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Chappell Roan gave a standout performance on Saturday Night Live when she served as musical guest in November, but according to the pop star, the live showcase was seconds away from a fashion disaster.
While speaking to Nardwuar for a life-spanning interview published Monday (Dec. 16), Roan opened up about the major wardrobe malfunction that occurred just moments before she went on stage at 30 Rock to sing “Pink Pony Club,” for which she wore a custom white-jeweled floor-length gown. The look — which she complemented with her signature drag glam and faux hips — looked flawless on screen, but that’s only because of some quick thinking from the SNL costumers, Roan says.
“It ripped all the way down the back right before I walked on stage,” the “Hot to Go” singer told Nardwuar, pointing to her neck and lower back to demonstrate how long the tear stretched. “I had to have SNL‘s in-house seamstress … I was sewn into the dress because it ripped all the way down.”
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Roan also performed her unreleased song “The Giver” on the John Mulaney-hosted episode. The country track is expected to appear on the VMA winner’s highly anticipated sophomore album, which will follow her Billboard 200 No. 2 breakout LP The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess.
While speaking to Nardwuar, Roan also touched on her recent Grammy nominations, growing up in Missouri, giving a guest lecture on queer identity to Harvard medical students and taking inspiration to work with drag queens on tour from Orville Peck. Plus, the “Good Luck, Babe!” hitmaker detailed meeting Billboard‘s latest cover star Tyler, the Creator, at this year’s Austin City Limits, where both artists performed in October.
“He’s awesome,” she said of the “Sticky” rapper. “He was hiding in the shadows as I got offstage. He was just kind of lurking over in the corner, and my tour manager was like, ‘Hey, Tyler wants to meet you.’ He gave me a lot of good advice about paparazzi — I don’t have paparazzi, but when I do — I took notes. And he thanked me for speaking up about some stuff that I spoke up on.”
Watch Roan’s interview with Nardwuar above.
For this year’s update of our ongoing Greatest Pop Star by Year project, Billboard will be counting down our editorial staff picks for the 10 Greatest Pop Stars of 2024 all this week — having already revealed our Honorable Mentions, our Comeback of the Year and our Rookie of the Year artists all last week. Now, at No. 10, we remember the year in Jelly Roll — a late-blooming country superstar whose compelling hits, winning personality and relatable story helped him become one of the most unavoidable artists of 2024.
When he wasn’t taking his now-famous daily cold plunge in an ice bath, Jelly Roll was everywhere in 2024.
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Even if you can’t hum “I Am Not Okay,” which reached No. 14 on the Billboard Hot 100 and was the closest Jelly Roll got to a pure pop hit this year, you’re still likely aware of the gregarious rapper-turned-country artist through his sheer ubiquity. Jelly Roll, who turned 40 on Dec. 4, performed on no fewer than 10 collaborations from across the musical spectrum in 2024, alongside the wide-ranging likes of Eminem, Falling in Reverse, Jessie Murph, OneRepublic, Machine Gun Kelly, Halsey, Post Malone, Dustin Lynch and Brooks & Dunn. He also landed three No. 1 songs on Billboard’s Country Airplay chart for the second year in a row, and topped both the Hard Rock Songs and Mainstream Rock Airplay charts.
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Here’s what it was like to be Jelly Roll in 2024: During one weekend in early February, he paid tribute to Bon Jovi at the 33rd annual MusiCares Person of the Year gala, followed by performing at the illustrious pre-Grammy gala hosted by Clive Davis the next night. And then to cap off the weekend, he also sang at the Grammy Awards, where he was nominated for two trophies and met his longtime crush, Taylor Swift.
Or fast forward to September, where in one four-day span he played his first-ever (sold-out) show at New York’s Madison Square Garden. The next day he headlined the Global Citizen Festival in Central Park in the afternoon and was the musical guest on the season premiere of Saturday Night Live. Then two nights later, he not only performed on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, but he also got coveted couch time on the late night show, an indicator of his celebrity status.
Jelly Roll scored wins across the board as an entertainer in 2024. He may not have taken home any Grammys in February (he’ll get more chances in 2025 after being nominated for two Grammys in November), but the 2024 People’s Choice Awards named him male country artist of the year in February. In April, he snagged both best new artist (pop) and best new artist (country) at the iHeart Awards, and in April, he was the big winner at the CMT Music Awards, winning all three awards he was nominated for, including video of the year (“Need a Favor”)
The winning streak continued in May, two weeks after he had played Stagecoach for the first time (and paid tribute to Toby Keith by performing “Should’ve Been a Cowboy” with T-Pain), when he took home music event of the year for “Save Me” with Lainey Wilson at the ACM Awards. “This song saved me,” he said during his acceptance speech, which reflected his painful past. “I was in a dark place. I thought I would die and go to jail, and I’m standing here today an ACM Awards winner.”
He also won on the health front, losing 100 pounds in a journey he documented on social media (including the daily plunges), and undergoing major dental surgery. It felt like everything he did – no matter how large or small — made the news, from testifying before a Senate committee on the fentanyl crisis and revealing that he and wife Bunnie XO were trying to expand their family via IVF to announcing he regretted getting most of his plentiful tattoos or surprising kids running a lemonade stand with a $700 donation.
He also made musical strides on both the large and small screens, contributing “Dead End Road” to the Twisters: The Album and “Run It” as the only original song in Sonic the Hedgehog 3, the third installment of the popular franchise. Meanwhile, new song “Get By” became the ESPN college football anthem for the 2024-25 anthem and “Dead End Road” and “Liar” served as the official theme songs for the WWE SummerSlam, with Jelly performing the atter at the event.
