State Champ Radio Pop
Page: 404
In 2020, Billboard‘s staff revealed its picks for the greatest pop star of every year dating back to 1981 (the first year of MTV, essentially the birth of the modern pop era), with essays making the case for each as the biggest, brightest and most important star in their solar system that calendar year. After adding BTS as the greatest pop star for 2020, we decided to expand the project a little bit. For the last two years, we’ve counted down our picks for the 10 greatest pop stars of the year, with full essays for everyone from No. 10 (Nicki Minaj last year) to No. 1 (Bad Bunny last year), as well as bonus write-ups for our picks for Rookie and Comeback of the year, and even 10 close-but-not-quite honorable mentions.
And now, it’s about time for our 2023 rankings. We’ll be counting down our top 10 over the course of next week, with our top two being revealed on Friday (Dec. 15). But first, we’ve got our 10 honorable mentions for this year — as well as our rookie and comeback artists of the year, to be unveiled later today.
First, though, our obligatory reminder that unlike with our Year-End Charts, these Greatest Pop Stars are not mathematically determined by stats like chart position, streams or sales numbers. They play a big part in our final rankings, of course — but so do things like music videos, live performances and social media presence, and more intangible factors like cultural importance, industry influence and overall omnipresence. (And we measure this over the entire 2023 calendar, so if you were only heard from at the beginning or end of the year — or only had one big song or moment — that’s gonna hurt your performance here as well.)
You’ll probably get the hang of what we mean. Read on below for our best-of-the-rest picks in alphabetical order, and apologies to all the veteran hitmakers and rising phenoms whose presence we couldn’t make room for with just 10 honorable mention spots — it was a huge year for pop stars new and old, and even a top 50 we would’ve probably ended up leaving someone out.
Spike Jordan
Their Year in Pop: We all love a comeback, don’t we? To bookmark his return home from a six-month prison stint following his Alford plea to a single charge of racketeering in the greater YSL RICO case, Gunna went back to basics with top 50 hit “Bread & Butter.” That song was featured on Gunna’s acclaimed 2023 album A Gift & A Curse, which found the rapper facing his controversies head-on and making a fifth consecutive trip to the Billboard 200’s top 5 (No. 3). Summer smash “Fukumean” soon followed, becoming Gunna’s highest-peaking unaccompanied entry on the Billboard Hot 100 (No. 4), along with minor hits “Back At It,” “Back to the Moon” and “Rodeo Dr.” With two sold-out headlining arena shows in NYC and LA and a late-game Afrobeats hit in his remix of Victor Thompson’s “Blessings” – Gunna didn’t just survive the (largely unwarranted) backlash, he rendered it inconsequential.
Why Not Top 10: As important of a year as this was Gunna, the rapper didn’t quite match his previous commercial heights: A Gift & A Curse missing the top of the Billboard 200 (he’s visited that slot twice before) definitely hurt his chances, as did his surprising Grammys shutout.
Courtesy BIGHIT Music
Their Year in Pop: The BTS alum had earned some solo success pre-2023, but it was quickly dwarfed by “Seven,” the frisky Latto collab that debuted atop the Hot 100, topped the Global 200 for (sure enough) seven weeks and generally confirmed that Jung Kook was here to stay as a solo star. He kept things rolling with an additional pair of top five hits — “3D” with Jack Harlow and “Standing Next to You” — and his debut solo LP Golden, which debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard 200, held off only by Taylor Swift’s blockbuster 1989 (Taylor’s Edition). With his hits, accompanying music videos and even a spellbinding Fallon appearance, Jung Kook proved himself the kind of triple-threat we don’t see very often in the 2020s (in this country anyway) — with no less an exemplar than Usher blessing his solo star status via his appearance on the “Standing” Remix.
Why Not Top 10: Jung Kook really only came on in the second half of the year — so if he keeps up the momentum going into 2024, he could be a major top 10 contender in next year’s rankings.
