Pop
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BTS fans got a jolt of fizzy energy in their ears on Friday (Oct. 25) with the release of Jin‘s pop rockin’ solo single, “I’ll Be There.” The effervescent tune with a rockabilly swing will be featured on the K-pop superstar’s upcoming debut solo album, Happy, due out on Nov. 15.
The bi-lingual tune that mixes 1960s bubblegum rock and modern dance pop — via Pharrell’s “Happy” and with a buzzy dash of early Hanson — is a joyous ode to devotion, with Jin promising on the chorus, “I swear that I will always sing for you/ Sing for you, oh-oh-oh/ I’ll be there for you.” In the video, Jin sings the tune in a parking lot under a bridge backed by a live band as skater boys and girls and other random fans pull up to check out the impromptu performance.
Dressed in jeans and a blue cardigan (over several other shirts) and rocking some stick-on jewels under his right eye, Jin strikes a series of smoldering rock star poses against the bright blue sky. According to a release, the track “conveys a sincere message, aiming to uplift those who feel downhearted and alone by delivering joy through Jin’s playful yet straightforward style.”
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Jin helped produce the track alongside American singer/songwriter MAX and in the video he channels rock star energy by doing an air guitar windmill move and striking some Elvis-adjacent poses as confetti rains down around him. By the end of the clip Jin is joyfully dancing with himself in the abandoned parking lot, kicking up his heels as the sun sets behind the bridge.
Jin’s upcoming six-track album will feature the focus track “Running Wild,” as well as “I’ll Be There,” “Another Level,” “Falling,” “Heart on the Window” (feat. WENDY)” and “I will come to you.” Jin collaborated with a number of other acts on the album, including Take That’s Gary Barlow, who co-produced and co-wrote “Running Wild.”
So far, Jin, the oldest member of BTS at 31, has released a number of solo tracks, including “Super Tuna,” “Yours,” “Abyss,” “Awake,” “Tonight,” “Epiphany” and “Moon,” as well as contributing to the soundtracks of a number of Korean TV shows and collaborating with Coldplay on his debut solo single, 2022’s “The Astronaut.” Jin was discharged from mandatory South Korean military duty in June and his solo debut comes as ARMY patiently wait for the rest of the band members to finish their required hitches in anticipation of BTS’ expected 2025 return.
Watch the “I’ll Be There” video below.
Kate Bush has given a rare interview and teased the prospect of new music.
Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today program on Friday morning (Oct. 25) the pop icon said that she has ideas and desires to make a start on a new album. Bush released her last studio album 50 Words For Snow in 2011 .
When asked if she was working on new material currently, Bush said: “Not at the moment, but I’ve been caught up doing a lot of archive work over the last few years, redesigning our website, putting a lyric book together.
“And I’m very keen to start working on a new album when I’ve got this finished. I’ve got lots of ideas and I’m really looking forward to getting back into that creative space, it’s been a long time.”
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When presenter Emma Barnett asked if it was a hope she’d had for a while, Bush responded: “Yes it is, really. Particularly [in] the last year, I’ve felt really ready to start doing something new.”
Bush was appearing on the program to promote a new short film that she has created called Little Shrew, which is soundtracked by her 2011 song “Snowflake.” The four-minute short film, which you can watch below, was created by Bush and an illustrator to help raise awareness and funds for the charity War Child, which supports young people caught up in conflicts.
Speaking on the film, Bush said she “started working on it a couple of years ago, it was not long after the Ukrainian war broke out, and I think it was such a shock for all of us.”
“It’s been such a long period of peace we’d all been living through. And I just felt I wanted to make a little animation that would feature, originally, a little girl. It was really the idea of children caught up in war. I wanted to draw attention to how horrific it is for children.
“And so I came up with this idea for a storyboard and felt that, actually, people would be more empathetic towards a creature rather than a human. So I came up with the idea of it being a little shrew.”
The British artist broke through in the late 1970s and her hits include “Hounds of Love,” “Babooshka” and “Wuthering Heights.” In 1980, she became the first solo female British artist to top the U.K. Albums Charts with her third album Never For Ever. Bush’s creative work in recent decades has been sporadic, and in 2014 she shocked the music world when she announced a return to the stage for a residency in London, her first live performances in decades.
In 2022, Bush’s 1985 single “Running Up That Hill” featured heavily in the fourth season of Netflix’s Stranger Things and saw a flurry of interest and streams in her back catalog. The song peaked at No .3 on the Billboard Hot 100, bettering its placement of No. 30 upon its original release, and topped the U.K. Singles Chart for three weeks to give Bush her second No. 1 single. In 2023, the song topped 1 billion streams on Spotify.
Declan McKenna is in a transitional state. When Billboard speaks to the British musician in early October, he’s surrounded by boxes while he moves apartments in London. He’s also packing his gear for a string of live headline dates in North America, which include a role as a special guest on Sabrina Carpenter’s Short n’ Sweet tour, his first-ever arena gigs. It’s a period of fresh beginnings and new opportunities.
