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11/26/2024
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11/26/2024
Drake has launched a second bombshell legal action against Universal Music Group over Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us,” accusing the music giant of defamation and claiming it could have halted the release of a song “falsely accusing him of being a sex offender.”
A day after filing an action in New York accusing UMG of illegally boosting Lamar’s track with payments to Spotify, Drake’s company leveled similar claims in Texas court regarding radio giant iHeartRadio. The new filing, filed late Monday and made public on Tuesday, claims UMG “funneled payments” to iHeart as part of a “pay-to-play scheme” to promote the song on radio.
But the filing also offers key new details about Drake’s grievances toward UMG, the label where he has spent his entire career. In it, he says UMG knew that Kendrick’s song “falsely” accused him of being a “certified pedophile” and “predator” but chose to release it anyway.
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“UMG … could have refused to release or distribute the song or required the offending material to be edited and/or removed,” Drake’s lawyers write. “But UMG chose to do the opposite. UMG designed, financed and then executed a plan to turn ‘Not Like Us’ into a viral mega-hit with the intent of using the spectacle of harm to Drake and his businesses to drive consumer hysteria and, of course, massive revenues. That plan succeeded, likely beyond UMG’s wildest expectations.”
Like the New York filing on Monday, the new petition isn’t quite a lawsuit. Instead, it’s so-called pre-action filing aimed taking depositions from key figures at UMG and iHeart in order to obtain more information that might support Drake’s accusations in a future lawsuit.
In seeking that information, Drake’s lawyers say they already have enough evidence to pursue a “claim for defamation” against UMG, but that they might also tack on claims of civil fraud and racketeering based on what they discover from the depositions.
UMG and iHeartRadio did not immediately return requests for comment on the new filing. Lamar is not named as a respondent in the filing and is not legally accused of any wrongdoing.
Universal Music Group responded to yesterday’s filing with a statement provided to Billboard. “The suggestion that UMG would do anything to undermine any of its artists is offensive and untrue,” the company said. “We employ the highest ethical practices in our marketing and promotional campaigns. No amount of contrived and absurd legal arguments in this pre-action submission can mask the fact that fans choose the music they want to hear.”
Like Monday’s bombshell petition, the new filing in Texas is another remarkable escalation in the high-profile beef between the two stars, which saw Drake and Lamar exchange stinging diss tracks over a period of months earlier this year. Such beefs happen frequently in the world of hip-hop, but few thought either side would file legal actions over the insults.
It also represents a deepening of the rift between Drake and UMG, where the star has spent his entire career — first through signing a deal with Lil Wayne’s Young Money imprint, which was distributed by Republic Records, then by signing directly to Republic. Lamar, too, has spent his entire career associated with UMG and is currently signed to a licensing deal with Interscope.
In Tuesday’s new petition, Drake essentially accused the music giant of using illegal means to unfairly prioritize one of its artists over the other.
“Before it approved the release of the song, UMG knew that the song itself, as well as its accompanying album art and music video, attacked the character of another one of UMG’s most prominent artists, Drake, by falsely accusing him of being a sex offender, engaging in pedophilic acts, harboring sex offenders and committing other criminal sexual acts,” his lawyers write.
For the 2021 update of our ongoing Greatest Pop Star by Year project, Billboard counted down our staff picks for the top 10 pop stars of 2021. At No. 1. we remember the year in Taylor Swift — who rewrote industry rules and had one of the most impactful years of her storied pop career without even releasing an entirely new album. Find a full essay about her 2021 below, and find our Greatest Pop Star picks for every year up to present day here.
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“You guys turned a hard thing into a very, very wonderful experience,” Taylor Swift told an audience of diehard fans at a November screening of her All Too Well short film at New York City’s AMC Lincoln Square theater. Before unveiling the self-directed companion piece to the 10-minute version of the fan favorite epic of the same name, featured on the re-recorded Red (Taylor’s Version), Swift expressed gratitude to a group of supporters that helped turn a non-single breakup track from her original 2012 album into a signature song worthy of expanding past the double-digit minute mark. “All Too Well” could have been little more than a personally revealing footnote to her career, Swift pointed out; instead, the fans identified its intimate power, championed it, and ultimately revived it, to create one of the most eagerly anticipated revisited songs in pop history. “All of this is happening,” Swift told her audience, “because you made this happen.”
Well, yes and no. Swift is correct that the fandom that gathered around “All Too Well” — a long-form songwriting feat, with some of the most evocative lyricism of Swift’s career — in the nine years since its original release helped clear the path for “All Too Well (10-Minute Version)” as a capital-E Event stretching beyond the Swifties into the mainstream. Yet she deserves a ton of credit herself: No other popular artist harnessed that type of fan energy with as much passion and imagination in 2021 as Swift, across albums and platforms, on projects that challenged the modern music industry while still succeeding wildly within it.
Billboard’s Greatest Pop Stars of 2021:Introduction & Honorable Mentions | Comeback of the Year: Willow | Rookie of the Year: Olivia Rodrigo | No. 10: Bad Bunny | No. 9: Dua Lipa | No. 8: Justin Bieber | No. 7: Drake | No. 6: BTS | No. 5: The Weeknd | No. 4: Doja Cat | No. 3: Adele | No. 2: Lil Nas X
Swift began 2021 still riding high from a triumphant 2020 – a year she reasonably could have taken off, having delivered her Lover album in August 2019 and watched her planned Lover Fest stadium shows fall victim to the pandemic the following year. Instead, Swift fell down a musical rabbit hole that yielded two full albums and, in hindsight, catered perfectly to her songwriting strengths. The first one, Folklore scored the largest debut week for an album in 2020 upon its July release, and companion piece Evermore earned the fifth-largest in December, both ending 2020 and starting 2021 atop the Billboard 200 albums chart.
