The Shifting Landscape of Pop Music in 2024
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. Yet, 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 signaled the undeniable passing of the diva torches.
A Year of Seismic Shifts
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, 2024 finally saw the emergence of a distinctive new guard of A-list pop stars. Artists such as Sabrina Carpenter, Chappell Roan, and Charli XCX rose to prominence, while pop titans of the past faced irreversible public missteps and creative stumbles. This year became a dual election year for pop music, showcasing both the rise of new stars and the fall of established icons.
The Rise of the New Guard
In the ’90s and 2000s, pop stars often appeared out of nowhere, with massive breakthroughs happening at the drop of a Max Martin-produced track. However, the latest slate of top-tier divas has been haunting the hype house for a surprisingly long time. Sabrina Carpenter, Charli XCX, and Chappell Roan have toiled on the fringes of superstardom, honing their craft and steadily building loyal followings. Their persistence has finally paid off in 2024.
Sabrina Carpenter, a graduated child star with six albums under her belt, broke through with "Espresso" and her sixth record, Short n’ Sweet. This fresh and flirty album is brimming with vulnerability, wit, and undeniable pop hooks. Carpenter’s singles dominated the charts, and her performances drew critical acclaim, signaling her arrival as a bona fide superstar. Her high-profile relationship with indie cinema’s wild child Barry Keoghan only added to her media presence.
Charli XCX, a longtime innovator in the pop and hyperpop spheres, stepped back into the mainstream spotlight with her 2024 release, BRAT. This album 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 emerged as an archangel of pop, destined to rise when the industry needed her the most.
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 favorite to mainstream force. Despite some critics likening her music to Kidz Bop, her performance at Lollapalooza, which drew a crowd of 100,000, suggests that she is resonating with audiences far and wide.
The Fall of Legacy Titans
While this new generation flourished, 2024 also became a year of reckoning for pop music’s longtime reigning royalty. Katy Perry, once a chart-topping juggernaut, suffered a historic commercial flop with her single "Woman’s World" and its accompanying album, 143. Critics and fans alike struggled to connect with Perry’s supposed irony, signaling the end of her dominance. Since the release of 2017’s Witness, Perry has struggled to chart, and her Dr. Luke-produced comeback record appears to have been the final nail in the coffin of her relevance.
Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department marked a different kind of breaking point. Although still a commercial powerhouse, Swift faced a rare critical backlash. The album, released just a year after her previous effort, Midnights, received widespread criticism for sounding unedited and bloated. Even her famously dogmatic supporters began questioning her creative direction, suggesting a need for reinvention despite her impenetrable cultural presence.
Lady Gaga’s 2024 was marked by high-profile stumbles. Her ambitious film Joker: Folie à Deux failed critically and commercially, overshadowing the release of her accompanying album of jazz standards, Harlequin. As a Gaga fan, it’s painful to report that this was arguably her worst musical project to date. Following the film’s disaster, she released "Disease," the lead single from her long-gestured seventh album. While it showcased a gripping creative return to form, this once-unshakable artist appeared to falter in her attempts to reclaim relevance.
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 polished hyperpop production and high-energy singles, the record failed to generate significant commercial or critical traction, notably absent from Grammy nominations.
Even Beyoncé, typically an untouchable force in pop, saw a cooler reception to COWBOY CARTER. Critics and fans agreed that her previous album, RENAISSANCE, remained the stronger of her recent efforts. Additionally, 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
The changing of the pop star guard in 2024 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, yet the challenges of remaining culturally indispensable have grown steeper as the industry focuses on newer voices.
This year’s events also prompt reflection on the apparent ageism facing women artists in the music industry. All 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 legacy acts struggle to stay relevant in the wake of an exciting new generation of incoming artists? While the answers remain elusive, the willingness to dispose of aging women and the cycle of misogyny shouldn’t be ignored. In contrast, male pop artists seem to navigate these transitions with greater ease, raising questions about the industry’s gender dynamics.
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. However, 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. The events of 2024 will undoubtedly be remembered as a pivotal year in the evolution of pop music, as the old guard steps aside to make way for the future.