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Then there’s the biggest change: after a decade signed to Columbia Records, McKenna is going independent. McKenna signed with the label in 2015 aged 16 following the success of his viral single “Brazil” and his victory in Glastonbury Festival’s Emerging Talent Competition. The indie–pop song was a riposte to soccer governing body FIFA and their decision to name Brazil as hosts for the 2014 World Cup without addressing deep-seated inequality and poverty. The track is approaching 675m streams on Spotify.
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McKenna released three LPs on Columbia, most recently What Happened To The Beach? which charted at No.3 on the UK Albums Charts in February. There were shades of Paul McCartney’s 1971 solo record Ram and a looser West Coast feel to the record which was made in LA with producer Gianluca Buccellati, whose credits include Arlo Parks and RAYE. McKenna also played a 10,000 capacity headline show at London’s Alexandra Palace to accompany its release.
As the deal was approaching its end, McKenna started plotting a new path forward. Now, he’s self-releasing his music via his label Miniature Ponies, a joint venture with ADA, a distribution company owned by Warner Music Group.
“I did like the idea of being independent and not having to explain what you’re doing and why you’re doing it,” McKenna says. “I feel quite confident that I know how to do it, and it felt like the right time to try and get something else out.” He’s effusive with praise with some of his collaborators at the label, but says the relationship had met its natural end having fulfilled his obligations for three studio albums.
McKenna toasts to the new era with a double AA-side single “Champagne” and “That’s Life,” the first release on Miniature Ponies. On the two tracks he fuses more electronic elements into his sound, and retains his passion for hooky songwriting; McKenna’s melodies and choruses are some of the best to come out of British pop in recent years. Both songs examine the ludicrous excesses and follies of success, and on “Champagne” we’re drawn into vacuous conversations where the social currency is attention: “Of course I didn’t mean what I said, I just wanted them to laugh,” he begrudgingly admits.
A key reason behind the decision to go independent, McKenna says, was to streamline the decision making process and to work freely with potential collaborators across his music and visuals.
“If I were there advising my younger self I would say ‘you need to stick to your guns on this,’” McKenna says. “There’s a lot of working through fear from all different corners of the industry but pushing past that and letting creativity happen naturally is so necessary and important.”
Outwardly facing, his catalog so far has shown little signs of compromise. His ambitious 2017 debut What Do You Think About The New Car? was produced with former Vampire Weekend member Rostam Batmanglij and James Ford, whose credits include Arctic Monkeys and Florence + The Machine. 2020’s Zeroes, meanwhile, nodded to ‘70s glam-rock and embraced the imperfect nature of the creative process, and boasts one of his finest songs in “The Key To Life On Earth.”
Likewise, McKenna’s voice continues to be forthright. In 2019 he released the single “British Bombs” which highlighted the role that British arms companies play in fuelling conflict on a global scale; it’s now a fan favorite and a staple of his live performances.
The new independent era dovetails with some of McKenna’s biggest shows. From Nov. 1, he’ll join Carpenter as her main support at arena shows in Los Angeles, Seattle, Denver and more. He said the pair met at Lollapalooza Festival in Chicago last summer where Carpenter revealed she was a fan of his work. Earlier this year Carpenter invited McKenna to join as a special guest, following on from fellow British artist Griff who also got the call for the tour.
“It might be surprising for some people, and it was surprising for me to an extent, because I’m not exactly the bookies favorite to do this gig,” he laughs. “Sabrina, along with a couple other pop artists that are quite obvious, has brought a sense of fun back to pop music”
He adds: “Most of the music I love isn’t super clear about the lyric meanings and intentions. Sabrina has a bit of that. She can hammer home a concept, but also have fun.”
After that he’ll head to Australia for a string of co-headline dates with Northern Irish indie heroes Two Door Cinema Club and next summer McKenna will join Imagine Dragons on their stadium run through Europe, his biggest ever venues. The final date will arrive at his beloved soccer team Tottenham Hotspur’s Spurs Stadium in London. “I feel very lucky as that is a dream gig,” McKenna says.
Next step in his journey as an independent artist is to increase the speed of releases. He says he’s still “hoarding” music that he’s keen to share, something that falls squarely on Miniature Ponies’ label boss: himself.
“I’ve always spearheaded what I’m doing and who I’ve worked with creatively, but there’s a different layer to it now where I don’t have someone looking over my shoulder,” he concludes. “It’s a freeing thing.”
Seven years after delivering “The Cure,” Lady Gaga is finally diagnosing the “Disease.” After some sly teases through a Spotify playlist and a pair of custom websites, Gaga finally confirmed the single’s release date via Instagram on Monday (Oct. 21). In the post, the Grammy and Oscar winner shared the single’s cover art, which finds […]
Halsey is back with yet another trick up her sleeve. The singer dropped her latest album, The Great Impersonator, on Friday (Oct. 25). In addition to previously released singles “The End,” “Lucky,” “Lonely Is the Muse” and “Ego,” the LP also features songs such as “Only Girl Living in LA,” “Dog Years,” “Panic Attack,” “I […]
Glory be to the father (Charli XCX), the son (Sabrina Carpenter) and the holy spirit (Chappell Roan). Amen.
Shortly after the Primavera Sound lineup was announced Thursday (Oct. 24), featuring all three women with top billing, the “365” singer took to X to declare that she and her co-headliners have now officially formed a sacred union.