With Evermore, Swift continued the sonic reinvention kick-started by Folklore, an unexpected alt-folk exploration recorded in secret during quarantine with indie vets like The National’s Aaron Dessner and Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon. Evermore would go on to spend three total weeks atop the Billboard 200 in 2021. Meanwhile, its hushed, woodsy single “Willow,” which launched atop the Hot 100 in December alongside the album release, grew into a radio success in the spring, ascending to No. 1 on Billboard’s Adult Pop Airplay chart in April.
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Before that, however, Swift won another album of the year trophy. At the 63rd Annual Grammy Awards in March, Folklore took home the top prize — the third of Swift’s career, following wins for Fearless at the 2010 ceremony and 1989 in 2016. Not only did the win help Swift enter the record books, as the fourth artist overall and only woman with three album of the year wins (following Frank Sinatra, Stevie Wonder and Paul Simon), the accomplishment was also a bit of personal validation after Swift’s two previous albums, 2017’s Reputation and 2019’s Lover, were not even nominated in the top category. Once again, Swift thanked the fans, this time for embracing the artistic swerve of her 2020 output: “You guys met us in this imaginary world that we created,” she said in her acceptance speech, “and we can’t tell you how honored we are forever by this.”
One month later, Swift returned to that first album of the year winner of hers. In April, Fearless (Taylor’s Version) kicked off the behemoth endeavor of re-recording her first six studio albums. Announced in 2019, the project followed the acquisition of Swift’s master recordings by Scooter Braun’s Ithaca Holdings, as a way for her to essentially reclaim ownership over the period of her career that made her a household name. What could have been an industry curiosity based around a rights dispute instead played out like a widescreen revisit to a pivotal era of Swift’s career, as hits like “You Belong With Me” and “Love Story” were lovingly re-created, and previously unreleased tracks from the Fearless recording sessions were finally unveiled as “From The Vault” treasures.
The amount of care that Swift put into Fearless (Taylor’s Version) turned the 26-track set into a must-hear remake of the diamond-certified original, and fans embraced it as such. The full-length became the first re-recorded version of a previous No. 1 album to top the Billboard 200 albums chart upon its release, with the biggest debut week of 2021 at the time with 291,000 equivalent album units, according to MRC Data.
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It wasn’t the only way that Swift’s towering legacy cast a shadow over the first half of 2021, either. In between the April release of Fearless (Taylor’s Version) and the June announcement that Red (Taylor’s Version) would be the next re-recorded album to arrive in November, Swift proved a key influence, and contributor, to another artist’s year-defining album. Pop singer-songwriter Olivia Rodrigo hasn’t been shy about her love of Swift’s music over the course of her breakout year, name-checking the superstar as a sonic and spiritual guide when “Drivers License” was released back in January, and receiving an Instagram shout-out from Swift during the debut single’s quick ascent.
Rodrigo’s debut album Sour took the adoration even further upon its May release: the heart-wrenching piano ballad “1 Step Forward, 3 Steps Back” borrowed from Swift’s own heart-wrenching piano ballad, 2017’s “New Year’s Day,” resulting in Swift and Jack Antonoff being listed as writers on the track. Two months after the album’s release, Rodrigo also added Swift, Antonoff and Annie Clark as co-writers to the post-breakup reflection “Deja Vu” due to the bridge’s similarities to Swift’s own complex-romance remembrance, 2019’s “Cruel Summer.” Rodrigo is pop’s rookie of the year with 2021’s biggest breakthrough album — which Swift gets some of the credit for, in ways both figurative and literal.
Delays in the vinyl shipping of Evermore pushed the album back to the top of the Billboard 200 when the record was finally sent out to fans in June, displacing Sour at No. 1 for a nice bit of teacher-student pop interplay. Swift stayed active all summer, guesting on two songs on How Long Do You Think It’s Gonna Last?, the latest album from Dessner’s Big Red Machine project — a charming continuation of the Folklore/Evermore era of gentle songwriting and rustic textures — and tossing out the Taylor’s Version re-recording of 1989’s “Wildest Dreams” to have a little fun with an unexpected viral moment the song was enjoying on TikTok.
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But by then, the 1989 era wasn’t the one fans were anxiously awaiting to revisit. If Red (Taylor’s Version) had simply matched Fearless (Taylor’s Version) in terms of fanfare and listenership, Swift’s year would have still been pretty spectacular. Instead, her second re-recorded album wildly outpaced its predecessor in nearly every way, turning the release of “All Too Well (10-Minute Version)” into a cultural sensation — The short film! The remarkable SNL performance! The new lyrical allusions that launched a thousand Jake Gyllenhaal jokes! — and another chart-topper for Swift. With its November debut atop the Hot 100, “All Too Well (Taylor’s Version)” also became the longest No. 1 in the chart’s history — in the age of TikTok virality and dwindling attention spans, no less.
The expanded “All Too Well” wasn’t the only new revelation from the set, which also boasted new collaborations with Phoebe Bridgers, Ed Sheeran and Chris Stapleton on old “From The Vault” tracks; the Stapleton team-up, “I Bet You Think About Me,” has been getting airplay on Swift’s old stomping grounds of country radio. In the end, Red (Taylor’s Version) drove as much conversation as any of Swift’s recent all-new studio albums, and scored a blockbuster debut, with 605,000 first-week equivalent album units moved — good for the third-best debut week of 2021 with, it bears repeating, the majority of its songs released nearly a decade earlier.