When it seemed like it couldn’t get better, Jelly Roll performed with his hero, Eminem in June at Live From Detroit: The Concert at Michigan Central. They sang “Sing for the Moment,” and a month later, Jelly Roll appeared on “Somebody Save Me” on Eminem’s The Death of Slim Shady album.In September, he joined Eminem (via projection) to help open the VMA Awards when the rapper performed a medley of “Houdini” and “Somebody Save Me.”
On Aug. 27 in Salt Lake City, Jelly Roll kicked off his first headlining arena tour. The Beautifully Broken show was part concert/part gospel revival and fully sold out. The tour perfectly set up the Oct. 11 release of his album of the same name, the follow up to 2023’s Whitsitt Chapel, which came out through a new partnership between BMG and Republic. Like its predecessor, the set examined issues close to his heart, including addiction and mental health, that resonated with his growing millions of fans. His hard work paid off: Jelly Roll landed his first No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 and Top Country Albums, with sales of 161,000 units sold moved in its debut week,, according to Luminate.
Two nights before Thanksgiving, Jelly Roll wrapped his tour, which grossed $79.3 million and sold 685,000 tickets over 56 shows, according to Billboard Boxscore. Without even pausing to indulge in some turkey, two days later, Jelly Roll crashed Lainey Wilson’s halftime performance at the Dallas Cowboys game on Thanksgiving, for a powerful take on their Country Airplay-topping duet, “Save Me.”
Just as he was seemingly everywhere, Jelly Roll and his music were seemingly for everyone — especially anyone who has ever felt alone or desperate and yearning for redemption. Even The Rock declared that Jelly Roll’s music had helped him through rough times. Though his upbeat demeanor shone through every viral interaction, Jelly Roll’s music was still infused with a questioning darkness that lingers from his teens and 20s spent incarcerated and his 30s struggling to break through musically. But far from being depressing, it’s music that looks at frailties and imperfections not as weaknesses, but part of what makes us gloriously human and unites us.
Though it hardly feels possible, next year seems like it could get even bigger for the country superstar, as he ascends to festival headliner and stadium tour status. Already on the books: he will headline Stagecoach in April and then head out on The Big Ass Stadium Tour with Post Malone. In other words, look for Jelly to keep on rolling in 2025.
Check back for our No. 9 artist, to be revealed later today, and stay tuned all week as we roll out our top 10 — leading to the announcement of our top two Greatest Pop Stars of 2024 on Monday, Dec. 23!
This year was largely defined by pop stars who rewrote the rules, genre outlaws who succeeded in new territory and a rap beef that gave us a unifying anthem. But throughout the year, a handful of artists were enjoying their own major milestones — ones that not only defined their year, but their career.
From award recognition to chart firsts to major synchs and more, artists including Victoria Monét, Gracie Abrams, Natasha Bedingfield, A. G. Cook, Carín León, and Tems reflect on their defining moments of the year.
Gracie Abrams
Gracie Abrams
Abby Waisler
Last year, every single time I watched The Eras Tour — which was every time I opened — never once did it feel like there was going to be an end. When we were asked to come back, knowing that it would be to close it out, I immediately felt so nostalgic for the experience. Over the past few challenging, strange, scary years, Taylor has been a source of light for people who desperately needed it, and for developing artists, the tour has been an unimaginably significant springboard. For my career, it’s been undeniable. It’s hard to make sense of streaming numbers on your phone — I’m not someone who’s ever really been super tapped into that data — so to track the difference in audience reception quite literally in front of my eyes on The Eras Tour has been mind-blowing. I thought I was hallucinating when I first heard [Swifties] singing my lyrics back.
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What was most exciting about my own headlining tour was that I had made [2024 second album] The Secret of Us with my live show in mind. I’ve had the most fun performing “us.” in particular because on the days I’m not singing it with Taylor, it becomes this duet between all of us onstage and everybody in the crowd. And it was nominated for a Grammy! The whole reason Taylor and I wrote it in the first place was we’d just come off a dinner where she’d very sweetly said we needed to celebrate my first Grammy nomination [for best new artist in 2023]. The full circle of it all is hard for me to wrap my head around.
The Secret of Us has had the most traction out of any of the projects I’ve put out before, and there are milestones that are fun to acknowledge. When “I Love You, I’m Sorry” ended up being the song that took off the most, I felt like it was — not that we needed it — permission to allow acoustic guitar to remain the driving force behind “That’s So True,” which came from the feeling of living with a burning, fiery rage of jealousy. Seeing the life that song is having right now is psychotic to me. The audience’s engagement has only felt stronger as these rooms have continued to, by some miracle, expand. But what I clock as my metric for success is how it feels to create a thing and then sing it with a group of people who resonate with it. I just can’t believe any of it is real.
Natasha Bedingfield
Natasha Bedingfield
Cameron Jordan
Last year, my publisher reached out and I recognized the name [in his pitch]. I was like, “Ah, [filmmaker] Will Gluck! I remember him.” My song “Pocketful of Sunshine” was a big part of his [2010] movie, Easy A. He seems to use my songs in things and they resonate. So when I wrote back [about using “Unwritten” in his new film], I said, “A hundred percent yes.”
I went to the premiere [of Anyone but You], and the actors were like, “They just kept making us sing your song!” I think he made them sing it in every scene. I remember my publisher being like, “They’re really using it a lot.” And they even came back after they edited the movie and said, “We actually want to give you a bit more money because we ended up using the song even more.” We were really blown away by how it was used and how funny it was. There’s a moment where Sydney [Sweeney] is looking up at [Glen Powell’s] butt, singing, “Reaching for something in the distance.” I mean, that’s the kind of humor that I love.
People watched the movie and they left singing the song, and then they filmed themselves singing it and put that up on TikTok. And I got a call from Will saying, “Because the song is trending on TikTok, it’s making more people go see the movie.” So it was this really amazing thing that kind of served each other.