“headlining primavera sound next year with sabrina and chappell,” Charli tweeted. “finally holy trinity unlocked ;)”
Taking place at Barcelona’s Parc Del Fòrum June 5-7, the festival’s lineup will also feature sets from LCD Soundsystem, FKA Twigs, Fontaines DC, Clairo, Haim, Turnstile, Wet Leg, Beach House, Waxahatchee, Beabadoobee, Caribou, Anohni, Denzel Curry and more. The Brat summer ring leader previously performed at 2024’s iteration of Primavera Sound, which was headlined by Lana Del Rey, SZA and more.
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Regarding Charli’s tweet, it’s easy to see the connection between her, the “Espresso” singer and “Good Luck, Babe!” musician. All three pop stars had explosive breakthrough years in 2024, with the “Von Dutch” artist’s LP Brat reaching No. 3, Carpenter’s Short n’ Sweet hitting No. 1 and Roan’s The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess ascending to No. 2 on the Billboard 200. All three of those chart peaks mark career highs for the artists.
Charli is now in the midst of her Sweat Tour with Troye Sivan in support of Brat. In a recent interview with Apple Music 1’s Zane Lowe, the “Boom Clap” artist revealed that she originally didn’t think her latest album would “appeal to a lot of people,” something that partially inspired her now-iconic lime-green text-only cover art.
“Where the actual first idea of doing a text cover came from was to save money,” she said at the time. “It actually feels like it very much embodies the word ‘brat’ to kind of not be there, because that is sort of less of the norm, I suppose, for female artists. That felt punchy. The pixilation makes it looks like it’s kind of been done in this rush … you didn’t get the proper hi-res file… I knew it would generate this conversation. I knew that a lot of people would be sort of frustrated or disappointed by it.”
See Charli’s tweet below.
headlining primavera sound next year with sabrina and chappell. finally holy trinity unlocked — Charli (@charli_xcx) October 24, 2024
Stevie Nicks has high hopes for Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce.
In a new interview with Rolling Stone published Thursday (Oct. 24), the 76-year-old rock legend gushed about her famous friend, whom Nicks thinks “has a good man” (aka a certain Kansas City Chiefs tight end). “She is really smart, but she also went through a lot before,” the Fleetwood Mac frontwoman told the publication of Swift. “She’s in a good place right now. … I hope they fall deeper and deeper in love and ride off into the sunset.”
“[Travis] does his thing and she does her thing, and then they come back together and get married and have babies if she wants that,” Nicks continued. “I just want all of that for her.”
The “Edge of Seventeen” singer previously hung out with Swift and Kelce after one of the pop star’s July Eras Tour shows in Dublin. Elsewhere in the interview, Nicks said she gifted the football player a blanket — “That is what I buy for my friends if there’s a special occasion,” she said — and the star recently recorded a collaboration with his older brother, Jason Kelce, for the upcoming Philly Specials Christmas project.
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Also in the interview, Nicks spoke about voting for Kamala Harris in the Nov. 5 presidential election (“I never voted until I was 70 … It’s a big regret”), giving Lindsey Buckingham “300 million chances” before cutting him off for good, and toxic fan culture. While on the latter subject, she recalled Katy Perry once telling her “about the Internet armies of all the girl singers, and how cruel and rancid they were.”
“I said, ‘Well, I wouldn’t know because I’m not on the Internet,’” Nicks continued of their conversation. “She said, ‘So, who are your rivals?’ I just looked at her. It was my steely look. I said, ‘Katy, I don’t have rivals. I have friends. All the other women singers that I know are friends. Nobody’s competing. Get off the Internet and you won’t have rivals either.’”
Plus, the Rock & Roll Hall of Famer shared her thoughts on Chappell Roan. “Evidently she likes my music a lot,” Nicks said of the “Good Luck, Babe!” singer. “Me and a friend of mine went and looked at her schedule, and it was outrageous — what she’s already done and then what she’s going into. It’s as bad as any schedule we ever did, and she’s new, and she’s young. I said, ‘They’ll burn her out if that’s what they want to do, because there’s always somebody to replace you.’”
Nicks is fresh off the release of a new single titled “The Lighthouse,” which she wrote after the Supreme Court turned over Roe v. Wade in 2022. The performer gave the song its live debut on Saturday Night Live earlier this month during the Ariana Grande-hosted episode.
Shortly before dropping the anthemic track in September, Nicks endorsed the Harris-Walz campaign with an Instagram post referencing Swift, who also spoke out in favor of the Democratic ticket that month. “As my friend @taylorswift so eloquently stated, now is the time to research and choose the candidate that speaks to you and your beliefs,” she wrote at the time. “Your vote in this election may be one of the most important things you ever do.”
Both Jennie and Rosé are currently rolling out their next solo eras, and to celebrate, the BLACKPINK stars individually sat down with Buzzfeed Celeb to play with adorable baby animals while they answered questions.
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First up, Jennie, who recently dropped her empowering new single “Mantra,” revealed that she’s currently in a “hardworking, no rest, Jennie mode,” adding, “Hopefully after this album comes out, I can have some fun in my era.”