ADOR
Their Year in Pop: After storming onto the South Korean scene in 2022, NewJeans officially went global in 2023. With brilliant image control, eye-catching music videos, innovative style and some of the most open-eared and smartly written singles in pop music, the quintet broke onto the Hot 100 near-simultaneously with two singles in January, “OMG” and “Ditto.” The group did even better with July’s Get Up EP, which topped the Billboard 200 and spawned another three Hot 100 entries, including their first to reach the chart’s top half with the sighing, sparkling “Super Shy” — one of two songs they played at the Billboard Music Awards in November. NewJeans ends 2023 as one of the most recognized and most influential groups in pop, with the sponsorships and accolades to prove it.
Why Not Top 10: They’re still extremely new, and have yet to either release a full-length album or land a top 40 Hot 100 hit — though both are probably coming before too long at this point.
Sarah Carpenter
Their Year in Pop: The former teen star proved in 2022 that she had the goods to be a pop mainstay with her acclaimed Emails I Can’t Send album, but in 2023 she took even bigger steps towards adult stardom. Emails‘ clever and sweetly horny “Nonsense” brought her back to the Hot 100, largely thanks to a viral Jimmy Kimmel Live! performance that saw her killing the choreography and changing her ending ad libs — something she’d continue to do at performances throughout the year, including at the VMAs’ pre-show. By year’s end she was regularly delighting on social media, opening for (and attending Jets home games) with Taylor Swift and pissing off the Catholic church over her video to slow-burning hit “Feather” (from March’s Emails deluxe reissue), offering the perfect retort: “Jesus was a Carpenter.”
Why Not Top 10: As big as “Nonsense” felt, it only peaked at No. 56 on the Hot 100, and while Carpenter played stadiums on the Eras Tour, her Emails tour was still visiting more mid-sized venues — showing how much room her star still has to grow.
Luca Giannattasio
Their Year in Pop: Thanks to Sexyy Red, the whole world wanted to go to “Pound Town” in 2023. At the top of the year, Sexyy released the slow-burning single, which eventually rode a Nicki Minaj remix to a peak of No. 66 on the Hot 100. An even-bigger hit followed in the freewheeling “SkeeYee” (No. 62), which became the inaugural No. 1 on the newly launched Billboard TikTok Top 50. Sexyy’s brash, unapologetic, sex-positive persona also nurtured Hood Hottest Princess – her second mixtape and first project under a label – to a peak of No. 62 on the Billboard 200. Oh, and who can forget her opening for Drake and scoring a hit alongside him and SZA with “Rich Baby Daddy”? Beyond the numbers, Sexyy refused to remove her foot from pop culture’s neck this year: From her shocking pregnancy debut to her controversial comments in support of Donald Trump, Sexyy Red towered over the year’s conversations.
Why Not Top 10: Sexyy’s commercial feats didn’t quite line up with how big her presence felt this year. Not to mention, we only had a handful of total songs from the rapper until the Hood Hottest Princess deluxe edition was release a week ago!
Jaume de Laiguana
Their Year in Pop: When you kick off the year by turning a dramatic divorce into Latin Grammy-winning Hot 100 top 10 hit, the rest of the calendar should be light work. Shakira proved as such with a year that saw her exploring the bounties of collaboration: Her Bizarrap collab obviously paid handsome dividends, but so did her linkups with Karol G (the Hot 100 top 10 hit “TQG”), Manuel Turizo (“Copa Vacía”) and Fuerza Regida (“El Jefe”). Don’t be mistaken, however: Shakira can still kill it on her lonesome. Her electric Tonight Show performance of “BZRP Music Sessions, Vol. 53” went viral, the heartfelt “Acróstico” earned a song of the year nod at the Latin Grammys and she shut down the MTV VMAs with a career-spanning medley in honor of her Video Vanguard Award win.
Why Not Top 10: Yes, Shakira had a big year, but with no album or tour in the past twelve months, other artists had bigger, more all-encompassing years.
Pieter Hugo
Their Year in Pop: Questions of whether Travis Scott could still be as relevant in pop music five years after Astroworld — and two years after the deadly Astroworld Festival disaster that still hangs over his career — were answered with the release of this year’s Utopia. The album (and its accompanying Circus Maximus film) took over the music world both for the week leading up to it and for the week after its release, as fans parsed its tracklist for some of the big names included (SZA, Drake, The Weeknd, Beyoncé) and debated personal favorites. The album moved 496,000 units in its first week — easily the best debut for a 2023 rap album — and held on top for four weeks total, then was followed by Scott’s Circus Maximus Tour, taking him around this country’s arenas this fall and winter.