It feels like “Unwritten” has been one of the songs of the year. I feel really touched by this, and I couldn’t have anticipated it. Last year, I was thinking, “We need to do something for the [20th] anniversary! Let’s celebrate. Let’s put music out.” And then this happened without me. It was outside of my control, and it’s just been wilder than I could have imagined.
I think it’s everyone’s song, but nobody knew that until Anyone but You. What’s so poetic about this is that “Unwritten” itself is a song that’s changing and growing, and the story about it is evolving. When I was writing it, we imagined the arenas and the stadiums and the crowd singing it. And when we were producing it, I remember being like, “How do we pick sounds that aren’t going to be dated?” “Unwritten” is like my baby, and I hope it keeps shape-shifting.
A. G. Cook
A.G. Cook
Henry Redcliffe
Charli and I were talking about doing remixes almost from the beginning. I was really pushing this notion that I have about music in general in the post-streaming era. I like that music doesn’t have to completely end at the album release; the masters that get uploaded to streaming aren’t necessarily the final version.
What’s been so nice about brat is that even the way it was rolled out, the Boiler Room set happening early on and so forth, it’s holistically been about there being different versions. We’d sometimes even talk about remixes while working on the tracks themselves. There was always this notion that at some point, there would be a high-effort extension of the album. Thematically, brat is so interesting in how it is pure Charli, not using features. But obviously there’s all that energy building up for actual collaborations to happen. We knew while making it that if we wanted to collaborate, that would go on the remix album, but we’d also give collaborators agency to make songs even more in their image.
The original tracks were operating in real time, so it was no surprise that the remix album just continued that experience [by reflecting on] those months [after brat’s release]. The confessional nature of brat also provoked a lot of the remix collaborators to match that. Especially the [“Girl, so confusing” remix with Lorde], because it was conceived right as the album came out. That set the tone for the remixes to be actual conversations.
For [the “Mean girls” remix with Julian Casablancas], we wanted to make sure he could really make it his own, that it wasn’t just “Julian’s going to jump on for a verse.” That would have felt wrong for everyone. Charli and I wanted to demonstrate, like, “We’re not precious. We’re fine to dismantle it.” There are some remixes that didn’t happen simply because we sent it to people and they didn’t know where to start or were uncomfortable making a completely different genre. But the “Mean girls” remix is a good example of making sure it didn’t just feel like a feature, but an amalgamation that would then challenge Charli and I to also put ourselves on it.
The original songs are as clubby as DJs want to make them, or not. There’s so much ammo in brat, so many intriguing moments that could be looped, taken apart. I’ve already heard people do so many of their own remixes. There are funny ones where Charli is interviewed and is like, “Yeah, I love dance music, but I don’t really like drum’n’bass.” Then there’ll be like 10 drum’n’bass remixes, almost as like a “f–k you.” I think that’s the most fun part.
Carín León
Carin León
Carlos Ruiz
Being at the Grand Ole Opry was culturally very significant. As a Latino, as a Mexican, as a fan of country music, to go to the capital of country and play inside the temple of country music meant a lot to me. I think we made our mark.
I’ve always been close to country music, listening to Johnny Cash, George Strait and the newer generation of artists who are so good and are breaking parameters and doing things differently, just as we are with Mexican music. I love what artists like Luke Combs and Post Malone are doing, but if I had to choose a single country act, it would be the great Chris Stapleton. He’s given us a lot of love.
In fact, the last time we performed in the South, we sang “Tennessee Whiskey,” and I said, “Respectfully, for me, the best country singer, technically and artistically speaking, is Chris Stapleton.” Then we realized his wife was there, and she got up and came to the stage to see us. It made me realize music really has no borders. We have a country project set for next year, mostly in English, with a lot of collaborations.
We’ve been making other inroads with country music this year, and one day my manager, Jorge Juárez, and I were on a flight and he said, “We’ve just been confirmed for the Grand Ole Opry.” As if this was normal. My first words were “You’re kidding me!” Because I know how hard it is to play there. Many American artists never get to do it. It felt like confirming the biggest stadium ever.
It was the culmination of all those dreams I had as a kid of playing in a mythical and legendary space. Playing there allowed me to be me and to be that person that since childhood has loved country music, especially because our Mexican music is so influenced by country. I think it’s the only place where I’ve cried onstage. It’s something money can’t buy — and a memory I’ll take with me till the day I die.
Victoria Monét
Victoria Monét
Dalvin Adams
I really liked the process of getting into the Grammys. I was doing a lot of prep physically, like watching my food intake, lots of workouts. A really special moment happened where I took [my daughter] Hazel with me to a fitting with Versace. It was my daughter’s first time on a red carpet, and she [was going to] be matching with me. Versace allowed us to pick a specific brown and bring that theme of [my album] Jaguar to life.
[Winning the best new artist Grammy] was one of the biggest goals that I had for the year. You know how much it takes to get recognition in this industry or bring a vision to life and what kind of marketing it took to get there, what kind of focus and dedication and sacrifice. [But I have this] yin-yang mentality like, although this means the world to me and I appreciate it, I can’t make it my be-all and end-all to determine whether or not I’m good — because the other [nominees] were also amazing and they didn’t get it, and they’re going on with their lives and doing amazing, incredible things.
I have [my Grammys] on a banister upstairs; it’s kind of become an awards banister. There are a few plaques there and a framed tweet about the Grammys that I tweeted in 2015, almost like a manifestation. It puts a pep in your step to know that you did the right thing, but also you have so much more work to do, so just keep going and remain grounded and know that all of these things are a blessing.
You want to continue to do what you love even if the accolades don’t ever come again. There were many years where I thought I was great and I didn’t have those awards on my banister. It was just knowing, because of my work ethic, greatness comes that way. And when the recognition and attention come, you want to make sure that doesn’t become your driving force. Those are extras, but it does feel really nice.
