Pop
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The holiday season hasn’t truly begun until the iconic Rockefeller Center tree has been lit, and NBC’s annual Christmas in Rockefeller Center telecast on Wednesday night (Dec. 4) brought together a list of all-star performers to celebrate. The Backstreet Boys took the stage to perform a heartwarming rendition of Nat King Cole’s holiday classic “The Christmas Song […]
BTS’ latest accomplishment is smooth like butter! The group notched their seventh entry into YouTube‘s Billion Views club with their 2021 music video for “Butter.” Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news Their previous videos to hit one billion views on the platform include “Dynamite,” “Boy With Luv” featuring Halsey and “DNA,” among […]
Chappell Roan was on countless people’s 2024 Spotify Wrapped roundups, but who was on hers?
On Wednesday (Dec. 4), the 26-year-old pop star revealed which artists were in her top five at the close of the year, sharing an old photo of herself posing next to a car decked out in camo-print decals on Instagram and writing, “this pic kind of insane.”
“Ps,” she added. “My Spotify wrapped most listened to artists were 1. Ariana [Grande] 2. Charli [XCX] 3. Heart 4. Justice 5. Kacey Musgraves.”
“Top song was barracuda ofc,” Roan added, referencing her third-most-streamed artist’s 1977 hit.
The Missouri native’s post comes on the same day Spotify unveiled its annual Wrapped feature, allowing users to see which artists and songs they streamed the most over the course of 2024 through specially curated playlists and shareable data cards. The platform also revealed its most-streamed artists overall — Taylor Swift, The Weeknd, Bad Bunny, Drake and Billie Eilish, in that order — as well as its most popular songs of the year.
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Sabrina Carpenter’s “Espresso” garnered the most listens globally on Spotify this year, followed by Benson Boone’s “Beautiful Things,” Billie Eilish’s “Birds of a Feather,” FloyyMenor and Cris Mj’s “Gata Only” and Teddy Swims’ “Lose Control.” In the U.S., however, Roan scored the sixth-most streamed song with breakthrough single “Good Luck, Babe!” — which surpassed one billion streams just a few days prior to Wrapped arriving — bested only by “Espresso,” Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us,” Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song (Tipsy),” Post Malone and Morgan Wallen’s “I Had Some Help” and Tommy Richman’s “Million Dollar Baby” nationally.
The “Hot to Go” singer’s debut album, The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess, was also the fifth-most streamed album in the U.S. Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology was No. 1 at home, followed by Wallen’s One Thing at a Time, Carpenter’s Short n’ Sweet and Noah Kahan’s Stick Season.
Roan has previously expressed her fandom of Grande, calling herself an “Arianator” in an August livestream and adding that she was “so excited” to see Wicked. She also gave Charli a shout-out in her September Rolling Stone cover story, naming the “Von Dutch” artist as one of several female stars who had reached out to her with support during the emotional low-points of her rise to fame, along with Katy Perry, Lorde, Muna, Miley Cyrus, Lady Gaga and more.
On today’s (Dec. 4) episode of the Greatest Pop Stars of the 21st Century podcast, we finally get to No. 1 on our list with the period’s true standard-setter, a pop star who set the bar 25 years ago and has only continued to raise it in the years since. (Read our No. 1 Greatest […]
Kesha is reborn, and she’s celebrating her new musical chapter with a goddess-inspired Playboy photoshoot. In the photoset for Playboy’s Spotlight of the Month, directed by Brooke James, depicts Kesha as an angel as well as Venus — the Roman goddess of love and beauty — emerging from from a shell, just like in the […]
If you like it, then you should’ve put a ring on it — but a billion views isn’t a bad compromise. Fresh off of being named Billboard‘s No. 1 greatest pop star of the 21st century, Beyoncé‘s iconic music video for “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)” has surpassed one billion views on YouTube […]
When you’ve been on the kind of career rip that Beyoncé‘s had for the past two decades, you get used to winning. That was the message from the singer’s mother, Tina Knowles, when TMZ caught up with her on Tuesday (Dec. 3), just hours after Billboard revealed that Bey was named the No. 1 Greatest Pop Star of the 21st Century.
Asked to respond to the honor, Knowles said, “that’s nice… very nice.” As for the follow-up question about whether the family ever gets used to the accolades heaped on their their daughter, Knowles offered up a succinct, “yeah.”
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The expectation of excellence was mirrored by Bey’s father Matthew Knowles as well, who boasted about the singer’s accomplishments in a loving post on X on Tuesday. “Beyoncé was shy growing up. But, as soon as she started singing, it was like a different person emerged and we knew from a very young age that she was destined to pursue her passion in music,” he wrote. “She turned everyone around her into a believer with her determination, work ethic, stage presence and talent.”
He also addressed his daughter directly, saying, “Beyoncé, I am so proud of you. This is another one of your many major distinctions, yet I sit here not surprised because I knew you were meant for greatness from the moment I held you in my arms for the first time!”
“While Taylor Swift is the century’s biggest pop star by the numbers — from album sales to streams to touring dominance — our editorial staff chose Beyoncé as our Greatest Pop Star of the Century, based on her full 25 years of influence, evolution and impact,” reads the intro to the essay about the Beyoncé.
The No. 1 slot placed Queen Bey over Swift (No. 2), as well as the rest of the top 10, which included Rihanna, Adele, Ariana Grande, Justin Bieber, Kanye West, Britney Spears, Lady Gaga and Drake.