Why Not Top 10: Outside of the couple weeks this summer Utopia clearly dominated its extended impact felt a little muted compared to Astroworld, and the set failed to produce a single as culture-dominating or enduring as “Sicko Mode.”
Stuart Winecoff
Their Year In Pop: With a half-decade separating Troye Sivan from his last LP (2018’s Bloom), the Aussie pop star came back with a vengeance in 2023. After playing a supporting role in the The Weeknd’s largely derided (but still culturally pervasive) HBO drama The Idol, Sivan unleashed “Rush,” a delectable slice of dance-pop that earned him a pair of Grammy nods and his highest-peaking solo Hot 100 entry in seven years (No. 77). Something to Give Each Other, his third studio album, arrived to ample acclaim and spawned another Hot 100 entry in “One of Your Girls,” arguably one of the most radical queer mainstream pop songs in recently memory. That track came complete with an instantly viral Ross Lynch-led music video that, along with the clips for “Rush” and “Got Me Started,” cemented Sivan as one of the most ostentatious visual auteurs of his class.
Why Not Top 10: Troye Sivan has arguably never been more culturally relevant than he is now, but his commercial success was not quite at superstar level this year: Something to Give Each Other landed as his lowest-peaking studio LP on the Billboard 200 (No. 20), and none of its tracks have reached the Hot 100’s top 60.
Dalvin Adams
Their Year in Pop: Victoria Monét’s story obviously begins long before the inflection point that was the 2023 MTV VMAs, but few moments are as emblematic as her revealing that MTV passed on having her perform at the awards show — and then popping out with a whopping seven Grammy nominations a few months later. Among those nods was a record of the year nod for “On My Mama,” the ultimate tribute to ‘00s Southern Black culture, which rode Sean Bankhead’s choreography for its instantly viral music video to the highest Hot 100 peak of her recording career (No. 48). “On My Mama” served as the third single from Jaguar II, Monét’s debut studio album, which picked her up a pair of Soul Train Music Awards, boasted collaborations with everyone from Buju Banton to Earth, Wind & Fire, anchored an acclaimed tour that hit three different continents and earned her her highest Billboard 200 peak yet (No. 60).
Why Not Top 10: Again, a major breakout year for Monét as a recording artist, but her commercial returns don’t quite warrant a top 10 placement at the current moment. Moreover, most of her breakout moments occurred in the latter half of the year, so an even bigger 2024 could be in the cards for her.
Louis Nice
Their Year in Pop: One of the biggest success stories of 2022, Zach Bryan started out 2023 with breakout hit “Something in the Orange” hitting the top 10 on the Hot 100 and only gained steam from there. His well-reviewed self-titled album debuted atop the Billboard 200 in September, and also spawned a Hot 100-topping smash with his Kacey Musgraves duet “I Remember Everything,” as other big-charting 2023 artists from Tyler Childers to Oliver Anthony Music to Noah Kahan could also claim to have been boosted by his rising tide. He also announced a 2024 arenas-and-stadiums tour in August, with luminaries like Jason Isbell and Sheryl Crow as openers, and even when news broke of his arrest in September, it just added to his outlaw legacy — with fans printing T-shirts of his mug shot hours later.
Why Not Top 10: He’s a star for sure, but the “pop” part of it is still a little beyond him — he’s never had a real crossover radio hit or a major TV appearance, and might not be interested in playing the game that would lead to those kind of looks anyway. For now at least, he’s likely content being America’s biggest cult star.
It’s not just the general population that’s been waiting years for Ariana Grande to release new music — even some of the world’s biggest pop stars are growing impatient.
Luckily, it seems the “7 Rings” singer is finally back in the studio based on a carousel of photos and video clips she posted Thursday (Dec. 7), showing her working with producers and editing tracks on a computer. Among the many ecstatic commenters on the post were stars Selena Gomez, Billie Eilish and SZA, each of whom seem as excited as the rest of Grande’s fans for a potential new release.
“FINALLY,” wrote Gomez in all caps.