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Even without a proper new album in 2021, Swift sent three separate projects to the top spot of the Billboard 200 during the calendar year — the first female artist to accomplish that feat in the chart’s 65-year history. And in November, one final domino fell for Swift’s re-recordings project when iHeartRadio announced that it would now only be playing Taylor’s Versions of her older hits from each album as they rolled out – after streaming platforms had already given them prominent placement on main pages and major playlists. In addition to the impressive sales of her re-recorded albums, the reactions from the streaming and radio worlds underline the widespread acceptance that these new recordings have replaced the classic versions as the ones listeners will be digesting and caring about moving forward.
As Swift enters 2022, she once again has the chance to make history: Evermore is nominated for the album of the year Grammy, and a victory at the Jan. 31 ceremony would make her the most celebrated artist in the 64-year history of the category. While other popular artists are rightfully celebrating award nominations and chart achievements, Swift can do both, while also credibly changing the way artists can approach creative ownership and sonic shifts. If Swift changed the game in the mid-2010s when pivoting from country to pop, playing it top 40’s way and earning the splashiest commercial wins of her career, including the distinction of also being Billboard’s Greatest Pop Star of 2015, the past year found her rejecting the game entirely and drawing up her own rules. Now, she has the power to pull any sound she wants into her mainstream orbit, or make any industry institution reckon with her impact. She could release a 20-minute version of a song on her next re-recorded album, and you’d be foolish to bet against it becoming a hit.
Taylor Swift is making the type of moves within and outside of her music that elevate an artist from superstar to legend. Those moves are often very hard to execute, but no one who had been paying attention was the least bit surprised when she stuck each landing. Wind in her hair, Swift is here, and making it look all too easy.
(Read on to our Greatest Pop Star of 2022 here, or head back to the full list of every Greatest Pop Star from 1981-present here.)
(In 2018, the Billboard staff released a list project of its choices for the Greatest Pop Star of every year, going back to 1981 — along with a handful of sidebar columns and lists on other important pop star themes from the period. Find one such sidebar below recapping the 10 most unforgettably eventful years of the modern pop era, and find our Greatest Pop Star picks for every year up to present day here.)
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Not all years in pop music are created equal — sometimes, the stars just align. Here are our picks for the 10 absolute starriest.
10. 2003
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Why One of the Best? Beyoncé and Justin Timberlake broke out as solo superstars, 50 Cent debuted and “Hey Ya!” reigned supreme.
And Don’t Forget About: Crunk’s turn in the spotlight, thanks to Lil Jon & the East Side Boyz and the Ying Yang Twins crashing the mainstream with the No. 2-peaking “Get Low. “
9. 2010
Why One of the Best? Katy Perry, Kesha and Rihanna made pop radio exciting again, while Lil Wayne, Drake and Nicki Minaj worked on building the Young Money empire.
And Don’t Forget About: Bruno Mars’ introduction to top 40, guiding B.o.B (“Nothin’ on You”) and Travie McCoy (“Billionaire”) to heavy rotation with guest hooks, then scoring his first solo No. 1 (“Just the Way You Are”).
8. 1993
Why One of the Best? Grunge and G-Funk’s brightest stars were all at their peaks, as Mariah Carey and Janet Jackson held it down for top 40.
And Don’t Forget About: The epic Aerosmith trilogy of Alicia Silverstone-starring, MTV-conquering Get a Grip videos: “Cryin’,”“Amazing” and (the next year) “Crazy.”
7. 1989
Why One of the Best? Just ask Taylor Swift: A year of incredible pop imagination from the likes of Madonna, Paula Abdul, Bobby Brown, and again, Janet Jackson.
And Don’t Forget About: The year of Young M.C., both with his own pop-rap breakthrough smash “Bust a Move” and as writer of Tone Loc’s two top 10 hits “Wild Thing” and “Funky Cold Medina.”
6. 1997
Why One of the Best? The mid-decade’s pop doldrums gave way to Hanson and the Spice Girls, plus the Bad Boy Family took hip-hop to new heights on radio and MTV.
And Don’t Forget About: Lilith Fair tour founder Sarah McLachlan, and first-year-performers Jewel, Paula Cole and Fiona Apple — all singer-songwriters who had huge crossover years in ‘97.
5. 1983
Why One of the Best? MTV officially came into its own, spawning countless new wave stars and aiding Michael Jackson’s rise to historic greatness.
And Don’t Forget About: Donna Summer, biggest pop star of the disco ‘70s, scoring her greatest video-era hit with the working woman’s anthem “She Works Hard For the Money.”
4. 2009
Why One of the Best? Lady Gaga, Beyoncé and Justin Bieber reinvented pop superstardom for the YouTube era, and Taylor Swift and Drake prepped for their next decade of dominance.
And Don’t Forget About: The year’s two longest-reigning Hot 100 No. 1s both belonging to electro-rap goofballs The Black Eyed Peas (“Boom Boom Pow,” “I Gotta Feeling”)
3. 2016
Why One of the Best? Huge releases from Beyoncé, Kanye West and Rihanna changed the way we think about pop albums in the streaming age, while Drake and Bieber ran radio.