Our favorite albums from a big year for pop blockbusters.
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Katie Atkinson, Katie Bain, Anna Chan, Hannah Dailey, Stephen Daw, Kyle Denis, Angel Diaz, Frank DiGiacomo, Ingrid Fajardo, Josh Glicksman, Griselda Flores, Quincy Green, Paul Grein, Rylee Johnston, Elias Leight, Jason Lipshutz, Joe Lynch, Meghan Mahar, Heran Mamo, Gail Mitchell, Taylor Mims, Melinda Newman, Jessica Nicholson, Eric Renner Brown, Kristin Robinson, Jessica Roiz, Dan Rys, Michael Saponara, Damien Scott, Andrew Unterberger
Sympathy is a knife, but Charli XCX and Ariana Grande are watching each other’s backs.
In a new interview with Variety published Wednesday (Dec. 4), the 32-year-old alt-pop star opened up about her bond with the 31-year-old Wicked singer-actress — whom Charli says gave her a lot of support on multiple career fronts as they were working on their October remix of fan-favorite Brat track “Sympathy Is a Knife.” “She had a lot to say,” the “Von Dutch” artist began of her collaborator.
Noting that Grande “gravitated” toward “Sympathy Is a Knife,” Charli added, “We went back and forth on the lyrics, talking about all the knives that we both felt in this industry.”
The “Yes, And?” artist also apparently encouraged Charli’s acting ambitions, which, in the near future, will include parts in Benito Skinner’s Overcompensating series, Gregg Araki’s I Want Your Sex film, Daniel Goldhaber’s Faces of Death remake and Julia Jackman’s 100 Nights of Hero graphic-novel adaptation. Grande, who hosted Saturday Night Live in September, also showed the “Apple” artist the ropes before the latter helmed a November episode of the comedy series.
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“She’d obviously just done [‘SNL’] and killed it, so I was getting tips,” Charli told the publication. “She was just like, ‘You’re gonna be amazing, just relax, it’s so fun.’”
Grande’s spin on “Sympathy Is a Knife” was just one of numerous remixes on Brat and It’s Completely Different But Also Still Brat, a companion LP to Charli’s blockbuster sixth studio album. On the track, both women delve into their least favorite aspects of fame and the music industry, singing, “It’s a knife when you’re finally on top/ ‘Cause logically the next step is they wanna see you fall to the bottom.”
Billie Eilish, Lorde, Troye Sivan, Addison Rae, Tinashe, The 1975 and more were also featured on the Brat remix album, which dropped Oct. 11. The project served to build on the career-boosting whirlwind started by the original record, which debuted at No. 3 on the Billboard 200 in June — Charli’s first-ever top five album.
“Crash was me kind of playing at being a major-label pop artist,” the star told Variety, reflecting on her unexpected success with Brat. “It’s funny now to see how Brat has dwarfed it, because I was so prepared for this record to be just for my audience.”
Taylor Swift will have much to celebrate this New Year’s Day, with the musician taking home two major year-end accolades on Spotify to close out 2024.
And in response to the news that she is both Spotify’s most streamed artist of 2024 and the creator of the app’s most streamed album of the year — both things the platform announced Wednesday (Dec. 4) as part of its annual Wrapped — the 34-year-old pop star gushed about the feats in a heartfelt thank-you message to fans on Instagram Stories.
“Top Streamed Artist and Album on @spotify this year?!” Swift wrote incredulously. “You guys are unbelievable.”
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The end-of-year victories come just a couple days before the 14-time Grammy winner takes the stage for one last trio of Eras Tour shows Dec. 6-8 in Vancouver, B.C. Coincidentally, Sabrina Carpenter — a former opener on the nearly two-year trek — had the top-streamed song on Spotify in 2024, with smash hit “Espresso” racking up more than 1.6 billion global listens.
“What an amazing thing to find out going into our last weekend of eras shows,” she added in her post. “THANK YOU!”
According to Spotify, more than 26.6 billion global streams pushed Swift to the top of their artist list this year, with The Weeknd, Bad Bunny, Drake and Billie Eilish respectively finishing out 2024 as the site’s second, third, fourth and fifth most streamed artists. This turn around the sun marks the second year in a row that the “Karma” artist has been the service’s top artist, having taken the crown in 2023 as well.
In addition to her post on Stories, Swift also personally thanked fans with a video message sent out to her top listeners on Spotify. “I just wanted to say thank you so much for being one of my top listeners on Spotify, that’s so nice of you,” she said, addressing in the camera while outfitted in one of her Eras Tour leotards. “Thank you for streaming the music — it’s just been such a wild ride.”
As for the most streamed album honors, that’s only the latest feather in The Tortured Poets Department‘s cap. Swift’s expansive 11th studio album has spent a total of 15 weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 in 2024 and was recently certified 6x Platinum by the RIAA, meaning it has surpassed 6 million sales units in the U.S.
Swift’s streaming reign in 2024 wasn’t limited to Spotify, though. This year, she was also Apple Music’s top streamed artist, while Tortured Poets was the competing platform’s biggest album.
“Ahhhhhh thank you for listening to my music and TTPD so much!!!!” she wrote of the latter feat on her Story Dec. 3. “You, the fans, made The Tortured Poets Department the TOP STREAMED ALBUM of The Year on @applemusic!!!”