“UN MUTE PLS,” commented Eilish, referring to the soundless video clips Grande posted of her mystery project.
As far as SZA’s concerned, however, she doesn’t need to hear what Grande’s working on to know that it’s going to be good. “Oh this bout to eat,” commented the “Kill Bill” artist.
It’s been more than three years since Grande has had an LP, with the Billboard 200-topping Positions arriving in October 2020. Aside from a couple stray collaborations with The Weeknd (including two No. 1 Hot 100 hits), Demi Lovato, Kelly Clarkson and Jimmy Fallon — plus a tenth anniversary edition of her debut album Yours Truly — since then, the 30-year-old vocalist has primarily been taking a break from her pop star activities to focus on her R.E.M. Beauty business and filming the Wicked live action films.
And while the “POV” singer hasn’t confirmed whether an album is in the works, fans are convinced that her post is teasing an LP. The next album Grande releases will be her seventh studio record, and observers were quick to notice that the musician’s post featured seven photos/videos in addition to being shared on the seventh day of the month.
Her Wicked costar Cynthia Erivo’s comment on the post only added fuel to the fire. “Love you sweetheart, no one is ready, I’m so freaking proud of you!! This project is so freaking special!!!” wrote the singer-actress, who will play Elphaba opposite Grande’s Glinda in the musical duology.
Grande’s friend and frequent collaborator Victoria Monet also chimed in — “She’s HOME!!!🤎🤎🤎🥂” — as well as Ty Dolla $ign, who wrote, “She backkkk.”
See Grande’s post here.
The numbers are in for the first leg of Madonna’s The Celebration Tour. According to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore, the European leg grossed $77.5 million and sold 429,000 tickets.
In January, Madonna announced The Celebration Tour, slated to honor the biggest hits of her legendary career. After a medical emergency forced a postponement of the first batch of North American dates, she launched the trek on Oct. 14 at London’s O2 Arena.
Over four shows that week, Madonna earned $14.7 million and sold 60,000 tickets, only to return to the O2 for the leg’s final two shows on Dec. 5-6, which added another $7.5 million and 31,000 tickets. Since returning from the pandemic, only Elton John and Queen + Adam Lambert have amassed bigger totals at the O2, and they did it with nine and 10 shows, respectively. When Madonna last played the O2, it was just two nights in 2015, compared to this year’s six.
In between, Madonna stopped in Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal and more, for a total of 27 shows across 11 European markets. Four nights at Paris’ Accor Arena provided the tour’s other eight-figure gross, bringing in $10.7 million from 62,000 tickets on Nov. 12-13 and 19-20.
Madonna’s European totals average out to $2.9 million and 15,900 tickets per night on a $180.53 ticket. Compared to the theater-residency run of her last tour, the Madame X Tour (2019-20), she’s up by 312% in nightly earnings and by 518% in average attendance.
On more level footing with the European leg from the Rebel Heart Tour from 2015-16, Madonna’s last arena tour, her 2023 shows are still up – by 9% in attendance, sold out on every show, and by 70% in average gross, thanks in large part to bulked up ticket pricing.
Immediate demand for The Celebration Tour expanded Madonna’s initial routing of 12 shows in Europe to 27. Likewise, the first batch of 26 shows in the U.S. and Canada has swelled to 47. She kicks off the North American leg on Wednesday (Dec. 13) at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center. After a handful of shows this month, she’s back for the rest in 2024, playing through April 15 in Austin, plus five shows from April 20-26 at Mexico City’s Foro Sol.
Looking at the relationship between Madonna’s European shows and stateside shows on the Rebel Heart Tour, Billboard expects the U.S. and Canadian leg to earn about $150 million from 650,000 tickets.
With the handful of Mexico shows to follow, the current routing for The Celebration Tour is headed toward a total haul of $240-245 million and 1.1-1.2 million tickets over 79 shows. That would situate it behind stadium runs on the Sticky & Sweet Tour (2008-09; $407.7 million) and The MDMA Tour (2012; $305.2 million), but ahead of arena treks the Confessions Tour (2006; $194.8 million) and the Rebel Heart Tour (2015-16; $169.8 million).
