She was already one of the biggest superstars in the music biz thanks to her early days in Destiny's Child and her first four wildly successful solo albums, but when Beyoncé went and dropped an entire self-titled "visual album" with zero fanfare or promotion on December 13, 2013, she literally changed the game. Not only had she somehow produced an entire album and every single corresponding music video in the tightest of secrecy, but she forced the industry to adopt Friday as its new release day and kickstarted a trend of surprise drops that would be attempted by the likes of Kanye West, Eminem, Drake and others. A literal queen.
One needn't have a child of their own to have been swept up in the inescapable impact of "Let It Go," the anthemic track off the Frozen soundtrack. Whether it was the original Idina Menzel version or the Demi Lovato pop approach that was sent to radio, this song was everywhere after its release in 2013. It became the first Disney song to reach the top five of the Billboard Hot 100 since 1995, won an Oscar, and has been lodged in the heads of parents everywhere ever since.
After the insane video for Psy's "Gangnam Style" became the first to ever reach one billion views on YouTube in 2012, the western world suddenly began paying attention to K-pop. By 2015, boy band BTS was charting on the U.S. Billboard 200. Three years later, they became the first Korean act to top it. While they've certainly become giants of their industry, they're hardly the only ones to go global. Girl group BLACKPINK became the first female group to perform at Coachella and have collaborated with Dua Lipa and Lady Gaga, while Monsta X became the first group to release an all-English album by a K-pop group in more than a decade in early 2020.
There are plenty of artistic achievements in Taylor Swift's career since her arrival in 2006 that warrant a spot on this list, but we're holding a place for her for the power she's exerted behind the scenes after becoming one of the industry's biggest superstars, making moves that have benefited more than just her own bottom line. She singlehandedly forced Apple to pay royalties owed to artists from plays during customers' free three-month trial period by yanking 1989 off the service in 2015. (They caved after just one day.) When she signed with Universal Music Group in 2018, she had written into her deal that any sale of the label's Spotify shares would result in non-recoupable payments for all of its artists. And she's brought awareness to the process of master recordings ownership, advocating for artists to be offered more opportunity to have financial control of their art. We have no choice but to stan.
While the influence of the LGBTQ community has always been felt in music, the presence of openly queer artists has been few and far between. It used to be that someone would only come out once their career had cooled and there wasn't much to lose. (See Ricky Martin or Lance Bass.) Thankfully, that's no longer the case. While representation certainly isn't as great as it could be, the last few years have seen a veritable rainbow revolution in the world of pop music, with artists like Troye Sivan, Hayley Kiyoko, Kim Petras, Shea Diamond, MNEK, Halsey, Kehlani, Janelle Monae, Olly Alexander, ALMA and so many more rising up and proudly representing every color in the rainbow .
The story of Lil Nas X's "Old Town Road" reaching No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for even just a week in 2019 was wild enough. The beat had only cost the unknown rapper $30, the song was recorded in a day, no one could even decide what genre to classify it. (The less said about Billboard taking it off the country charts for reasons, the better.) And yet, it reached the chart's peak anyway. And stayed there. And stayed there. And stayed there. And suddenly, the record for most weeks spent atop the chart, which had previously been shared by Mariah Carey and Boyz II Men's "One Sweet Day" and Luis Fonsi, Daddy Yankee and Justin Bieber's "Despacito" at 16 weeks, had come and gone. "Old Town Road" would spend a whopping 19 weeks atop the chart before Billie Eilish's "Bad Guy" unseated it.
Speaking of Billie Eilish, after a killer 2019 that saw her debut album When We Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? become the year's best-selling, she went on to become only the second person ever—and, at just 18, the youngest—to win all four main Grammy categories (Best New Artist, Record of the Year, Song of the Year and Album of the Year) in the same year during the 62nd Grammy Awards in early 2020.