While she played around with the sweetest group of kittens — who were a bit shy at first but eventually warmed up to the K-pop idol — Jennie shared that she hopes fans feel the “good energy of “Mantra,” and “how I’m just really talking about embracing yourself and having fun all the time.”
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She also revealed the BLACKPINK song she’d put in a time capsule for future generations. “I think ‘Whistle,’ because I love that song and I think it’s a timeless song,” she explained. “It’s already been eight years since that song came out and I still listen to it here and there.”
For her interview, Rosé answered the same question. “I would pick ‘Kill This Love.’ It’s a bada– song,” she revealed.
The singer, who happily tried to wrangle energetic puppies during her interview, opened up about working with Bruno Mars on her new song, “APT.” She shared, “I am so lucky to have him on the song. He’s helped so much. He has a vision for everything. It’s so good. I’ve had times where I was struggling with something and he really has helped me so much in wrapping up this album. I’m such a big fan.
The song is set to be featured on her upcoming solo album rosie, which Rosé described as “an album full of my most honest stories and it’s just a representation of all the thoughts running through my mind in the past year. It’s a very personal one so hopefully people feel closer to me through the album.”
As for her fellow BLACKPINK members embarking on solo journeys, Rosé beamed with support. “I think it’s amazing. I’m so excited for everyone,” she said. “I’m their biggest fan. I’m proud of all of these girls. It’s nice to have these sisters go through similar journeys with me.”
Watch Jennie’s kitten interview and Rosé’s puppy interview below.
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. You can see the stars who have made our list so far here, and now we remember the century in Kanye West — whose career has featured near-unparalleled runs of artistic brilliance and pop cultural centrality, but whose legacy has grown more complicated by the year over the last decade.
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It’s funny now to think of a time when confusion over Kanye West’s first name was a common issue. Like NBA star Dwyane Wade (who, like West, also went pro in 2003-04), a lot of people who hadn’t seen or heard his name before – an Ethiopian-French name meaning “only one” – mentally jumbled the placement of the “y,” leading to a lot of first-time misspellings and mispronunciations when bracing it for the first time. The Netflix documentary jeen-yuhs includes an early-’00s scene of an unknowing receptionist referring to Kanye as “Cayenne,” and West himself even bemoaned the then-still-common cognition error in his 2005 hit “Diamonds From Sierra Leone”: “Now all I need is y’all to pronounce my name/ It’s Kanye, but some of my plaques, they still say ‘Kayne.’”
Flash forward to two decades later, and it’s damn near impossible to imagine a single person on the planet who doesn’t know Kanye’s name. For a solid 20 years now, the monocultural figure has been in headlines on a weekly basis – sometimes daily, sometimes hourly – for just about every reason an artist can be. He’s been attached to stories about every kind of commercial and critical achievement: chart-topping singles and albums, best-of year-end and decade-end list placements, award wins and losses – even ones that weren’t his own. He’s also been at the center of celebrity weddings, billion-dollar business dealings, friendships and feuds with plenty of the other most famous people of the 21st century; one sitting U.S. president publicly thanked him for his “very cool” service, another called him a jackass.
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And he’s also dominated the news for things no one should ever want to be known for – for ignorant comments and for allegations of terrible behavior, and for ensuing backlash that pushed him to the fringes of an industry he once lorded over from the absolute center. But even in 2024 – and even after he legally changed his name to the less scrambleable “Ye” – you can still never go too long without hearing the name Kanye. That’s how inextricable Mr. West was to American life in the first two decades of this century, that’s how brilliant his music and artistry were for the great majority of that period, that’s how blinding his sheer star power was throughout, and that’s how unshakeable he ultimately still remains in the culture today.
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But before Kanye was the Kanye that the whole world would know, he began the 21st century as a Chi-town college dropout still trying to make his name as a producer. In the late ‘90s, he’d gotten beats on albums by hitmakers like Jermaine Dupri, Foxy Brown and Goodie Mob, but in 2000 that he would land the placement that would jumpstart the next phase of his career: “This Can’t Be Life,” from Jay-Z’s The Dynasty: Roc La Familia. The beat exemplified Kanye’s signature early-career production style: a classic soul sample, pitched up to the heavens, laid over the knocking snare from Dr. Dre’s “Xxplosive.” The song wasn’t a single, but it was a highlight from Jay’s third straight No. 1 album, getting him in the good graces of the rapper (and his Roc-a-Fella label) who was about to become the most powerful in hip-hop.
That takeover kicked off in earnest on 2001’s The Blueprint, Jay-Z’s career-defining masterpiece, on which Kanye placed five beats (including, appropriately, Jay’s beef track “Takeover”). The most important song on the set for the producer was “Izzo (H.O.V.A.),” a Jackson 5-lifting pop-rap singalong which gave the rapper his first Hot 100 top 10 hit as a lead artist, and gave the producer his first Hot 100 hit, period. From there, the floodgates opened for Kanye, and by the end of 2002, he’d scored Hot 100 hits with Scarface, Trina and Talib Kweli – as well as second Jay smash “03 Bonnie & Clyde,” this time with a newly solo Beyoncé riding shotgun – making him a rising star in a golden age of superproducers.
