Six Takeaways from Billboard’s 25 ‘Greatest Pop Stars of the 21st Century’ (so far) List

(December 4, 2024). In about four weeks, we will be a quarter of the way through the 21st century.  Twenty-five years down, 75 more to go!  

Billboard Magazine commemorated the past 25 years (2000-‘24) by ranking the “25 Greatest Pop Stars of the 21st Century,” a countdown where they’ve been unveiling one or two artists at a time from No. 25 to No. 1 since August.  On Tuesday (Dec. 3), they made official what those watching have known for nearly a week — ever since the revelation last Wednesday (Nov. 27) that Taylor Swift is No. 2 on that list — that Beyonce is the No. 1 greatest pop star of the past 25 years. 

Beyoncé being ranked No. 1 likely comes as a disappointment to the millions of Swifties who considered it a foregone conclusion that their star would be at the top of pop’s most prestigious tree.  They’ve had nearly a week to stew over what is perhaps the most anticlimactic No. 1 reveal in countdown history.  Billboard might as well have revealed Nos. 2 and 1 simultaneously.  It’s like announcing the runner-up in a Miss America pageant and then waiting a week to crown Miss America herself.

Dramatic buildup aside, the Beyhive and Swiftie faithful will no doubt debate this   relative ranking for the next quarter-century and by then — at the halfway point — we will know if Taylor has surpassed the former Destiny’s Child leader who is one of one when it comes to defining and reshaping pop culture for the past nearly three decades.  While Taylor has certainly been the most accomplished artist on the charts since 2010 — or at least a very close second to Drake — there’s no denying that Beyoncé has had a longer iconic presence — one that Billboard easily defended in this narrative accompanying her crowning.

But while Swifties and the Beyhive put aside their normal cordiality to duke it out over which icon deserved Billboard’s No. 1 spot, DJROBBLOG has spotted six key takeaways from the trade publication’s list of the 25 greatest pop stars of this century so far. 

But first, it’s worth mentioning Billboard’s relatively subjective criteria as described in the podcast introducing this countdown in August.  The magazine’s editors considered an artist’s chart success plus intangibles like groundbreaking music videos, touring numbers, overall ubiquity, tabloid and social media presence, fashion and cultural influence, and overall star power. 

Now here are DJROBBLOG’s six key takeaways:

One.  Girls Run the (Pop) World.

You can dispute the order and maybe even stump for Drake breaking up this triumvirate, but there’s little point in arguing that Bey, Taylor and Ri-Ri don’t belong here.  All three are self-made icons whose star power far exceeds any Billboard chart success any of them have had, and they’ve all had a lot — including 24 No. 1 albums on the Billboard 200 and 35 No. 1 Hot 100 singles between them.  Two of these women have treaded billionaire status in recent years and the third, whose net worth is easily approaching that mark, is married to one.  Swift, whose legion of fans is arguably the most powerful of any fan army of the 21st century, made history by becoming the first artist to reach billionaire status strictly on her music and touring income, while Rihanna — who hasn’t released an album since January 2016 — did so by branching out into the fashion world.  Beyoncé, now the most-nominated and most winning artist in Grammy history, redefined how albums were marketed with the surprise-release of 2013’s self-titled LP and to this day pushes boundaries with classics like Lemonade, Renaissance and this year’s record-breaking Cowboy Carter.

Earlier cases could be made for women having lofty placements in previous quarter-century rankings.  Artists like Aretha Franklin, Madonna, Whitney Houston, Diana Ross, Janet Jackson, or Barbra Streisand certainly would’ve ranked high in a similar 1975-99 or 1950-74 list.  But they likely would’ve been outclassed by men like Elvis Presley, The Beatles or Michael Jackson.  What’s now telling is that with the unprecedented success of those men quickly fading into the rear view of younger generations, Beyoncé and Taylor have become the standard against which today’s artists are viewed.  Though it’s too early to tell, it’s tough to imagine anyone — male or female — toppling either Mrs. Carter or Ms. Swift when this conversation is revisited at the century’s halfway point in 25 years. 

Two.  Intangibles Were as Important as Chart Success.  Just ask Drizzy. 

Drake has had the biggest chart success of any artist since 2000, but Billboard’s intangibles dropped him to No. 4 here.  In an era where social media presence is increasingly important and chart success is becoming less and less of a factor in determining one’s overall star power, even the universally recognized Bible of music charts had to concede that simply having more Hot 100, more top 40, and more top tens than any other artist in the magazine’s archives — not to mention tying Michael Jackson for the most No. 1s among solo men in Hot 100 history — wasn’t enough to rank Drake over icons like the three women above him, including one — Rihanna — who hasn’t released a new album since she teamed with the Canadian icon on their 2016 smash, “Work.”  Still, you’d think Drake, who has done everything from hosting SNL and selling out arena tours to being the antagonist in this century’s biggest rap beef — not to mention drawing enormous social media mentions as one of hip-hop’s most mercurial acts — would be enough to at least rank him in the top three.  You have to wonder where he’d be had he won this year’s rap battle with Kendrick (and yes, Drizzy’s lawsuit confirms he lost that fight big time).

Three.  Hip-Hop is Truly Today’s Pop.