You probably didn’t have Cher wearing a fake mustache and spitting pieces of donut at Jimmy Fallon on your 2023 bingo card, but that certainly didn’t stop the Goddess of Pop from hocking a few loogies on Thursday night’s (Dec. 7) Tonight Show. During her surprise appearance, Cher acted alongside Fallon in the show’s long-running […]
Olivia Rodrigo‘s no-following rule on Instagram seriously backfired at one point.
Appearing on the Tonight Show Thursday night (Dec. 7), the 20-year-old pop star finally explained why she doesn’t follow anyone else on her account, which has 35 million followers. “I try to follow zero people because it helps me be off of my phone, you know, off of social media,” she told host Jimmy Fallon.
But even the best laid plans can have unintended consequences. “I had this very embarrassing encounter once where I was stalking my ex, as one does,” she confessed. “Sue me, sorry. And I accidentally followed him ’cause I was stalking him. And I was just following one person so it was super obvious that I was following him.”
After one of her friends breathlessly ran in from the other room to inform Olivia of the mistake, things took a turn for the worse. “I went to open the Instagram app, and the second I opened the app, my phone died!” Rodrigo continued, earning stunned laughs from the audience. “I couldn’t find the charger so I was just following my ex for a while.”
The “Vampire” singer’s stop by the Tonight Show comes three nights ahead of her upcoming return to Saturday Night Live, where she’ll serve as musical guest on this weekend’s Adam Driver-hosted episode. She previously sang “Drivers License” and “Good 4 U” on the show in 2021, in one of the first-ever live performances of her career.
And though she didn’t specify which ex was the recipient of her accidental follow, Rodrigo’s fans are convinced it’s her former High School Musical: The Musical: The Series costar Joshua Bassett. Some claim to remember the moment she was solely following the “Lie, Lie, Lie,” singer in July of 2022.
“People were like, ‘Oh my gosh, she’s hacked!’ And I’m like, ‘Yeah, you guys, be safe! Two-factor authentication, you guys,’” Rodrigo joked to Fallon. “I have a finsta now, so I’m safe.” The singer also talked about her sophomore GUTS album being nominated for six Grammy awards — she said she and her mom used to make their own hand-written ballots for each year’s show when she was a kid — and the time Fallon made her mom’s life when he hugged her at a party.
Fallon also busted out the album cover and a snippet of the adorable Christmas song Rodrigo wrote when she was five (“The Bels”) and a photo of her pop star-themed sixth birthday party, proof, she joked, that she “manifested” her career.
See Olivia Rodrigo on the Tonight Show above.
Miley Cyrus’ “Used To Be Young” ascends to No. 1 on Billboard’s Adult Pop Airplay chart (dated Dec. 16). The ballad, on Columbia Records, becomes Cyrus’ second leader on the list, after “Flowers” dominated for 17 weeks beginning in March – the most among songs by women since the survey began in Billboard’s pages in […]
Tate McRae gets “Greedy” to No. 1 on Billboard’s Pop Airplay chart.
The song becomes the first leader on the list (dated Dec. 16) for the Calgary, Alberta-born, Los Angeles-based singer-songwriter, who reached a prior No. 2 best with her breakthrough hit, “You Broke Me First.,” in 2021.
(The Pop Airplay chart reflects plays on over 150 reporting mainstream top 40-formatted stations. Airplay is monitored by Mediabase and provided to Billboard by Luminate.)
“Greedy,” on RCA Records, has also become McRae’s first top 10 on the all-genre, multi-metric Billboard Hot 100, reaching a No. 7 high to date. It topped the Billboard Global 200 chart for two weeks and Billboard Global Excl. U.S. and the Billboard Canadian Hot 100 for one frame each.
[embedded content]
McRae wrote “Greedy” with Amy Allen, Jasper Harris and Ryan Tedder, and Harris and Tedder produced it. It’s Tedder’s sixth Pop Airplay No. 1 as a writer and producer and Harris’ second, and Allen’s third as a writer and McRae’s first.
Meanwhile, McRae bookends Pop Airplay as “Greedy” follow-up “Exes” debuts at No. 40. (McRae and Tedder are likewise two of its writers, while Tedder co-produced it.)