And Don’t Forget About: Memes becoming rap kingmakers, with both Rae Sremmurd (“Black Beatles” with Gucci Mane) and Migos (“Bad and Boujee” with Lil Uzi Vert) seeing singles go viral late in the year.
2. 1999
Why One of the Best? The TRL era went supernova, with Britney Spears and Backstreet Boys taking teen pop to a new level, and Eminem and the nu-metal explosion providing valuable counter-programming.
And Don’t Forget About: The Latin Pop explosion crashing U.S. shores, with Ricky Martin, Jennifer Lopez, Enrique Iglesias and Marc Anthony all becoming enormous Stateside stars.
1. 1984
Why One of the Best? Michael. Madonna. Prince. Bruce. Tina. Cyndi. Lionel. George. Enough said.
And Don’t Forget About: The Cars, Van Halen and ZZ Top: Three ‘70s rock bands who successfully made the transition to MTV and enjoyed their biggest pop year in ‘84.
(Read on to our Greatest Pop Star of 2021 here, or head back to the full list here.)
(In 2020, the Billboard staff updated our originally 2018-released list project, which selected a Greatest Pop Star of every year going back to 1981. Read our entry below on why BTS was our Greatest Pop Star of 2020 — with our ’20 Honorable Mention runner-ups, Rookie of the Year and Comeback of the Year pop stars at the bottom — and find the rest of our picks for every year up to present day here.)
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Americans have a checkered history of dismissing things they don’t understand — the metric system, universal healthcare, and of course, K- pop. Until the last few years, the colorful world of Korean pop was a genre that was on the periphery of the American pop mainstream, marked by viral-hit outliers like PSY’s “Gangnam Style” and groups like 2NE1 and Girls’ Generation gracing the lower reaches of the Billboard charts. But after half a decade of internationally successful tours, three No. 1 albums on the Billboard 200, and a steadily amassed fan ARMY that includes followers from all over the world, RM, Jin, Suga, J-Hope, Jimin, V and Jungkook — better known as the world-conquering boy band BTS — heralded the genre’s true U.S. breakthrough, and became the greatest pop stars of 2020.
In February 2020, the septet released their fourth studio album Map of the Soul: 7, led by the electrifying “On.” The album earned the group their fourth No. 1 on the Billboard 200, with critics noting their musical diversity and maturity as songwriters. Despite such acclaim and a strong chart debut, the group remained largely off the U.S. radio airwaves. In a push to win over stateside listeners, the track was accompanied by three stunning visuals, a remixed rendition featuring English-language pop star Sia, and a tour of the hottest tickets on late night TV. “On” became BTS’ first entry to land in the top five on the Hot 100, debuting at No. 4. With the group’s international stadium tour slated to kick off in April, things were revving up for BTS to officially take over the U.S. market.
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But by March, the COVID-19 pandemic had dashed the live hopes for BTS and every other touring artist. While many acts scrambled to pivot, every move of the group’s in the consequent months was made with precision — securing both financial and cultural gains in the U.S., South Korea, and the rest of the world. With the support of its dedicated fan base, BTS instead dominated in the livestream and virtual space, holding June’s widely successful Bang Bang Con virtual concert (which drew in $19 million) and making a heartfelt commencement speech (delivered in both English and Korean) at Youtube’s Dear Class of 2020, a virtual event for students graduating in the time of COVID. While A-list stars tend to be selective with their appearances, BTS doubled down on performances, as they made rounds at the Billboard Music Awards, the MTV Video Music Awards, and even a more intimate set at NPR’s Tiny Desk — ultimately maintaining the members’ visibility and social media presence all throughout the year.
Beyond the numbers, the group also translated the social consciousness of its music into action by responding to the racial reckoning in America. In June, following the national protests over George Floyd’s killing, BTS donated $1 million to the Black Lives Matter movement. When asked about this decision, Jin recalled how “when we’re abroad or in other situations, we’ve also been subjected to prejudice.” (BTS’ rise in US popularity has also persisted despite the alarming rise in discrimination and hate crimes against Asian-Americans in 2020, likely stemming from the rhetoric surrounding COVID-19.)
When August rolled around, the eight memembers still had a few tricks up their pastel-colored sleeves. Even with their growing list of achievements, BTS remained absent from American pop radio until they released their first ever English-language single, the explosive megapop track “Dynamite.” Dropping the single became the group’s crowning moment in mainstream U.S. music, making its way to radio stations, awards shows, TikTok trends, and the top spot on the Hot 100. The track even grabbed the attention of the Recording Academy, with a Grammy nomination for best pop duo/group performance — the first-ever Grammy nomination for a K-pop artist, a feat long coveted by the band. By October, BTS’ label Big Hit Entertainment had positioned itself to go public on the Korea Exchange. The label raised the equivalent of $840 million in its initial public offering (IPO) — making Big Hit founder/co-CEO Bang Si-hyuk a billionaire.
On the heels of the group’s first No. 1, BTS notched two more buzzer-beating Hot 100-toppers to round out the year. In October BTS racked up a second No. 1 with an appearance on the remix to Jawsh 685 and Jason Derulo’s “Savage Love,” helping the song catapult from No. 8 to the top spot following the new version’s first week of release. Then, to cap the group’s historic 2020, BTS dropped fifth studio album Be in November, along with its melancholy, quarantine-appropriate single “Life Goes On.” Both album and single simultaneously debuted at No. 1, on the Billboard 200 and Hot 100, respectively. Impressively, “Life Goes On” became the first primarily Korean No. 1 in the latter chart’s 62-year history (beating the previous No. 2 peak of PSY’s “Gangnam Style” in 2012).