Tems
Tems
Adrienne Raquel
Once I have a vision, I’m always trying to do everything to put my vision in place. But that can also sometimes turn into perfectionism, which I learned to let go of while [making my debut album, Born in the Wild]. You [have to] be as authentic as possible and allow yourself to flow in the music — letting go of anything that you think you’re supposed to do, be or show.
I’m not thinking too much about genres or rules: “Oh, you have to make Afrobeats.” My “why” is different. My “why” is to release my thoughts. It’s an honor to be able to make music that you want to make and for people to be able to connect to it — and for someone to recognize that is also really great.
[At Coachella], Wizkid was around and we asked him if he’d come out [to perform “Essence”], and he was really down. Justin [Bieber] happened to also be around. He hit me up that morning and said he’s down to come out if I needed him. And I was like, “Yes!” It was amazing. Everybody was going crazy. The crowd was screaming, the floor was shaking. It was a vibe, like a huge party.
[In November], we had just arrived at midnight in Melbourne, Australia, so I wasn’t thinking too much about the Grammys. I was extremely tired, so I went to bed hoping to get a little bit of rest before my show the next day. Around 5 a.m., my phone started vibrating on my bed. It’s calls and people shouting, “Oh, my God. Congrats!” I’m like, “Bro, what’s going on?” They’re like, “Bro, three Grammy nominations!” It was worth being woken up for, especially for the people that have worked on this album — not just me, but my friend and my producer [GuiltyBeatz], [and] Spax, [who] also engineered it.
There are so many people that worked sleepless nights and really did their best to help me out, and it’s beautiful to see them have the recognition. All it takes is a Grammy-nominated project that you were a part of for your life to change. That’s what I really care about the most.
This story appears in the Dec. 14, 2024, issue of Billboard.
Sorry, Arianators. Despite rumors to the contrary, Ariana Grande does not have a tour in the works for 2025, something her label confirmed on X Sunday (Dec. 15). Replying to a fan account speculating that the pop star was gearing up to announce a run of concert dates, Republic Records cut to the chase by […]
Prior to 2024, Sabrina Carpenter had spent most of her career trying to score a crossover pop hit. Following her years as a Disney Channel star and recording artist on the Disney-owned Hollywood Records in the 2010s, she transitioned from younger-skewing tunes to pop that targeted adult listeners; her 2022 album, Emails I Can’t Send, didn’t produce any hits upon its release, but the album’s “Nonsense” belatedly turned into a viral smash, and “Feather,” from its deluxe edition, became Carpenter’s first top 40 entry on the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at No. 21.
Those singles hinted at a breakthrough moment for Carpenter — and in 2024, the floodgates opened. She earned her first No. 1 on the Billboard 200 with her sixth album, Short n’ Sweet; headlined her first arena shows; and earned her first Grammy nominations, including in album, record and song of the year and best new artist. Yet the songs that became her sought-after smashes weren’t just her first Hot 100 top 10s — they remained in the upper tier for long enough to make chart history.
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From the Hot 100 charts dated Sept. 7 through Oct. 26, Carpenter boasted three songs — “Espresso,” “Please Please Please” and “Taste” — in the top 10, making her the first artist this decade to score a run of as many as eight weeks with at least three simultaneous top 10s on the chart. Although a few artists, including 50 Cent and Drake, have juggled three songs in the top 10 for more than eight weeks, only Carpenter, The Beatles and Justin Bieber have done so as solo-billed acts. And Carpenter now owns the longest such streak among women, surpassing Cardi B, who had three concurrent top 10s for four weeks in 2018.
Alex Tear, vp of music programming at SiriusXM and Pandora, says that, between a significant longtime fan base and the momentum leading up to 2024, Carpenter was always primed for a major year. “The audience appetite is amazing,” he says. “She really came into focus with the masses, but she had her Disney audience. When she was on Hollywood Records 10 years ago, she was grinding, she had a loyal following, she had a great presence and she was strong onstage.”
While songs like “Nonsense” and “Feather” didn’t become inescapable, both turned into slow-growing hits that introduced Carpenter’s melodic instincts and tongue-in-cheek wordplay to radio listeners and swelling audiences. Before “Espresso” made its live debut at Coachella, for instance, fans flocked to see how Carpenter was going to end “Nonsense” during her set, since she had been flooding TikTok feeds with her customized, often R-rated outros in concert.
“Her musicality and personality blow me away every time that we work together,” Amy Allen, who co-wrote every song on Short n’ Sweet (and is now nominated for the songwriter of the year, non-classical Grammy), told Billboard in August. Island Records vp of A&R Jackie Winkler told Billboard earlier this year, “At the core, the music Sabrina makes is perfectly reflective of who she is as a person, and all the quirks and character are what give her such a strong musical identity.”
That identity was on full display with “Espresso,” which zoomed into the top 10 upon its April release and peaked at No. 3, and continued with “Please Please Please,” which became Carpenter’s first Hot 100 chart-topper in June. When Short n’ Sweet arrived in August, opener “Taste” was positioned as an immediate standout (with a music video co-starring Jenna Ortega) and has climbed to No. 2.
Tear notes that the timing of those releases helped let each one breathe as a focus track and gave listeners time to latch onto their hooks before Carpenter presented another mainstream offering. And as the songs lingered in the top 10 for weeks, their respective sounds — with “Espresso” as her summer-ready synth-pop confection, “Please Please Please” her glittery alt-country riff and “Taste” her guitar-heavy ’80s pop anthem — were different enough to help her avoid oversaturation on streaming playlists and in radio blocks.
