’s (June 16) reveal of the singers ranked 75-51. The unveiling will continue over the next several days — Nos. 50-26 followed by Nos. 26-11 — with the curtain raising on Juneteenth (June 19) to reveal the top 10 honorees.
Staff discussions on how to go about determining the entries and rankings were, to say the least, heated. Helping to fuel these illuminating and sometimes raucous discourses were generational debates over old school vs. new school. At the same time, “Mount Rushmore” debates were also raging on the social media front as fans weighed in on which R&B artists — like Jackson, Chris Brown, Luther Vandross, R. Kelly and Usher — truly deserve to have their images carved in stone for all time.
In the end, Billboard staffers agreed on the following criteria: vocal prowess, body of work, career longevity, industry achievements, game-changing influence and enduring generational/cultural impact. While some singers who made the list are also known for their lyrical skills, songwriting wasn’t a major deciding factor in this instance. And legendary singers best known for fronting groups versus their solo work were not included — which means a ranking of the best R&B groups of all time is no doubt in the offing.
In the meantime, any best-of compilation automatically invites naysayers to the party. As these 75 singers are revealed, the expectant clamor will rise in response to our staff’s effrontery in deciding who’s now on or off the list, who’s risen or been dropped or who still has never made this latest version or the 2015 ranking.
More crucial, however, is understanding a chief intention behind Billboard’s 75 Best R&B Singers of All Time. It’s a teachable moment at a time when Black history, culture and its achievements are being erased or revised across the board. Black Music Month originated in 1979 via the efforts of the observance’s co-founders Dyana Williams, Kenneth Gamble and Ed Wright. And each year it drives home an insightful comment made by author/activist Maya Angelou: “You can’t know where you are going until you know where you have been.”
So here’s to the rich past and the unlimited future of the multifaceted jewel that is R&B.
75. Ruth Brown
Image Credit: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
For many artists, there is something even more powerful than filling stadiums, pulling all-nighters in recording studios, topping charts, or receiving awards: being a father. On Father’s Day 2025, celebrated this Sunday (June 15), we recognize not the touring singer or the hitmaker, but the man behind the microphone. He who lovingly combs his daughter’s […]
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Following the death of the legendary Brian Wilson, the absolute best from one of the greatest catalogs in rock or pop history.
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The best from the Sly Stone-led funk, rock and soul outfit, following its leader’s passing at age 82.
It’s officially Lil Wayne week. Weezy is set to return with the sixth installment of arguably rap’s most decorated album series with Tha Carter VI arriving on Friday (June 6).
Seven years after C5, Wayne hopes to make more history and add to his decorated legacy. The project’s slated to be another star-studded affair with a range of rumored features from Miley Cyrus, Bono, MGK, Wyclef Jean, Andrea Bocelli and more.
Three decades into a hall-of-fame career, Lil Wayne changed the aesthetic of rappers and the genre’s sound in the 21st century. Take a look at all the “Lil”s in the rap game, the tattoos and dreadlocks, that can be attributed to Weezy’s influence. His intoxicating Auto-Tune-laced rhymes and witty punchlines that seemingly never end ushered in a new archetype of rapper.
“Before I stepped into music, everyone looked a certain way and everyone did a certain thing. Look at me. Now look at music. They all look like me,” he said in 2020. “I love it.”
At the end of every concert, Lil Wayne expresses gratitude to his fans, saying, “I ain’t s–t without you.” But Weezy wouldn’t but the artist he is without Tha Carter series—a staple in his discography and an artifact of hip-hop history. “Welcome back hip-hop, I saved your life,” he raps on Tha Carter 3’s “Dr. Carter.”
Lil Wayne’s prime heading into C3 circa ‘07-’08 was something you had to see to believe. In a genre with goliaths like Kanye West, Jay-Z and Eminem dominating, Weezy stood tall at 5’5”, in a league of his own. At times, his greatness was impossible to measure through sheer commercial numbers, with the droves of leaks and mixtape files being shared online between fans in a pre-streaming world.
“You scare me, man, every time you spit,” Ye told Wayne on stage at the 2008 BET Awards while referring to Weezy as his “fiercest competition.”
The New Orleans rap deity will take a bow and a well-deserved victory lap on Friday night when he celebrates Tha Carter VI’s arrival with his first headlining solo show at Madison Square Garden. How is that possible?
Billboard sifted through all five installments of Tha Carter and attempted to do the impossible, filing down a list to the 10 best tracks from the acclaimed series. (And a quick honorable mention to “Mirror,” “This is the Carter,” “I Miss My Dawgs,” “Got Money,” “Mona Lisa,” “Fly In” and “Comfortable.”)
“Tha Mobb”