It’s impossible to ignore that BTS is the first Asian artist to appear on this list, alongside undeniable, no-questions-asked English-language superstars. While non-English works of art are often sidelined into “foreign” categories, this level of recognition for a predominantly Korean-language band from Western media — the group was even named 2020 Entertainer of the Year by TIME — feels like a changing of the guard at the gates of American top 40. With each milestone and new No. 1 in 2020, BTS made it harder for U.S. audiences to deny not only the group’s own supreme superstardom, but also K-pop’s much-deserved place in mainstream music. And now that we’re finally listening, it pains us to imagine all the potential pop classics we missed out on simply because of the language barrier between us.
Honorable Mention: The Weeknd (After Hours, “Blinding Lights,” “In Your Eyes”), Dua Lipa (Future Nostalgia, “Don’t Start Now,” “Break My Heart”), Taylor Swift (Folklore, Evermore, Miss Americana documentary)
Rookie of the Year: Roddy Ricch
“Stream yummy by justin bieber.” That message, along with a flex emoji, was Compton, CA rapper Roddy Ricch’s tweeted response to the Belieber fan movement — also promoted by Bieber himself — to get the pop superstar’s new single to No. 1 on the Hot 100. But Ricch knew that the song then occupying the top spot, his own cinematic blockbuster “The Box,” was likely unmovable; indeed, the captivating, flow-shifting breakthrough smash would end up spending 11 straight weeks atop the chart. He’d add on another seven weeks to that tally in the summer with his guest spot on DaBaby’s “Rockstar,” and spent three additional weeks atop the Billboard 200 with his action-packed debut LP Please Excuse Me for Being Antisocial after it debuted at No. 1 at the end of 2019, proving his solo star power. His response when Selena Gomez’s fans tried to mount a challenge to it for one of those weeks? “Stream rare by selena gomez.”
Comeback of the Year: The Black Eyed Peas
“I want to make fantasy, feel-good, people-travel-the-world music,” Black Eyed Peas frontman will.i.am told Billboard of his ambitions in June 2020 — a time when not a lot of people were traveling the world or feeling good. Still, fantasy has always been a specialty of the pop-rap group, whose commercial peak came with a series of celebratory party jams released in the wake of the ‘08 financial crisis. The world was once again ready for will & co. in 2020, when the reunited group’s globetrotting took them to the world of Latin pop and reggaetón, resulting in their first visits to the Hot 100 since 2011, via collabs with international stars J Balvin (“Ritmo (Bad Boys For Life)”) and Ozuna (“Mamacita”). The group’s comeback year was capped by a closing set at the MTV Video Music Awards, ending with them playing signature smash “I Gotta Feeling” while a gigantic UFO appeared from above to beam them up; for 2020, it felt about right.
(Read on to our Greatest Pop Star of 2021 here, or head back to the full list here.)
(In 2019, the Billboard staff updated our originally 2018-released list project, which selected a Greatest Pop Star of every year going back to 1981. Read our entry below on why Ariana Grande was our Greatest Pop Star of 2019 — with our ’19 Honorable Mention runner-ups, Rookie of the Year and Comeback of the Year pop stars at the bottom — and find the rest of our picks for every year up to present day here.)
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For a while, Ariana Grande did everything by the book. She worked with the biggest and best producers (Babyface, Max Martin) to create radio-friendly singles (she had eight top 10 tracks on the Hot 100 pre-Sweetener) that featured the right of-the-moment guest stars (Mac Miller, Iggy Azalea, Nicki Minaj) and showcased her superlative voice. But she was stuck in top-tier pop limbo: big enough for an insatiable, powerful army of fans, but not quite big enough to claim ubiquity — much less coolness.
Then she released Sweetener in 2018: the bubbly, optimistic response to both surviving a terrorist attack on her Manchester concert and getting engaged to SNL star Pete Davidson. The shift in her sound from top 40-oriented pop to eclectic, glitchy (via Pharrell) R&B — plus the album’s clear message of resilience — was enough to push her fully into the critical and popular mainstream. But just when Grande seemed on track to finally graduate out of pop princess-dom, she was hit (along with the rest of the music world) by another tragedy, when Mac Miller, her close friend, collaborator and ex, died from an overdose. She and Davidson split not long after.
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Despite the fact that she was just a couple months removed from Sweetener, Grande elected to give the people what they wanted — some reaction to the turmoil in her personal life — in a form they never expected: a surprise-released, baldly confessional, irresistibly catchy single called “Thank U, Next.” That song, with its bouncy, call-and-response chorus and tabloid-inciting namechecks of Grande’s famous exes, became her first Hot 100 No. 1 that November — and would still rule that chart when 2019 began.
Just because Grande started 2019 at the top of the Hot 100 didn’t necessarily she would end the year as its defining pop star. But then she released her tour de force album, also called Thank U, Next — a project that drove home the fact that she had finally won over both critics and, well, everyone. As Next garnered near-universal critical endorsement, Grande cornered the top 3 spots on the Hot 100 with “7 Rings,” “Break Up With Your Girlfriend, I’m Bored” and “Thank U, Next” — the first artist to wrangle the top three on the chart simultaneously since The Beatles nearly half a century earlier.