“Espresso” and “Please Please Please” have both topped the Pop Airplay chart, while “Taste” is still climbing, peaking at No. 3 so far. “Pop channels can kill a song by playing it over and over again,” Tear says. “I really like the fact that we have multiple choices that are very popular with our audience, that we can alternate with, therefore diminishing burn [and] giving a better variety of Sabrina.”
The trio of singles settled into the top 10 of the Hot 100 just as Carpenter kicked off her Short n’ Sweet tour in September, performing all three hits to arena audiences and reposting fan videos from the shows. And multiple hits were highlighted when the Grammy nominations were announced Nov. 8: “Espresso” scored a record of the year nod while “Please Please Please” will compete for song of the year.
The 2025 Grammys ceremony will showcase Carpenter’s immense 2024, but don’t expect her run of hits to dry up as the calendar flips. As the Short n’ Sweet tour is set to continue in Europe in March, “Bed Chem,” a sensual rhythmic pop track from the album, may also reach a new Hot 100 peak, as the song has climbed to No. 30 on the chart.
“I don’t know how many albums come out where you can go, ‘OK, this is five or six [hits] deep,’ ” Tear says. “It’s not going anywhere.”
This story appears in the Dec. 14, 2024, issue of Billboard.
Lady Gaga has a surprise early Christmas present for her Little Monsters. Without any prior announcement, a cover of “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town” by the superstar appeared overnight on streaming services Monday (Dec. 16), featuring a soulful rock twist on a timeless classic. Opening with bright electric guitars and some rock n’ roll […]
At the start of 2024, Chappell Roan was a rising pop singer-songwriter with a core but mighty following. She had released her debut solo album, The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess, in September 2023 to critical appreciation but not much commercial fanfare. By February, she kicked off Olivia Rodrigo’s North American arena tour as its opening act and soon after booked a few appearances at the biggest U.S. music festivals including Bonnaroo and Lollapalooza, mostly on afternoon side stages.
Yet the April release of her stand-alone single, “Good Luck, Babe!,” coincided with Roan’s album flying into the top 10 of the Billboard 200 as her back catalog quickly populated the Billboard Hot 100. By the time of her previously booked festival gigs, her name had become synonymous with pop stardom — and she used each set to prove why, showcasing her undeniable stage presence and audacious wardrobe at every stop.
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Apparently, behind the scenes, Roan was just as astonished. “In the moment, it was all so fast that we didn’t even get a chance to talk about what the f–k was going on,” says Roan’s stylist, Genesis Webb, with a laugh. “We were so focused on moving to the next thing that we didn’t have a moment to process.”
Chappell Roan’s “Eat Me” outfit at Coachella in April.
Dania Maxwell/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images
By July, when the organizers for Chicago’s Lollapalooza witnessed her outsize crowds at festivals like Governors Ball and Boston Calling, they met to hastily figure out how to accommodate the throng of fans Roan would inevitably assemble at their own event. “It became a safety concern more than anything else,” says Huston Powell, a promoter at C3 Presents, the company responsible for booking the iconic Chicago festival. “There’s an egress-ingress point to the left of the stage that she was going to be playing, and we knew that the number of people wanting to see her could cause a massive traffic jam on that hill. On the main stages, we had a layout that could handle more people with more barricading, so we decided to move her set.”
Ultimately, Roan’s Lollapalooza performance broke an attendance record for the largest day crowd ever seen in the event’s 30-plus-year history — without a headline billing. And while Powell can’t offer a specific number of people in the audience for the star’s headline-making set, he can confirm what he saw with his own eyes. “There were at least three or four other acts playing at the same time, and the crowd is usually somewhat evenly split between the stages. But just by the sheer appearance, looking around at the number of people in the park and the people you could eyeball at other stages, the vast majority were watching Chappell’s set. We anticipated it would be big, but this completely exceeded expectations.”
Dan Nigro, Roan’s producer-collaborator, explained to Billboard in June that her path to the center of the cultural zeitgeist proved that nothing is more powerful in the industry than good buzz.
“The fact that she’s so phenomenal live means people are finally able to see in real time how good she is. That then becomes this word-of-mouth thing, and it’s wonderful to see her have such old-school success,” he said. “She’s so good at what she does that the system is working again. It really is that simple.”
Her wrestling outfit at Lollapalooza.
Erika Goldring/WireImage
Roan herself told Billboard in 2022 that her career lives and dies by the success of her live performances. “If I’ve learned anything, it’s that the live show is where the heartbeat of the project is,” she said. “Luckily, it’s my favorite part of what I do.”
Part of her runaway success on the festival circuit came largely thanks to Roan’s maximalist costuming, a running feature along her path to pop stardom. When she started headlining her own tours in 2023 — following the release of her now-Grammy-nominated debut album — Roan decided to create themes for every show, encouraging fans to dress up along with her. Webb says they kept that trend going for Roan’s festival performances, commissioning eye-catching, distinct costumes for every gig. “I think we did 16 different looks all told for these festivals,” she says.
Whether Roan was dressed as a giant pink butterfly at Coachella (in a loving tribute to Deee-Lite’s Lady Miss Kier), the Statue of Liberty at Governors Ball or a professional wrestler at Lollapalooza, she thrived when embracing the outsize nature of her job, creating headlines around her phenomenal costuming and anticipation for what would come next. Webb points out that it’s a tried-and-true method for pop stars, with artists like Lady Gaga and Katy Perry building their own fame with dazzling outfits at the outset of their careers.
“I think it’s the zeitgeist of it all — it’s knowing that this is supposed to be fun,” she says. “It felt like there hadn’t been a pop star in a really long time to have people wanting to see a live-performance look as much as they do with her.”
Her Statue of Liberty costume at Governors Ball in June.
