While the tectonic plates of popular music are in constant motion, change often moves so gradually that it can be hard to notice anything happening at all. Still, occasionally, there are moments of obvious volcanic cultural clear-out. After around a decade of little visible change, 2024 marked a disruptive moment in pop music, punctuated by fast shifts that signalled the undeniable passing of the diva torches.
This past year, Western mainstream pop music experienced a seismic shift in the hierarchy of stardom. After over a decade dominated by the likes of Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, Taylor Swift and Beyoncé, this year finally saw the emergence of a distinctive new guard of A-list pop stars, with Sabrina Carpenter, Chappell Roan and Charli XCX rising to prominence. All the while, pop titans of the past faced irreversible public missteps and creative stumbles, cementing 2024 as two types of election year.
The Rise of the New Guard
In the '90s and 2000s, pop stars often appeared out of nowhere. Massive breakthroughs happened at the drop of a Max Martin-produced track, but if an artist failed to make an impact with their first single, they were often labeled a failure and driven back to LAX in the back of a white rental van. Yet, in a fascinating turn of events, our latest slate of top-tier divas have been haunting the hype house for a surprisingly long time.
A graduated child star with six albums under her belt, an alternative trailblazer who saw her first mainstream breakthrough a decade ago, and a queer newcomer who, after a series of failed singles, had been dropped by a major record label. These are our unlikely new heroines of pop. For years, Sabrina Carpenter, Charli XCX and Chappell Roan toiled on the fringes of superstardom, honing their craft and steadily building loyal followings. In short, they were doing the work and refusing to give up.
This year, their persistence paid off. Carpenter broke through with "Espresso" and her sixth record, Short n' Sweet, a fresh and flirty album brimming with vulnerability, wit, and undeniable pop hooks. Her singles dominated the charts, and her performances drew critical acclaim, signalling her arrival as a bona fide superstar — not to mention her high-profile relationship with indie cinema's wild child Barry Keoghan sweeping the headlines.
Charli XCX, a longtime innovator in the pop and hyperpop spheres, finally stepped back into the mainstream spotlight she had always flirted with. Her 2024 release, BRAT, brought her avant-garde sensibilities to the masses, striking a balance that resonated with critics and the broader public. Charli's ascent marked a triumph for perseverance and artistic risk-taking, proving that her years of experimentation had been leading to this moment. She's an archangel of pop, destined to rise when we needed her the most.
Meanwhile, Chappell Roan emerged as the most exciting and surprising pop breakout in generations. Her queer pop anthems captured the heart of the zeitgeist, creating a cultural moment that felt brand new, inclusive and distinctly modern — with hints of early Gaga, Roan's ability to connect with a generation eager for authenticity propelled her from cult favourite to mainstream force. While I personally find her music to border into Kidz Bop territory (literally), the 100,000-person crowd she drew at Lollapalooza means I'm in the minority on this one.
The Fall of Legacy Titans
While this new generation flourished, 2024 also became a year of reckoning for pop music's longtime reigning royalty. Once a chart-topping juggernaut, Katy Perry suffered a historic commercial flop with her single "Woman's World" and its accompanying album, 143. Critics and fans alike didn't connect with Perry's supposed irony, and her failure to connect with a shifting musical landscape signalled the end of her dominance. Perry had struggled to chart since the release of 2017's Witness, and her Dr. Luke-produced comeback record seems to have been the final nail in the coffin of her relevance.
Taylor Swift's The Tortured Poets Department marked a different sort of breaking point. Though still a commercial powerhouse, Swift faced a rare critical backlash. The album, which came out around a year after her previous effort, Midnights, received widespread criticism for sounding unedited and bloated. The critical darling, possibly the victim of dangerous levels of overexposure, left even some of her famously dogmatic supporters questioning her creative direction. While her cultural presence remains impenetrable, the cracks in her critical acclaim suggest a need for reinvention.
Perhaps most tragically, Lady Gaga's 2024 was a year of high-profile stumbles. Her ambitious film Joker: Folie à Deux failed critically and commercially, a disaster which thankfully overshadowed the release of her accompanying album of jazz standards, Harlequin. As a Gaga fan, it's important for me to report this is the worst musical project the star has ever released. She quickly followed the disaster of Joker: Folie à Deux by releasing "Disease," the lead single off of her long-gestured seventh album. Arguably a gripping creative return to form, this once-unshakable artist, known for her ability to reinvent and thrive, appeared to falter in her attempts to reclaim relevance in 2024.
This shift wasn't limited to these six artists. Dua Lipa, one of the most consistent stars of the 2020s, experienced an unexpectedly indifferent public response with her third album, Radical Optimism. Despite its polish, hyperpop production at the hands of the legendary Danny L Harle, and high-energy singles, the record failed to generate significant commercial or critical traction and was notably absent from Grammy nominations.
Even Beyoncé, typically an untouchable force in pop, saw a cooler reception to COWBOY CARTER. Critics and fans seem to agree that RENAISSANCE remained the stronger of her recent efforts, suggesting that even Beyoncé is not immune to shifting tides. Even worse, the concert film RENAISSANCE: A FILM BY BEYONCÉ earned only a fraction of its production budget at the box office, marking the artist's first commercial failure in recent memory.
The High Price of Inclusion: Expulsion
This year's changing of the pop star guard reflects a broader transformation in popular culture. The music industry, long reliant on legacy acts to anchor its commercial output, is now embracing artists who represent the values and aesthetics of younger generations. Sabrina Carpenter, Chappell Roan and Charli XCX resonate not just because of their talent, but because they understand how to engage with a culture increasingly hungry for authenticity, inclusivity and innovation.
At the same time, the struggles of established stars highlight the difficulty of sustaining relevance in a fast-moving industry. Katy Perry, Taylor Swift and Lady Gaga built their careers on consistent reinvention. Still, the challenges of remaining culturally indispensable have grown steeper as the industry focuses on newer voices.
It's important to reflect on the apparent ageism facing women artists in the music industry. All of the artists being ushered out of the spotlight are now women approaching their 40s in a landscape that makes little effort to hide its ageist and sexist provocations. Why is there only so much room at the top for women in the pop landscape? Why should our legacy acts struggle to stay relevant in the wake of an exciting new generation of incoming artists? I don't have the answers, but our willingness to dispose of aging women and the sexist cycle of misogyny shouldn't be ignored. And why don't we see the same cycle of graduating changes with male pop artists in the same way? One could argue that 2024 was the last nail in Justin Timberlake's coffin of cultural relevance, but it was after decades of second chances and uninteresting releases.
The Rare Restructuring
Pop music's history is marked by moments of transition — from the handoff between Madonna and Britney Spears in the late 1990s to the rise of Gaga and Perry in the 2010s. But these transitions are rare, and 2024's shift feels particularly significant. It marks the ascension of new stars and the undeniable decline of once-untouchable icons.
As Sabrina Carpenter, Chappell Roan and Charli XCX step into their new roles as pop music leaders, they bring a sense of renewal and excitement. Their success serves as a reminder that even in an industry built on reinvention, there's always room for something — and someone — new. For better or worse, 2024 will be remembered as the year that pop's old guard stepped aside, making way for the future.