In essence, she’d turned lemons into a multi-platinum pitcher of lemonade. Her previously announced Sweetener World Tour expanded from 59 arena dates to 101, mostly sold out to tens of thousands of screaming fans who were then documented on her live album, K, Bye For Now — released the day after the tour’s late-2019 finale at the Forum in Los Angeles. Grande had grabbed the reins, eschewing the conventional release schedules and promo tours she’d hewn to for most of her career — instead, she was releasing music more or less as she made it. Finally, the spontaneity and reactiveness that had long been de rigueur in hip-hop was working for a star used to the set schedule of the pop machine.
After releasing two big albums in a six-month span, Grande refused to space out singles in a methodical way. Soon after her history-making run at the top of the Hot 100, she started ignoring the albums altogether, in favor of trading verses with 2 Chainz and Lizzo and sharing one-off tracks made with her closest collaborators to boost their careers (Victoria Monet’s “Monopoly” and Social House’s “Boyfriend”). She produced her first soundtrack for the Charlie’s Angels reboot, a star-studded affair that included the minor hit “Don’t Call Me Angel” with Lana Del Rey and Miley Cyrus. Somehow in between all of that, Grande sorted through live tracks for the album after her shows and shared that process with her tireless fans on social media, effectively balancing effortless pop star gloss with the more confessional, real-time pace that medium requires.
The K, Bye live album seemed like the cherry on top of a year that Grande had dedicated to showing her work. It hadn’t been enough to simply make good or even great pop songs, to be pretty and charming. So Grande put everything she had on the line, taking personal and musical risks, sharing more of herself than is really fair to expect of anyone — and it worked. It became impossible to ignore that she was not only a generational vocal talent, but a thoughtful, audacious, vulnerable artist wrapped up in pop star packaging. On K, Bye, you hear her voice soar, and then crack as she cries. It’s mostly exposed, not cloaked in reverb: just one more risk that Grande has the skill to make pay off.
Honorable Mention: Post Malone (Hollywood’s Bleeding, “Sunflower,” “Circles”), Billie Eilish (When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?, “Bad Guy,” “Everything I Wanted”), Lizzo (Cuz I Love You, “Truth Hurts,” “Good As Hell”)
Rookie of the Year: Lil Nas X
It’s always refreshing when, even as increasingly precise analytics and data shape the music industry, something truly surprising happens — in 2019, that something was the literally unprecedented mainstream success of a country-trap hybrid by a gay, Black artist. No one in 2018 would or could have guessed that a song called “Old Town Road,” comprised of a Nine Inch Nails sample and a truly spectacular hook, would become the longest-running Hot 100 No. 1 of all time. Perhaps most importantly, the song’s ascendance alongside the “yee-haw agenda” proved once again that hand-wringing about what constitutes real country is as futile as any other kind of genre orthodoxy.
Comeback of the Year: Jonas Brothers
The JoBros and their purity rings may have ridden out of the industry almost a decade ago as a punchline, but the potent combination of recent nostalgia and an album of unexpectedly solid jams — aided by the successful side careers of Nick and Joe — made their return hit significantly harder than those of most aging boy bands. “Sucker,” the first single the group had released in six years, became their very first Hot 100 No. 1; the album, Happiness Begins, was 2019’s biggest debut until Taylor Swift dropped Lover. The Jonas Brothers may have gotten older, but people’s enthusiasm for bright, fun harmonies and massive pop hooks hasn’t changed a bit.
(Read on to our Greatest Pop Star of 2020 here, or head back to the full list here.)
(In 2018, the Billboard staff released a list project of its choices for the Greatest Pop Star of every year, going back to 1981. Read our entry below on why Ed Sheeran was our Greatest Pop Star of 2018 — with our ’18 Honorable Mention runner-ups, Rookie of the Year and Comeback of the Year pop stars at the bottom — and find the rest of our picks for every year up to present day here.)
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Drake’s generational popularity by the time of 2018 could only be truly grasped through a deep understanding of late-’10s trends, of collapsing genre borders and changing gatekeepers, of social media-driven virality and narrative-building, and of general Millennial anxieties and aspirations. But in a sense, all you need is one number: 29.
That’s how many weeks Drake spent at No. 1 on the Hot 100 in 2018 — not even counting his crucial uncredited appearance on Travis Scott’s chart-topping “Sicko Mode” — the most for a single year in the chart’s 60-plus history. When you can claim majority ownership of the Hot 100 for a calendar year, chances are you’re just the guy for that year.
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It was the culmination of a decade in the spotlight for the teen actor turned hip-hop superstar. With the blessing and early guidance of Young Money label paterfamilias/21st-century icon Lil Wayne, Drake broke out at the end of the ‘00s with a blend of puffed-chest hashtag rhyming and melancholy, melodic introspection, often singing and rapping on the same song. His hooks, verses and business sense only sharpened into the thick of the 2010s, and by 2013 he could credibly claim to be “just as famous as my mentor.” In 2016, he was unmistakably the biggest rapper in the world, with both an album (Views) and lead single (“One Dance”) topping the Billboard charts for double-digit weeks — even though the muted critical and fan reception to each seemed to leave the rapper vulnerable to claims about his slide being imminent.
Indeed, what made Drake’s unprecedented level of chart prosperity in 2018 so fascinating is that it happened while, on a slightly more below-the-surface level, his career was thoroughly under siege. A long-simmering feud with veteran street rapper Pusha T and his superstar producer Kanye West reached a breaking point with an escalating trio of volleys between the two rappers — Pusha’s “Infrared,” Drake’s “Duppy Freestyle” and then Pusha’s “The Story of Adidon.” The last one landed the heaviest blows, most notably unearthing (via its single art) an early photo that the mixed-race Drake had taken in Blackface, and revealing that the rapper had fathered the titular child the year before, whose presence he’d not yet announced to the world.