But Kanye wasn’t satisfied with superproducerdom, since he’d long harbored aspirations of being an MC as well. While by 2002, hip-hop producers grabbing the mic had become relatively common – Kanye’s production heroes Dr. Dre and Q-Tip had both found stardom doing so in the ‘90s, while Pharrell’s falsetto was becoming as ubiquitous in 2000s top 40 as his beats – Kanye found difficulty convincing labels to take him seriously as a rapper, partly because his middle-class image and rhymes largely conflicted with the street rap ruling radio at the time. Eventually, Roc-a-Fella signed him — in large part to keep his beatmaking talents in-house — but even they weren’t totally convinced yet.
His debut single would quickly validate their decision. While Kanye had been garnering notice with mixtapes like Get Well Soon and I’m Good, as well as for additional hit beats for Alicia Keys (“You Don’t Know My Name”) and Ludacris (“Stand Up,” his first Hot 100 No. 1 as a producer), “Through the Wire” was the song that brought Kanye to national renown. Inspired by a near-fatal 2002 car accident – he rapped the song (over a chipmunked sample from Chaka Khan’s ‘80s R&B hit “Through the Fire”) while his jaw was still wired shut, hence the title – “Wire” introduced Kanye as a clever, compelling and culturally omnivorous underdog, winning listeners over with both its triumphant message and its well-placed references to everything from Vanilla Sky to Making the Band. Helped by an MTV-conquering living-collage music video, the song reached No. 15 on the Hot 100, establishing Kanye’s two-way bonafides and building massive buzz for his debut album.
The College Dropout, released in Feb. 2004, lived up to the hype. Drawing rapturous reviews and debuting at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 with 441,000 in first-week sales, the album spawned three more huge hits in “All Falls Down,” “Jesus Walks” and “Slow Jamz” (his first Hot 100 No. 1 as a recording artist, though the song was originally featured on fellow Chicago rapper Twista’s Kamikaze album with Kanye as a featured artist). The album made Kanye a cultural phenomenon and media darling, as his pink polos, popped collars and unique combination of arrogance and insecurity (“We all self-conscious, I’m just the first to admit it,” he boasted on “Falls”) made him an irresistible presence, and his oft-uplifting storytelling drew stark contrast with the crime tales and caddishness of the previous year’s breakout rapper, 50 Cent. (50 would later theorize that his own ubiquity directly led to Kanye’s subsequent success.)
In particular, “Jesus Walks” took Kanye into the center of public discourse for his grappling with his faith in a way that was extremely rare (and risky) for pop music at the time. The song only reached No. 11 on the Hot 100, lower than “Falls” and “Jamz,” but made its way to a lot of new fans outside of mainstream hip-hop, and drew the most critical acclaim of any of Dropout’s singles. “Jesus” nominated for two awards at the 2005 Grammys, where Ye’s attendance was a source of much discussion in the lead-up – since he’d previously crashed the stage at the 2004 American Music Awards to protest country hitmaker Gretchen Wilson beating him for best new artist. The awards outburst – certainly not the last of its kind for Ye – drew some backlash and ratcheted up Grammy night tension, which turned out to be for naught when he won best rap album for Dropout. “Everybody wanted to know what I would do if I didn’t win,” Kanye offered in his still-oft-referenced acceptance speech. “I guess we’ll never know.”
As successful as Kanye’s debut was, his sophomore album would prove it was just the beginning. Late Registration debuted at No. 1 in Aug. 2005 with nearly two times the first-week number of Dropout, and its second single – the Jamie Foxx-featuring “Gold Digger,” a comedic and absurdly catchy tribute to (and warning about) get-rich-quick female social climbers – became Kanye’s first No. 1 as a lead artist, and an immediate pop classic. The album’s expanded sonic palette, aided by co-producer (and regular Fiona Apple collaborator) Jon Brion, proved Ye was no one-trick wonder as a beatsmith, while songs like “Hey Mama” and “Heard ‘Em Say” plumbed new depths of personal and political subject matter lyrically. The latter side of Ye would also come into full focus that year on a televised benefit for those hit hardest by Hurricane Katrina, where his frustration over the then-President’s slow response in providing aid to the less-well-off victims of the incident boiled over into his second unforgettable quote of 2005: “George Bush doesn’t care about Black people.”
Kanye would spend much of 2006 touring – taking a brief pause for another stage-crashing incident at the ‘06 MTV EMAs, where he greeted news of his “Touch the Sky” losing best video to Justice vs. Simien’s “We Are Your Friends” with a loud “Oh, HELL no!” – and drawing inspiration for his next studio album, 2007’s “stadium status”-aspiring Graduation. Though the set was scheduled a week after rival 50 Cent’s Curtis album was due, Kanye later moved it up to the same day, starting a much-hyped sales battle that 50 would raise the stakes of by swearing he’d retire if he lost. Graduation ultimately soared past Curtis, selling 957,000 (still Kanye’s best first-week number) to Curtis’ 691,000, confirming Ye – who by then had also embraced electronic influences (particularly via Daft Punk-sampling lead single “Stronger,” another Hot 100 No. 1) and high fashion – as hip-hop’s present and future. Once again earning rave reviews, Graduation made Kanye 3-for-3, and very arguably the biggest artist in the world. (50 declined to retire as promised, but his career was never the same again.)
