Billboard names the greatest pop stars of the 21st century, from Adele, Taylor Swift to BTS

A quarter-century has passed since then, and looking at the names on Billboard's list of the greatest pop music stars of the 21st century so far, it's clear to see how digital music culture has shaped

Metallica - Photo: Reuters

On April 13, 2000, the rock band Metallica filed a lawsuit against Napster - the first platform in history to share free music in MP3 format without requiring copyright.

Napster only started operating in mid-1999 and had to close down by 2001. In just two years of operation, Napster's appearance signaled a new era: digital music.

Born around the turn of the century, Billie Eilish uploaded the song Ocean Eyes to Soundcloud - without promotion, without a record label behind it - but in a short time it went viral.

Billie Eilish - Ocean Eyes

Billie Eilish's tech-based success is a model for contemporary artists.

Even Taylor Swift, a more classic artist who in 2014 pulled her entire music catalog from Spotify, citing the streaming platforms' perceived undervaluation of her music, eventually returned to Spotify three years later with a streaming-only strategy.

It is impossible to dream of becoming great in this age without standing on the shoulders of technology giants.

The relative democracy of technological means is also the basis for the decentralization of music.

Billboard's list reflects a pop culture where English is starting to be diluted, with the presence of Korean boy band BTS and Puerto Rican rapper Bad Bunny.

Although it was first introduced in the 1990s, it was in the 21st century that K-pop began to challenge the dominance of Western music and entertainment, defying all the old jokes and prejudices that K-pop was just flashy, silly industrial music for teenage girls with no taste.

BTS also made Billboard's list, despite not singing in English

Language barrier? Not a problem in the age of visual storytelling music videos, and subtitles are easily available on YouTube.

Decentralization is also reflected in a music scene where, very often, when listening to a record, it is difficult to determine exactly what genre of music it is.

"I have favorite artists in every genre of music that you've ever heard of (...) Whether it's R&B, dance, country, rap, zydeco, blues, opera or gospel, they all influence me in some way," Beyonce, who ranked No. 1 on Billboard's list, once shared in an interview.

Beyoncé, more than anyone, is the queen of a music world where borders are melting and boundaries are theoretical.

From the time she first left Destiny's Child to pursue her own career with Dangerously in Love to the album Cowboy Carter, considered the "masterpiece" of popular music in 2024, Beyoncé has turned music into her laboratory, where she constantly throws a series of unrelated elements together to see what their chemical reactions are and from alchemy refines pure gold.

However, that does not mean that the absolute victory belongs to the artists who pursue experimental music. There is still a place for relatively pure, classical music with simple formulas that are always effective if each step is good.

Soulful love songs, a beautiful voice and that's enough for Adele to become an icon over the years - Photo: Reuters

Adele has never needed spectacular music videos or eye-catching choreography or to appear all over social media, and is often teased by fans as lazy because she often mysteriously disappears; but Adele shows that there is still room for those who are almost exclusively loyal to music as music.

The first 25 years are over. So what will music be like in the next 25?

Perhaps there will be AI and virtual reality; perhaps there will be throwbacks—Lady Gaga singing jazz or The Weeknd bringing 80s synth-pop to music; perhaps more non-English-speaking artists will emerge as new forces. But perhaps there will be something else entirely unexpected.

Source: https://tuoitre.vn/sao-am-nhac-dai-chung-vi-dai-nhat-the-ky-21-billboard-goi-tu-adele-taylor-swift-den-bts-20241215093239888.htm