The threat to Drake’s credibility felt real, as it had three years earlier, when collaborator Meek Mill — like Pusha, a respected rapper whose hard-luck hustle and come-up fit the classic hip-hop narrative a lot more neatly than the Canadian-bred, Degrassi-starring Drake — declared war via ghostwriting accusations. But in 2015, Drake triumphed with volume (in both senses), as he dropped two diss tracks aimed at Meek before he could respond with one, then loudly proclaimed victory at his OVO fest while his rival was still trying to figure out what had even happened.
By 2018, Drake was well-positioned enough in the pop mainstream to just let his stats do the talking. He refrained from directly responding to “Adidon,” and trusted that his commercial momentum was overwhelming enough to weather any blows to his image and rep. He had reason for confidence: “God’s Plan,” released that January, had already reigned for 11 weeks on the Hot 100 with no chorus or major musical hook, while follow-up “Nice For What” — which had both, plus a star-studded female takeover video — followed it for seven non-consecutive weeks immediately after. (Even third single “I’m Upset,” which failed to match those commercial heights, provided a valuable diversion when its Degrassi-reuniting video dropped in the weeks following Pusha’s verbal assault.)
Ultimately, and unsurprisingly, Drake’s bet was validated. Fifth studio solo album Scorpion was released in June — a double album, many of whose tracks addressed the Adidon controversy without furthering the tête-à-tête with its progenitor. Those songs still captured headlines and inspired trending topics, but not as many as a new track that had nothing to do with Drake’s son at all: “In My Feelings,” a New Orleans bounce-inspired banger that both sampled and shouted out ascendant Miami duo City Girls, and even invoked Wayne (via his own crossover classic “Lollipop”) as a NoLa patron saint. The dance challenge “Feelings” quickly inspired blew up over social media, the song rocketed to No. 1, and Scorpion made all kinds of chart history while posting the year’s best first-week numbers. By the end of the summer — which “In My Feelings” owned almost exclusively — the Pusha feud was again a footnote.
The year cemented Drake as finally having reached the same level of commercial invincibility as the giants of the Reagan era. After all, what MTV was to the early ‘80s, social media is to the late ‘10s, and in Drake the moment had officially found its Michael Jackson: one whose videos dominated through memes and gifs rather than TV rotation, one whose albums subsequently racked up historic Spotify play counts instead of unprecedented retail numbers, and one whose dance crazes didn’t even have to be performed by the man himself to become iconic. What’s more, he made it clear to future rap adversaries that he’s now playing by pop rules — and as his 2018 foe should understand better than anyone, he’ll never be taken down as long as he’s still putting numbers on the boards.
Honorable Mention: Ariana Grande (Sweetener, “No Tears Left to Cry,” “Thank U Next”), Cardi B (Invasion of Privacy, “I Like It,” “Finesse (Remix)”), Post Malone (Beerbongs and Bentleys, “Psycho,” “Better Now”)
Rookie of the Year: Dua Lipa
America took its time with Dua Lipa, the Albanian-English pop singer-songwriter who’d already become massive just about everywhere else by the time “New Rules” started to creep its way up the Hot 100 at the end of 2017. It entered the top 10 in early 2018, thanks to its brain-sticking refrain — which took a proactive and highly memeable approach to heartbreak — and viral music video, whose refined choreography and inspired art direction framed Lipa as the star that she really already was. She closed the year as the house diva of choice for Calvin Harris (“One Kiss”) and Diplo/Mark Ronson superduo Silk City (“Electricity”), scoring international hits that made her unavoidable even between album cycles, as true a star sign as any.
Comeback of the Year: Lil Wayne
Really, Lil Wayne deserves the title here for the Carter V announcement video alone: a charming mini-tour through his domicile and house studio, in which he announced with a gleaming-as-ever smile that the long awaited fifth installment in his signature LP series was imminent. The hype was instant, and the album delivered: a 23-track set that delighted fans and even impressed critics, featuring Wayne’s most invigorated rapping in years and some of his most personal bars ever. A decade of label drama and disappointment was seemingly washed away in the record’s first week, where it posted nearly half a million in units moved, littered the Hot 100 with new entries, and proved that Dwayne Carter was still very much Weezy F. Baby, and the “F” ain’t for “finished.”
(Read on to our Greatest Pop Star of 2019 here, or head back to the full list here.)
Taylor Swift is singing the praises of Eras Tour opener Gracie Abrams. In a post reflecting on her six-show run in Toronto, the pop superstar gushed about how fans in Canada’s biggest city treated the concerts like they were a “hometown show” before turning her attention to the “That’s So True” singer, who has opened […]
Senator Peter Welch (D-Vt.) introduced the Transparency and Responsibility for Artificial Intelligence Networks (TRAIN) Act on Monday in the latest effort to shield songwriters, musicians and other creators from the unauthorized use of their works in training generative AI models.
If successful, the legislation would grant copyright holders access to training records, enabling them to verify if their creations were used — a process similar to methods combating internet piracy.
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“This is simple: if your work is used to train A.I., there should be a way for you, the copyright holder, to determine that it’s been used by a training model, and you should get compensated if it was,” said Welch. “We need to give America’s musicians, artists, and creators a tool to find out when A.I. companies are using their work to train models without artists’ permission.”