Astrida Valigorsky/Getty Images
With that anticipation came unprecedented crowds. Powell saw the numbers Roan drew at Boston Calling and Coachella, which helped his team plan ahead. When an act dropped out the weekend before Austin City Limits in September, C3 Presents promoter Amy Corbin says the festival seized the opportunity to place Roan’s performance on its main stage as well. “When it happens, we look at ways to adjust programming to ensure we are delivering the best fan and artist experience,” Corbin tells Billboard. For the second time this year, Roan’s set drew “the largest crowds in the sunset slot in ACL Fest history,” she says.
Roan’s festival season has since ignited conversations in the live industry about how to recapture the energy that she — and her fans — brought. “We’re all trying to find the next Chappell Roan,” Powell says. “I think sometimes bands worry about what time of day they play and where they play — but if anything, this showed that if you’re hot enough, audiences will come no matter what.”
This story appears in the Dec. 14, 2024, issue of Billboard.
“The reason I love electronic music and clubs and DJs so much is that everything is endless,” Charli xcx told Billboard in her July cover story. Fittingly, the veteran pop artist got her start in London’s rave scene over a decade ago and, across five albums, developed a faithful cult following. But it was her sixth album, brat, and its yearlong rollout, that shifted perception — and expanded her fandom.
Beginning with her record-breaking Boiler Room warehouse set in February, Charli let demand slowly build before the June release of brat, which was met with critical acclaim and became her highest-charting title on the Billboard 200, entering at No. 3 and collecting 82,000 equivalent album units in its first week, according to Luminate. In the following months, the internet deemed the season “Brat Summer” as Charli became even more omnipresent and brat started to shape-shift.
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Soon after brat’s release, Charli dropped a surprise remix of standout song “Girl, so confusing” featuring its subject: Lorde. The drop hinted at more to come, and in August the “Guess” remix featuring Billie Eilish arrived — and soon became the highest-charting song from brat, peaking at No. 12 on the Billboard Hot 100. Brat Summer soon turned into Brat Fall with the September kickoff of her co-headlining Sweat Tour with Troye Sivan, during which Charli released a full-fledged remix album titled Brat and it’s completely different but also still brat.
Every song was reimagined and featured at least one special guest, including Robyn and Yung Lean (“360”), Ariana Grande (“Sympathy Is a Knife”), Bon Iver (“I Think About It All the Time”) and Sivan on “Talk Talk,” which closed each night of their tour. To celebrate the release of the remix album, a larger-than-life “sonic sculpture” was unveiled at New York’s open-air Storm King Art Center, juxtaposing its lime green walls against the browning colors of the surrounding grass and trees.
By November, brat earned Charli seven Grammy nominations — including for album and record of the year (“360”) — and she ended the month by pulling double duty as host and musical guest on Saturday Night Live. She closed the year by announcing a few 2025 solo arena dates, as well as a headlining set at Primavera Sound in Barcelona and a main-stage booking at Coachella. The word “brat” was even named word of the year by the Collins English Dictionary.
As for what’s still ahead, her management team reveals that all of 2025 is already planned out. For an artist like Charli, who has “always operated three steps ahead,” as Twiggy Rowley, a member of her management team, previously told Billboard, the blueprints for Brat Winter and Brat Spring have indeed been laid — and will lead right back to where it all began, with no end in sight. Just as Charli always wanted.
And yet, as Charli said while speaking to the audience at a May screening of her “360” music video, “It’s hard being ahead.” Her longtime creative director, Imogene Strauss, agrees, telling Billboard in June: “I think this is very true. Doing things first almost never means you’re going to be the biggest or most famous. Being the reference means you have to make choices that go against the status quo.”
Still, Charli and her team have managed to sustain the momentum surrounding brat for months — and make it look easy. And while her previous output has earned critical love, she and her team’s lockstep moves in 2024 have actually helped her become both one of the biggest and most famous pop stars of the year.
“Going into this album, Charli had written a 20-page manifesto for the core team,” recalls Brandon Davis, executive vp/co-head of pop A&R at Atlantic. “So much of what you saw throughout the campaign was conceptualized many months prior by her. She’s a genius. The look, the feel, the sound, the art, the fashion — it was all there and all Charli.”
Because of that precision, her team was able to build “key campaign moments” based on her vision. “Where things got a bit spontaneous,” Davis continues, “was what happened next.”
He cites the “brat wall” as the best example of inspiring “massive cultural moments” that the team then had the challenge of amplifying. Over the summer, a wall in Brooklyn was painted brat green and communicated different messages and updates about the album, all of which were written and broadcast live for fans gathering in person and watching on social media. Soon enough, cities around the world from San Francisco to Brisbane, Australia, enacted walls of their own.
Davis also mentions the “brat generator,” an online tool that lets users customize their own brat album cover-inspired images, as helping boost the album’s cultural cachet. Once the team realized how widely the tool was being used, they mobilized to create multiple versions of the generator for each version of brat and, eventually, for the Sweat Tour as well.
As expected, the tour had brattiness coursing through it, with Strauss previously telling Billboard it was “an interesting morphing, shifting thing” because of how the album itself evolved throughout the trek. The list of potential surprise guests grew, too: At Madison Square Garden, Lorde joined Charli for their “Girl, so confusing” remix, and at Los Angeles’ Kia Forum, Kesha performed her version of “Spring breakers” (off the deluxe Brat and it’s the same but there’s three more songs so it’s not), which arrived as a surprise release days after Brat and it’s completely different but also still brat.
“So much of this rollout was planned, but sometimes it was not,” Charli previously told Billboard, speaking of her “Girl, so confusing” remix with Lorde, which took just three days to arrange. As Davis reveals, “There was a moment where we weren’t even sure if the song would make it out on all [digital service providers] in time.”