While Kanye was on top of the word artistically and commercially, he was about to hit a personal low. In late 2007, his mother Donda passed, and the next year, he broke off his engagement with long-time girlfriend Alexis Phifer – with both events inspiring the decidedly downbeat tone of his next album, 2008’s 808s and Heartbreak. Though Kanye had rarely sung on his records before, 808s mostly featured his Auto-Tuned warbling – with rapping kept to a minimum – of heart-on-sleeve lyrics over icy, synth-driven beats that felt a world away from the chipmunk soul he’d made his name on. The album became his third straight No. 1 and spawned a pair of top five Hot 100 hits in “Love Lockdown” and “Heartless,” but for the first time in his career, critics and fans were mixed on the new set. Time would largely prove Ye simply ahead of the curve, however, as the combination of chilly nu-wave sonics and hip-hop/R&B hybridized vocals (largely inspired by Kid Cudi, a signee to Ye’s GOOD Music imprint) ended up being profoundly influential on leading 2010s hitmakers like Travis Scott, Childish Gambino and Drake.
Though 808s wasn’t the unqualified success of Kanye’s first three albums, he was still one of pop music’s leading artists at the time of the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards. That night would quickly prove infamous for Ye, as the megastar – seen with a bottle of Hennessy on the red carpet – would grab the mic during Taylor Swift’s best female video acceptance speech to claim that the award should have gone to fellow nominee Beyoncé instead. Though Ye’s stage-crashing antics were well-known by that point, none of them had ever occurred on this widely watched an event, or with co-stars as well known as Swift or Beyoncé – or during the social media era, as the then-rising app Twitter gave everyone watching the opportunity to express their disbelief and/or disapproval in unison. Kanye had received blowback for plenty of moments in his career to this point, but never backlash on this level; the public response was so immediate and so loud that he pulled out of his planned Fame Kills tour alongside Lady Gaga and essentially went into hiding in Hawaii for the rest of the year.
The experience ended up leading to Kanye’s next album, 2010’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. Recorded in a free-flowing Hawaii studio setup with a rotating cast of high-profile collaborators, Fantasy featured Ye really leaning into playing the anti-hero (if not the outright villain) for the first time on cinematic hits like “Power,” “Monster” and “All of the Lights,” with newly growling, grimy, ‘70s rock-influenced production. He did still make room for contrition, however, particularly on the spellbinding album centerpiece “Runaway,” which he unveiled with an instantly iconic performance at – where else? – the 2010 VMAs. The album debuted at No. 1 with nearly 500,000 in first-week sales, and drew Ye’s most ecstatic reviews yet: Leading critical voice Pitchfork, which a decade earlier had been an indie rock-rooted publication that might not have even reviewed a rap blockbuster like Fantasy, gave the set its first 10.0 score for a new album since 2002 – a sign not only of Ye’s now-unanimous acclaim, but of how he’d helped shift the entire critical discourse over the course of his career.
For the next couple years, Ye was unquestionably back, and as entrenched in the mainstream as ever. In 2011, he teamed up with longtime collaborator, label head and big brother Jay-Z for the gaudy Watch the Throne, a purposeful exercise in hip-hop opulence and excess that nonetheless contained several classic moments: “N—as in Paris,” in particular, with its imminently quotable lyrics and earthquaking dubstep drop, proved a culture-moving moment, particularly when the duo started playing it double-digit times in a row on tour. The next year, his Cruel Summer quasi-compilation collected songs from then-rising GOOD Music artists like Big Sean, Teyana Taylor and newly solo Clipse rapper Pusha T – but the best and biggest songs were all headlined by Kanye, including the hit singles “Mercy” and “Clique.” Meanwhile, Ye had started to date reality TV superstar and budding entrepreneur Kim Kardashian, increasing his Q rating and pushing him to new corners of pop culture, as he also began premiering his “DW by Kanye West” lines of women’s clothing during Paris Fashion Week.
By summer 2013, it had been nearly three years since the last new Kanye solo album – the longest layover of his career to that point – and rumors of a dark and difficult set had long buzzed around hip-hop blogs and fan communities, many of which by this point (particularly the Kanye to The forum) were tracking Kanye’s happenings with singular diligence and worship. The rumors were true: after a ninth-inning edit job by legendary “reducer” Rick Rubin, Yeezus debuted as Ye’s most-abrasive and least-commercial set, equally influenced by 2010s Chicago drill rap and 1980s Chicago acid house, with largely aggressive, hedonistic lyrics that seemed to occasionally border on outright nihilism. Yeezus made Fantasy sound like “Through the Wire,” and not all listeners were down with the darkness – but the set generally drew song reviews and fan response, and became his sixth straight album to debut at No. 1.