Creative industry leaders have long voiced concerns about the opaque practices of AI companies regarding the use of copyrighted materials. Many of these startups and firms do not disclose their training methods, leaving creators unable to determine whether their works have been incorporated into AI systems. The TRAIN Act directly addresses this so-called “black box” problem, aiming to introduce transparency and accountability into the AI training process.
Welch’s bill is just the latest development in the battle between rights holders and generative AI. In May, Sony Music released a statement warning more than 700 AI companies not to scrape the company’s copyrighted data, while Warner Music released a similar statement in July. That same month in the U.S. Senate, an anti-AI deepfakes bill dubbed the No FAKES Act was introduced by a bipartisan group of senators. In October, thousands of musicians, composers, international organizations and labels — including all three majors — signed a statement opposing AI companies and developers using their work without a license for training generative AI systems.
During a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing earlier this month, U.S. Copyright Director Shira Perlmutter emphasized the importance of transparency to protect copyrighted materials, saying that without insight into how AI systems are trained, creators are left in the dark about potential misuse of their work, undermining their rights and earnings.
Sen. Welch has been active in promoting consumer protections and safety around emerging technologies, including AI. His previous initiatives include the AI CONSENT Act, which mandates that online platforms obtain informed consent from users before utilizing their data for AI training, and the Digital Platform Commission Act, which proposes the establishment of a federal regulatory agency for digital platforms.
The TRAIN Act left the station with immediate widespread support from creative organizations, including the RIAA, ASCAP, BMI, SESAC, SoundExchange and the American Federation of Musicians, among others.
Several music industry leaders praised the TRAIN Act for its potential to balance innovation with an eye on respecting creators’ rights. Mitch Glazier, RIAA chairman & CEO, highlighted its role in ensuring creators can pursue legal recourse when their works are used without permission. Todd Dupler, the Recording Academy’s chief advocacy and public policy officer, and Mike O’Neill, the CEO of BMI, echoed these sentiments, stressing the bill’s importance in preventing misuse and enabling creators to hold AI companies accountable.
David Israelite, president & CEO of the National Music Publishers’ Association, pointed to the TRAIN Act as a vital measure to close regulatory gaps and ensure transparency in AI practices, while John Josephson, chairman and CEO of SESAC Music Group, praised its dual approach of promoting responsible innovation while protecting creators.
Additional endorsements came from SoundExchange CEO Michael Huppe, who stressed the need for creators to understand how their works are being utilized in AI systems, Elizabeth Matthews, CEO of ASCAP, who stressed the need for artists to be fairly compensated, and Ashley Irwin, president of the Society of Composers & Lyricists, who emphasized the bill’s role in safeguarding the rights of composers and songwriters.
Select Music Industry Reactions to the TRAIN Act:
Mitch Glazier, RIAA: “Senator Welch’s carefully calibrated bill will bring much needed transparency to AI, ensuring artists and rightsholders have fair access to the courts when their work is copied for training without authorization or consent. RIAA applauds Senator Welch’s leadership and urges the Senate to enact this important, narrow measure into law.”
David Israelite, NMPA: “We greatly appreciate Senator Welch’s leadership on addressing the complete lack of regulation and transparency surrounding songwriters’ and other creators’ works being used to train generative AI models. The TRAIN Act proposes an administrative subpoena process that enables rightsholders to hold AI companies accountable. The process necessitates precise record-keeping standards from AI developers and gives rightsholders the ability to see whether their copyrighted works have been used without authorization. We strongly support the bill which prioritizes creators who continue to be exploited by unjust AI practices.”
Elizabeth Matthews, ASCAP: “The future of America’s vibrant creative economy depends upon laws that protect the rights of human creators. By requiring transparency about when and how copyrighted works are used to train generative AI models, the TRAIN Act paves the way for creators to be fairly compensated for the use of their work. On behalf of ASCAP’s more than one million songwriters, composer and music publisher members, we applaud Senator Welch for his leadership.”
Mike O’Neill, BMI: “Some AI companies are using creators’ copyrighted works without their permission or compensation to ‘train’ their systems, but there is currently no way for creators to confirm that use or require companies to disclose it. The TRAIN Act will provide a legal avenue for music creators to compel these companies to disclose those actions, which will be a step in the right direction towards greater transparency and accountability. BMI thanks Senator Welch for introducing this important legislation.”
John Josephson, SESAC: “SESAC applauds the TRAIN Act, which clears an efficient path to court for songwriters whose work is used by AI developers without authorization or consent. Senator Welch’s narrow approach will promote responsible innovation and AI while protecting the creative community from unlawful scraping and infringement of their work.”
Michael Huppe, SoundExchange: ”As artificial intelligence companies continue to train their generative AI models on copyrighted works, it is imperative that music creators and copyright owners have the ability to know where and how their works are being used. The Transparency and Responsibility for Artificial Intelligence Networks (TRAIN) Act would provide creators with an important and necessary tool as they fight to ensure their works are not exploited without the proper consent, credit, or compensation.”
Todd Dupler, The Recording Academy: “The TRAIN Act would empower creators with an important tool to ensure transparency and prevent the misuse of their copyrighted works. The Recording Academy® applauds Sen. Welch for his leadership and commitment to protecting human creators and creativity.”
Machine Gun Kelly is excited to be a dad again. Two weeks after his on-and-off fianceé Megan Fox announced that she’s pregnant with her first child with the rapper-turned-rocker-turned-country-singer, MGK confirmed the news in an X post about his next music phase. “isolating myself in the desert next week to restart this album from scratch. […]