“Greedy” and “Exes” are from McRae’s second LP, Think Later, released today (Dec. 8). She recently performed “Greedy” in her first appearances on both NBC’s Saturday Night Live (Nov. 18) and the Billboard Music Awards (Nov. 19). In April 2024, she’s set to kick off her Think Later World Tour in Dublin.
“I think what defines a pop star is how iconic [they are],” McRae mused in her recent first Billboard cover story. “Madonna, Britney [Spears], Christina [Aguilera]; they would put on these shows and blow everybody away and make timeless art. And that’s what I want to do: make timeless art and timeless performances – and strive to keep on doing that.”
All charts dated Dec. 16 will update on Billboard.com Tuesday, Dec. 12.
Taylor Swift vaulted into rarified air this week when she was named TIME magazine’s 2023 Person of the Year. So of course now that she’s joined a list that includes Gandhi, Jimmy Carter, late pope John Paul II, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, Barack Obama, teen climate activist Greta Thunberg and 2022 honoree Ukrainian president Volodymyr […]
The lineup for the Hollywood portion of the 2024 Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve with Ryan Seacrest was revealed on Thursday night (Dec. 7), and it is jam-packed with pop, hip-hop, R&B and rock stars. The list includes Green Day, Janelle Monae, Ludacris and Reneé Rapp, as well as “Barbie” band Aqua, Bebe Rexha, […]
Cher‘s chart-topping Christmas album marked her first-ever holiday record — and now, the legendary singer will embark on another first: a trip to the metaverse.
Billboard can share exclusive first details about Cher’s four-week event on Roblox that launches today (Dec. 8) in the latest collaboration between Warner Music Group and leading metaverse game developer Gamefam. Cher will head to WMG’s music-themed Roblox world Harmony Hills, which will have its halls decked in festive decor, add new holiday-themed locations, and launch limited-time virtual merchandise inspired by some of the superstar’s most iconic looks with tinsel hair, winter fairy wings, diamond antlers and a winter crown. The activation will spotlight three of Cher’s new Christmas tracks: “Drop Top Sleigh Ride” with Tyga, “Angels in the Snow,” and her historic new No. 1 single, “DJ Play a Christmas Song.”
Explore
Explore
See latest videos, charts and news
See latest videos, charts and news
Alongside a virtual Cher NPC (non-playable character) designed to match her new album cover, players can earn the wearable avatar merch by successfully completing tasks like delivering presents, climbing up Christmas trees and participating in snowball fights.
The Cher space in Harmony Hills is the latest launch in WMG and Gamefam’s partnership that kicked off in February 2023 ahead of a Super Bowl concert with Warner Records rapper Saweetie. Gamefam reports the concert holds the highest rating among any concert on Roblox with a 96 percent player rating, with the Super Bowl campaign earning over 7.5 million visits in one week. A Bebe Rexha concert in July in support of her Bebe album averaged 8,300 concurrent users amid its 4.3 million unique visits.
Leaning into the 70 million daily active users on Roblox marks a unique opportunity for a legend like Cher to reach across generations, including an entirely new audience and demographic, via festive and familiar holiday music.
“Christmas songs have this magic that always brings families together and we feel Cher’s Christmas album really captures that spirit,” explains Jacqui Bransky, vp of Web3 and Innovation at Warner Records. “We thought taking her music to Roblox would help expose her to a new generation of fans while simultaneously spreading joy. We wanted to make the whole experience feel like a story, something that really draws the audience in while still feeling authentic to who Cher is as an artist.”
Adds Alli Guglielmino, svp of Growth at Gamefam, “Cher is an everlasting, multi-generational superstar and, after seven decades, Cher continues to find innovative ways to connect with a new wave of fans…as Gen Z and Alpha turn away from traditional music consumption methods, there’s no better place to reach them than the metaverse gaming platform where they’re actively playing for 2.5 hours every day.”
Cher’s Christmas event on Roblox (launching at 7 p.m. ET on Dec. 8) joins her heavy promo run for the holiday LP that’s included performances at the iHeartRadio Z100 Jingle Ball, the Rockefeller Center Tree-Lighting Special and Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.
Gamefam & Warner Records