Charli’s management team, led by Brandon Creed with Rowley and Sam Pringle, say the brat remixes are a perfect example of how quickly she moved following the release of the original album. While Charli always planned on releasing a remix set, no one anticipated how much momentum her collaboration with Lorde, which charted at No. 63 on the Hot 100, would inject into the campaign. And ever since, Charli has kept illustrating how being nimble is crucial to the “endless” release cycle she always wanted.
“It was a total balancing act of strategy and real-time decisions,” Charli’s management team shared in a joint statement to Billboard. “The entire brat campaign exemplifies perfectly when an artist and their team are locked in and able to amplify, magnify and pivot with all decisions.”
“I think the key fundamental was to always be watching, always be nimble and always stay close to Charli,” Davis adds. “She knows herself, and her fans, best.”
As for what will come next, that’s for Charli to know and fans to find out. How very brat.
This story appears in the Dec. 14, 2024, issue of Billboard.
Dua Lipa’s list of 2024 musical accomplishments is comically long. In this year alone she’s done — deep breath — the following: released her third studio album, Radical Optimism; kicked off her biggest global tour yet; played a coveted Glastonbury Festival headline slot, the first British woman to do so since 2016; filmed a TV special at London’s Royal Albert Hall; performed onstage with Cher, Elton John and Chris Stapleton; and made a playful cameo on Charli xcx’s remixed version of brat.
“It’s honestly been the best year of my life. I’ve done things that I’ve wanted to do for so long,” Lipa tells Billboard U.K. with a laugh on a video call. She’s in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, when we speak, where she’s playing two nights at the city’s Axiata Arena. The run of dates in Asia, which has included stops in Tokyo, Singapore, Seoul and Bangkok, is her first in the region in six years. The crowds have been so “loud and fun,” she says, and she’s been “blown away” by their enthusiasm.
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“There came a point in the year where I was thinking, ‘I’ve got to sit down and write some new dreams and new plans and other things I wanted to do,’ ” she says. “I feel like I ticked so many of my boxes this year. It’s amazing.”
In May, the British Albanian artist released Radical Optimism (Warner), which peaked at No. 1 on the United Kingdom’s Official Albums Chart upon release and had the biggest opening week by a British female artist since Adele’s 30 in 2021. The record went to No. 1 throughout mainland Europe in Spain, France, The Netherlands and more, and hit No. 2 on the Billboard 200, her highest debut on the U.S. charts to date. Lead single “Houdini,” meanwhile, enjoyed a 17-week reign on Billboard’s Hot Dance/Electronic Songs chart.
The 29-year-old is a fitting entry for Billboard U.K. in Billboard’s inaugural Global No. 1s series celebrating the biggest and most successful artists internationally over the past year.
Seven months after the album’s release, Lipa looks back fondly on recording it with the stellar house band that included Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker, hyperpop hero Danny L Harle, superproducer Andrew Wyatt and star songwriter Tobias Jesso Jr., along with her accomplished previous collaborators Caroline Ailin and Ian Kirkpatrick. Lipa has said it was inspired by Parker’s Tame Impala work and, speaking to Rolling Stone in February, dubbed it a “psychedelic-pop-infused tribute to U.K. rave culture.” A noticeable shimmy away from her disco-infused single “Dance the Night,” which appeared in the 2023 blockbuster Barbie film, Radical Optimism showed flashes of the turn-of-the-millennium French touch scene (“End of an Era”) and Parker’s signature psych-pop (“Training Season”).
Lipa sketched the blueprint for Radical Optimism following the success of her monster second album, 2020’s Future Nostalgia, which later spawned several hits, including “Levitating,” which was named the biggest song of 2021 on Billboard’s year-end Hot 100 chart. The set, which found an enthusiastic worldwide audience with its playful disco sheen during the COVID-19 lockdown, won best pop vocal album at the Grammys in 2021.
“Future Nostalgia doing what it did allowed me to grow as an artist, to push boundaries and change. It allowed me to have the confidence to make Radical Optimism,” Lipa tells Billboard U.K. “It gave me the freedom and confidence to be like, ‘You know who I really want to make an album with? Kevin Parker. And I want to do something a bit different; I want to work with Danny L Harle and experiment with my sound, do a different vocal performance and make pop music but allow that to live in another sonic world.’ It’s been fun to shape-shift.”
Dua Lipa backstage at the Axiata Arena in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on Nov. 24.
Elizabeth Miranda
In October, the songs received the ultimate stress test with a performance at London’s Royal Albert Hall, where she enlisted the 53-piece Heritage Orchestra, conducted by Ben Foster; 14 choristers; and her regular touring band for a bombastic, glitzy night at the capital’s most iconic music venue. She performed Radical Optimism in full, utilizing the brass section to give new heft to songs like “Houdini,” while elegant strings added another dimension to “French Exit” and “These Walls.” The in-the-round performance was captured for a TV special, An Evening With Dua Lipa (which aired Dec. 8 on ITV in the United Kingdom and will air Dec. 15 on CBS in the United States), and a live album, Dua Lipa Live at the Royal Albert Hall (out now).
“When we were in rehearsals, there was nothing quite like it: Those orchestral instrumentations just shook me to the core,” Lipa recalls. “Feeling my music in such a way that was so moving, it made me fall in love with music all over again.”
During the concert’s encore, John joined Lipa — the first time they performed live together — to sing their collaboration, “Cold Heart,” which topped charts globally upon release in 2021 (in its PNAU remix) and interpolates multiple John songs.
“Obviously Elton is no stranger to the Albert Hall himself and it felt like such a chic and elegant night, so I needed my most chic and fabulous friend to come and join me. He immediately said yes,” she says. “One thing about Elton is that he always shows up for his friends. He’s super loyal… he’s just always been there, lending his ear and being so supportive.”
Dua Lipa backstage at the Philippine Arena in Santa Maria, Philippines, on Nov. 13.