Seven rappers among the Top 25, including one female, illustrate just how mainstream hip-hop has become in the past 25 years.  Plus nine more rappers were among the 25 Honorable Mentions (see below).  It all makes sense when considering that hip-hop has been the most consumed genre of music in America — thanks largely to streaming — for the past eight years and counting.  By comparison, it’s likely that no rapper would’ve made a similar pop list during the last 25 years of the previous century, even with icons like Tupac Shakur, The Notorious B.I.G., LL Cool J, Public Enemy and N.W.A. all coming into prominence during that era and all of them now in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

The seven rappers who made the Billboard list — Drake, Kanye West, Eminem, Nicki Minaj, Jay-Z, Lil Wayne and Bad Bunny — are all huge pop stars, but any 21st Century ranking that doesn’t include Future or Kendrick Lamar feels lacking in credibility, especially given both artists’ deep catalogs and longevity, their cultural presence and the career year both rappers had in 2024.  Future became the first rapper to score three No. 1 albums in the same year.  Kendrick is performing the next Super Bowl Halftime Show and just set a record among rappers for having three No. 1 debuts in the same calendar year, as well as owning the top five songs simultaneously on this week’s Hot 100.

The exclusion of 50 Cent is nearly as dubious when considering his current star power, which includes turns as a vitamin water pusher and as film producer, goes far beyond the four or five years of ubiquity he enjoyed as a hit-making MC in the mid-aughts.

Four.  Non-K-Pop Groups Are Becoming Increasingly Extinct.

Only two groups made the list of 25, and both were boy bands, including k-pop’s BTS.  What’s more, neither of the groups — the other being One Direction — plays instruments.  Over the years, groups and especially self-contained bands have become less and less of a thing in popular music.  Were it not for boy bands and K-pop, there’d be no groups on this list.  Even among the next 25 artists the Billboard editors considered, only one band — Maroon 5 — was a contender.

We’ve known for a long time that soul music groups are a thing of the past.  Superstar Black ensembles like Earth, Wind & Fire, The Commodores, the Temptations, The Four Tops, Boys II Men and others are 20th century artifacts.  But it appears that extinction is spreading to other genres as well.  It’s also notable that two acts that opened this century as the hottest acts of any demographic — Backstreet Boys and N*Sync — were not among the 50 acts considered by Billboard’s voters.

Five. Rock Music Isn’t Dead, but Maybe New Rock Is.

Well, that’s perhaps an overreaction, but it’s telling that zero rock acts appear in this list of the top 25.  Rockers like Fall Out Boy, Coldplay, Linkin Park and Paramore all made the fringes of the editors’ podcast discussion, but only in the context of how far rock has fallen in the past ten years.  Meanwhile, the closest that any of the 50 artists who appeared in either the main list or Honorable Mentions comes to being a rock band is Maroon 5.

Can you imagine any 20th Century Top 25 ranking not including Elvis, the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, the Who or Rolling Stones?  Or even one from just that century’s last 25 years not having The Stones, Fleetwood Mac, Def Leppard, Duran Duran, or Nirvana on it?  What will be more telling is if, in the next 25 years with older bands like Coldplay, Fall Out Boy and the others no longer part of the discussion, rock bands disappear from consideration altogether.

Six.  No Country Acts Seems Tone Deaf

For as big as country music has been in the past four years, with country-pop crossover superstar Morgan Wallen leading the way, it seems odd that not one country singer made the Top 25 and only one — Carrie Underwood — made Honorable Mention.  Wallen may be controversial, but he has dominated country since 2021 and has had three No. 1 pop hits — including one of the longest-running No. 1 hits in chart history (2023’s “Last Night”).  In fact, hybrid country hits (by Lil Nas X and most recently Shaboozey) are tied for the two longest-running No. 1 singles in Hot 100 history at 19 weeks each.

But this ranking was about more than just chart success, and maybe Wallen doesn’t have the “it” pop factor that other artists who made the list have.  Neither does the critic’s darling Chris Stapleton, whose signature soulful delivery will keep raking in the awards even if he still isn’t a household name among pop’s biggest fans.  The only country singer among the Honorable Mentions certainly has that “it” factor but Underwood lacks the sustained pop crossover success of her earlier hits like “Before He Cheats” to elevate her into the Top 25.  We’ll see what the future holds for country music and its current top ambassador Wallen, but it still feels like the genre as a whole has to overcome the anti-pop stigma that has dogged it for almost its entire existence in order for its artists to occupy a list like this.

The Top 25:

1. Beyoncé
2. Taylor Swift
3. Rihanna
4. Drake
5. Lady Gaga
6. Britney Spears 
7. Kanye West
8. Justin Bieber
9. Ariana Grande
10. Adele
11. Usher
12. Eminem
13. Nicki Minaj
14. Justin Timberlake 
15. Miley Cyrus
16. Jay-Z
17. Shakira 
18. The Weeknd
19. BTS
20. Bruno Mars
21. Lil Wayne
22. One Direction
23. Bad Bunny
24. Ed Sheeran 
25. Katy Perry

The next 25:

Billboard lumped the 25 Honorable Mentions into five categories as discussed in their introductory podcast.  But I’ve listed them below for your easy access.  

Too early:

50 Cent, Alicia Keys, Christina Aguilera, Jennifer Lopez, Nelly

Too late:

Billie Eilish, Olivia Rodrigo, Doja Cat, Megan Thee Stallone, Post Malone

Low volume artists:

Dua Lipa, Kesha, Lorde, Cardi B, Missy Elliott

Low Peaks:

Chris Brown, Kelly Clarkson, Lana Del Ray, Maroon 5, Pink

Would we really call them pop stars?

Carrie Underwood, Future, Kendrick Lamar, Sean Paul, SZA

You’ll have to listen to the following podcast to hear Billboard’s editors’ justifications for those categorizations.

What are your thoughts about Billboard’s rankings?  Feel free to comment below or on the social media pages where this article is posted.

DJRob

DJRob (he/him) is a freelance music blogger from the East Coast who covers R&B, hip-hop, disco, pop, rock and country genres – plus lots of music news and current stuff!  You can follow him on Bluesky at @djrobblog.bsky.social, X (formerly Twitter) at @djrobblog, on Facebook or on Meta’s Threads.

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