Beginning with Yeezus, though, West’s output generally trended away from playing the pop crossover game. Just a couple years earlier, he had picked up his fourth Hot 100 No. 1 by appearing on the single version of top 40 megastar Katy Perry’s “E.T.”; such pop appearances would quickly be unthinkable for the post-Yeezus Kanye, who began reserving his guest appearances almost exclusively for fellow rappers and occasional R&B stars. Music videos also became rarer, as did award show performances and media interviews – and Yeezus notably contained no pre-release singles, though “Bound 2” eventually became a No. 12 hit following the release of its Kim Kardashian-co-starring, easily parodied music video.
In fact, West’s primary engagement with pop music and pop culture in the mid-’10s came through his continued back-and-forth with Swift – who, a half-decade after their initial VMAs conflict, was still linked to West in ways neither of them could really shake, with the latter apologizing for the incident but then later seemingly retracting his apology. At the 2015 VMAs, the two appeared to bury the hatchet, as Swift introduced West as the recipient of the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award, with her speech even making joking reference to the ‘09 incident. But in early 2016, Kanye released “Famous,” which included the lyric “I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex/ Why?/ I made that b–ch famous,” seemingly resetting the dormant beef in an instant. Swift appeared to respond to the song when accepting the album of the year Grammy just days later, warning the young women watching of “the people along the way who try to… take credit for your accomplishments and your fame.” (A video for the song, released months later, would further the acrimony by picturing a nude wax sculpture of Swift, along with similar sculptures of Ye and many other celebrities, sleeping together in a giant bed.)
“Famous” appeared on The Life of Pablo, Kanye’s first album since Yeezus, released in Feb. 2016 after several false starts and renamings. The album was less difficult than its predecessor, but far messier – particularly because West was still tinkering with the album by the time it was released as an exclusive on the new streaming service Tidal, of which he was a co-owner. Months into the album’s release, he was still reworking songs and fiddling with the tracklist – which, depending on who you asked, either made a profound statement on the permanent malleability of the album format in the streaming era or simply displayed Kanye’s increasing lack of artistic self-assuredness. Regardless, the set was mostly received well, giving Ye yet another No. 1 and spawning fan favorites like the two-part “Father Stretch My Hands,” the Kendrick Lamar teamup “No More Parties in LA” and the gospel-influenced, Chance the Rapper-spotlighting opener “Ultralight Beam.”
More notable than the actual music on Pablo might have been the event that premiered it: a live listening party at New York’s Madison Square Garden, the largest scale such an event had been conceived on to that point. In truth it was far larger than even a simple arena gig, because thanks to livestreaming, it also became a communal event on social media, with secondhand excitement over the quasi-live show extended to the album itself. The Pablo era was further helped by the successful and acclaimed Saint Pablo Tour that followed, and the soon-omnipresent merch from it that – along with his increasingly successful Adidas partnership – officially turned Kanye into a lifestyle brand. Perhaps best of all for Ye, Snapchat video released online by Kim Kardashian – then his wife, as the couple were married in 2014 – seemed to show Swift giving him her pre-release approval for the controversial “Famous” lyric, which flipped public sentiment back against the pop megastar and towards Kanye. He was just a couple months away from ending 2016 on a high note to rival any in his career to that point.
It was not to be that simple. West’s year was shaken first by wife Kardashian’s robbery at gunpoint in Paris that October, forcing him to cancel multiple Pablo dates. Then, after Donald Trump was elected president in November, Kanye expressed onstage that he didn’t vote in the election, but would have supported Trump if he had – kicking off a run of erratic on-stage behavior that also included his ranting about Beyoncé’s alleged politicking at the 2016 VMAs and how Jay-Z never called him after Kardashian’s robbery. He eventually pulled the plug on the rest of the tour, and was hospitalized that Thanksgiving for temporary psychosis – after which he had a controversial summit at Trump Tower with the then-president to discuss “multicultural issues,” much to the horror of many of his peers, including longtime collaborator John Legend. It was a brutal end to a once-triumphant year.
The rest of the decade was a rocky period for Kanye. He released two more albums, 2018’s introspective, seven-track Ye – part of a five-album “Wymoning Sessions” series all produced by Kanye, which also included his Kids See Ghosts teamup with longtime collaborator Kid Cudi – and 2019’s gospel-themed Jesus Is King, and again topped the Billboard 200 with both. But both sets drew mixed reviews, and as became increasingly the case with Kanye post-Pablo, got more attention for their bumpy releases and listening party premiere events than for most of the music actually contained therein. Meanwhile, he made further public appearances in support of then-President Trump, began to speak out against abortion and the Black Lives Matter movement, and most infamously, said to TMZ about Black slavery that “when you hear about slavery for 400 years … for 400 years? That sounds like a choice” – comments that earned swift, massive backlash from both fans and the media. (Later that year, he apologized for “how that slave comment made people feel.”) Even the Taylor Swift feud flipped back on Kanye, as 2020 saw the leak of a longer version of the infamous “Famous” approval conversation between the two stars, seemingly adding more context and validity to Swift’s claims that she never gave full approval to the “b–ch” lyric.