Elizabeth Miranda
The defining Dua Lipa performance of 2024, however, was not in the austere, lavish Albert Hall but in a Somerset field in southwest England. Worthy Farm, where Glastonbury Festival is held, is usually full of dairy cows gently grazing in the lush greenery, but on June 28, they were replaced with a sea of sequined spectators for Lipa’s headlining slot on the festival’s Pyramid Stage. The impassioned, fun, formidable set (during which Parker joined Lipa onstage) aired live on BBC One and globally on the broadcaster’s website.
The show marked her second Glastonbury appearance, following a 2017 mid-afternoon performance that attracted one of that weekend’s biggest crowds — and, following on the heels of her self-titled debut album’s release, helped catalyze her star turn.
Returning as a Pyramid Stage headliner (on Friday, so she could party the rest of the weekend at the festival with her partner, actor Callum Turner, and some pals) had been on her agenda ever since. “I try not to let these moments pass me by so I made sure that when I was standing up there I took as many mental pictures as I could,” she says. At one point, she headed out toward the crowd and turned to face the stage, focusing on its apex: a shining white tip sending a beam of light into the starry night sky.
Prior to the performance, Lipa had switched off her phone to get in the zone. When she got back to her dressing room afterward, she had a deluge of texts.
“It was so beautiful. I had so many messages from previous headliners,” she says. “You sort of earn this badge of honor in that moment, and it felt like I joined the coolest club in the world.” One came from Adele, the last female British act before Lipa to top the bill in 2016. “She said, ‘I’ve been thinking about you all day and just wanted to wish you luck for tonight. Don’t forget to soak it all in.’ Looking back at that Pyramid was me trying to do that.”
Dua Lipa backstage at MMRDA Grounds in Mumbai, India, on Nov. 30.
Elizabeth Miranda
Radical Optimism is the first album Lipa has released since striking a deal with TaP Music, her former management and publishing group, to acquire ownership of her songs, music, masters and publishing rights. The move dovetailed with news that Lipa would now be managed by her father, Dukagjin Lipa, and in 2024, she expanded her nonmusic offerings: Her company Radical22 produced the Disney+ documentary Camden, about the north London borough and its music scene; she starred in the action-comedy Argylle; and her Service95 newsletter — which compiles recommendations for food, literature and more — grew in stature. No surprise, then, that The Sunday Times featured her on its annual Rich List, estimating a $113 million (90 million pounds) net worth.
“This is really me stepping into my role not just as a creator but as a businesswoman,” she says. “It comes with the understanding that as much as I want to stay on the creative side, I have to be knowledgeable about all aspects of my career if I want to have longevity.
“I think for every artist that’s really important — and as much as we might not want to, as the easiest thing is to go into the studio and write the songs and whatever happens, happens — it just can’t be that way,” she continues. “Every artist should be educated on that. It’s really important for us to be in control or at least know what’s happening with our careers and not turn a blind eye.”
Elsewhere, she’s consistently voiced support of Gaza during the ongoing Israel-Hamas war, and she was also named a champion for the Trevor Project, the suicide prevention charity that supports LGBTQ+ youth. “Anything I can do as a supporter to help out in any way with the platform that I have, I’m fully willing and open to all of that,” she says.
But, despite her many achievements, something noteworthy eluded Lipa on this cycle: Radical Optimism did not receive any nominations for the upcoming Grammys, a surprise given her 10 career nominations in years past (including a win for best new artist in 2019) and the fact that her performance kicked off the 2024 ceremony.
“I’m so proud of Radical Optimism and where it’s brought me. I love that album and I’m having the time of my life performing it live, and I’ve been able to do things that I thought I could only dream of this year, so I’m really grateful,” she confidently says of the record’s impact on her career. “Although it would have been nice to be recognized by your industry, especially as a woman, I’m so proud seeing so many incredible female artists nominated at the Grammys this year.”
Dua Lipa backstage at the Singapore Indoor Stadium on Nov. 6.
Elizabeth Miranda
Lipa has particular love for Charli xcx, a longtime pal who received several Grammy nods for brat. She had a cameo on the remix of Charli’s “Talk talk” alongside Troye Sivan, with Lipa speaking in French and Spanish on the track.
“I love her so much and she’s always been a really good friend of mine and been so supportive from day one. She deserves all the flowers,” Lipa says of Charli. “She’s worked her arse off, and it’s so beautiful to see her get the recognition she deserves. She’s really stuck to her guns and allowed herself to be creative in her own way, and it’s paid off. That’s the best thing that can ever happen to an artist. She’s so deserving of every moment.”
As for where her own career is, “Overall I’m really happy with where I am,” Lipa says. “I don’t think it really matters in the grand scheme of things where I am, where I want to be and where I’m going. It doesn’t change the way I feel about the record at all.”
Now, as 2024 comes to a close, Lipa is enjoying some well-earned rest before her biggest tour yet. In March 2025, her Radical Optimism tour kicks off its next leg in Australia and New Zealand before heading to Europe and the United Kingdom, which includes two sold-out nights at London’s 90,000-capacity Wembley Stadium and Liverpool’s historic Anfield Stadium. Then in September, she’s off to North America with 24 arena dates including a whopping four nights at New York’s Madison Square Garden and another four at L.A.’s Kia Forum.
She speaks about manifestation, the idea that she must imagine her biggest goals and achievements for them to become a reality. In fact, Lipa’s use of the word contributed to the Cambridge Dictionary naming “manifest” its word of the year. She remains coy, however, of what’s next on the agenda. “I can’t really tell you, as they have to be a secret to come true…” she says. If her past year is anything to go by, we’ll know it when we see it.
Post Malone loves Sublime. The “I Had Some Help” singer has covered the band’s songs before and over the weekend he was at it again during the “Santeria” group’s corporate gig for Power Home Remodeling. Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news The annual company retreat referred to as […]