SGranitz/WireImage
Still, no matter how severe the fallout from any of his controversies, at the turn of the 2020s Kanye still clearly held the public’s interest whenever he released an album, or debuted a new shoe line, or held a high-profile concert – or engaged in a high-profile beef, as he did with 2010s rap kingpin Drake in the lead-up to his 2021 album Donda. After Ye held what was essentially a promotional residency at Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium, literally living in the stadium between promotional events as he attempted to finalize the set, the 27-track collection was belatedly released in June, and again entered at No. 1, with 309,000 units moved, the highest mark of the year to that point. The occasionally inspired but wildly overstuffed album had its supporters, and earned an album of the year Grammy nomination – but as Drake’s Certified Lover Boy album was released the next week to an even bigger first-week bow, and then the two rappers made up months later for the Free Larry Hoover concert, it was hard not to feel like the entire era was more sound than fury.
The next year would bring about new lows for Kanye, as Oct. 22 kicked off with him wearing an inflammatory “WHITE LIVES MATTER” t-shirt at a Yeezy SZN Paris fashion show, then making a post to Instagram calling Black Lives Matter “a scam.” Later in the month, West had his accounts locked on both Instagram and Twitter for comments perceived as anti-semitic, particularly a tweet that threatened to go “death con 3 on JEWISH PEOPLE.” The rapper’s rhetoric continued, and eventually his business partners began to sever ties with him – including his CAA agency, his UMG parent label, and even his Adidas shoe partners, about whom Kanye had recently boasted, “I can say anti-semitic things and Adidas can’t drop me.” (In Dec. 2023, Kanye would apologize for his comments in an Instagram statement: “I sincerely apologize to the Jewish community for any unintended outburst caused by my words or actions.”)
And yet, even with seemingly all of his industry backing lost, Kanye remains majorly impactful in present day. His Instagram apology was followed in early 2024 with the independent release of his Ty Dolla $ign teamup Vultures 1 – again, after plenty of false starts, delays and listening-event hype, and again, with a No. 1 debut on the Billboard 200. This time, the set was also able to do something no Kanye album had done since before Yeezus: spawn a major, long-lasting Hot 100 hit, with the soccer-chanting, No. 1-peaking “Carnival,” also featuring Playboi Carti and Rich the Kid. The song carried some of the red-eyed, goblin-mode spark of Ye’s best early-2010s work – though in calling back to some of those songs rather explicitly (including a mid-song sample of Fantasy’s “Hell of a Life”), it missed both the ingenuity and the shock of the new that made them so special.
When you tell the story of Kanye West’s career, you realize how few of the larger narratives about 21st century popular music could be related without him. The mixtape hip-hop era of the early 2000s, rap’s mainstream takeover in the mid-’00s and the blog era in the late deacde, the EDM breakthrough and pop star megaboom of the turn of the 2010s, the complete reinvention of music consumption throughout the social media and streaming ages of the ‘10s, the event-ification of pop music in the late ‘10s, and the outsized role of identity politics and post-#MeToo questions of cancelation (or at least accountability) within the industry that have hung over all of entertainment for the past eight years… Nearly every important sonic, cultural or technological trend in the last 25 years of popular music has been touched by Kanye, and none of these chapters of pop history could be written without extensive mention of him. Sometimes on the first page. Sometimes in the first sentence.
Dan Tuffs/Getty Images
It’s impossible to deny Kanye’s impact, or his greatness. But it’s equally impossible to deny the impact that his hurtful comments and bad behavior (allegations of which have continued in 2024) have had on his overall legacy. He’s hardly the only one: Rock, rap and even pop history are all full of critical figures whose problematic conduct threatens to overshadow or at least taint their seismic contributions to the genre. How much it impacts our own personal enjoyment or listening habits when it comes to their music – either going forward or looking back – is something every fan must figure out for themselves. But clearly, even with Kanye’s recent chart comeback, he’s been ostracized from too many corners of pop music and pop culture to ever be as central to either as he was at his near-decade-and-a-half peak – and now, for many, even memories from that peak have been regrettably shaded to the point where they will never quite feel the same again.
Still, it’s a testament to just how singular that peak run was, and how impactful it was on popular music and culture – in countless ways we can still feel the reverberations of today, and others we might not properly understand for decades yet to come – that so many still bother with Kanye at all. Perhaps no other artist since Prince has better matched the Purple One’s combination of mold-breaking creativity with record-breaking commercial success, of studio perfectionism and prolificity with spellbinding performance abilities and iconic visuals, of cultural innovation and technological wizardry with personal artistry and deep soulfulness. And like Prince, he can change his name to whatever he wants, but the world will still never, ever forget the name Kanye.
Read more about the Greatest Pop Stars of the 21st Century here — and be sure to check back Tuesday as we reveal our No. 6 artist!
THE LIST SO FAR:
Honorable Mentions
25. Katy Perry24. Ed Sheeran23. Bad Bunny22. One Direction21. Lil Wayne20. Bruno Mars19. BTS18. The Weeknd17. Shakira16. Jay-Z15. Miley Cyrus14. Justin Timberlake13. Nicki Minaj12. Eminem11. Usher10. Adele9. Ariana Grande8. Justin Bieber
Rihanna is a Billie Eilish fan! In an interview with an 11-year-old journalist at her recent launch event for her new Fenty x Puma collection this week, RiRi was asked who her dream musical collaborator would be. “If I could only do a song with Billie Eilish. She’s so good,” she shared. New music has […]