In 2020, Billboard‘s staff revealed its picks for the greatest pop star of every year dating back to 1981 (the first year of MTV, essentially the birth of the modern pop era), with essays making the case for each as the biggest, brightest and most important star in their solar system that calendar year. After adding BTS as the greatest pop star for 2020, we decided to expand the project a little bit. For the last two years, we’ve counted down our picks for the 10 greatest pop stars of the year, with full essays for everyone from No. 10 (Nicki Minaj last year) to No. 1 (Bad Bunny last year), as well as bonus write-ups for our picks for Rookie and Comeback of the year, and even 10 close-but-not-quite honorable mentions.
And now, it’s about time for our 2023 rankings. We’ll be counting down our top 10 over the course of next week, with our top two being revealed on Friday (Dec. 15). But first, we’ve got our 10 honorable mentions for this year — as well as our rookie and comeback artists of the year, to be unveiled later today.
First, though, our obligatory reminder that unlike with our Year-End Charts, these Greatest Pop Stars are not mathematically determined by stats like chart position, streams or sales numbers. They play a big part in our final rankings, of course — but so do things like music videos, live performances and social media presence, and more intangible factors like cultural importance, industry influence and overall omnipresence. (And we measure this over the entire 2023 calendar, so if you were only heard from at the beginning or end of the year — or only had one big song or moment — that’s gonna hurt your performance here as well.)
You’ll probably get the hang of what we mean. Read on below for our best-of-the-rest picks in alphabetical order, and apologies to all the veteran hitmakers and rising phenoms whose presence we couldn’t make room for with just 10 honorable mention spots — it was a huge year for pop stars new and old, and even a top 50 we would’ve probably ended up leaving someone out.
GUNNA
Their Year in Pop: We all love a comeback, don’t we? To bookmark his return home from a six-month prison stint following his Alford plea to a single charge of racketeering in the greater YSL RICO case, Gunna went back to basics with top 50 hit “Bread & Butter.” That song was featured on Gunna’s acclaimed 2023 album A Gift & A Curse, which found the rapper facing his controversies head-on and making a fifth consecutive trip to the Billboard 200’s top 5 (No. 3). Summer smash “Fukumean” soon followed, becoming Gunna’s highest-peaking unaccompanied entry on the Billboard Hot 100 (No. 4), along with minor hits “Back At It,” “Back to the Moon” and “Rodeo Dr.” With two sold-out headlining arena shows in NYC and LA and a late-game Afrobeats hit in his remix of Victor Thompson’s “Blessings” – Gunna didn’t just survive the (largely unwarranted) backlash, he rendered it inconsequential.
Why Not Top 10: As important of a year as this was Gunna, the rapper didn’t quite match his previous commercial heights: A Gift & A Curse missing the top of the Billboard 200 (he’s visited that slot twice before) definitely hurt his chances, as did his surprising Grammys shutout.
JUNG KOOK
Their Year in Pop: The BTS alum had earned some solo success pre-2023, but it was quickly dwarfed by “Seven,” the frisky Latto collab that debuted atop the Hot 100, topped the Global 200 for (sure enough) seven weeks and generally confirmed that Jung Kook was here to stay as a solo star. He kept things rolling with an additional pair of top five hits — “3D” with Jack Harlow and “Standing Next to You” — and his debut solo LP Golden, which debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard 200, held off only by Taylor Swift’s blockbuster 1989 (Taylor’s Edition). With his hits, accompanying music videos and even a spellbinding Fallon appearance, Jung Kook proved himself the kind of triple-threat we don’t see very often in the 2020s (in this country anyway) — with no less an exemplar than Usher blessing his solo star status via his appearance on the “Standing” Remix.
Why Not Top 10: Jung Kook really only came on in the second half of the year — so if he keeps up the momentum going into 2024, he could be a major top 10 contender in next year’s rankings.
NEWJEANS
Their Year in Pop: After storming onto the South Korean scene in 2022, NewJeans officially went global in 2023. With brilliant image control, eye-catching music videos, innovative style and some of the most open-eared and smartly written singles in pop music, the quintet broke onto the Hot 100 near-simultaneously with two singles in January, “OMG” and “Ditto.” The group did even better with July’s Get Up EP, which topped the Billboard 200 and spawned another three Hot 100 entries, including their first to reach the chart’s top half with the sighing, sparkling “Super Shy” — one of two songs they played at the Billboard Music Awards in November. NewJeans ends 2023 as one of the most recognized and most influential groups in pop, with the sponsorships and accolades to prove it.
Why Not Top 10: They’re still extremely new, and have yet to either release a full-length album or land a top 40 Hot 100 hit — though both are probably coming before too long at this point.
SABRINA CARPENTER
Their Year in Pop: The former teen star proved in 2022 that she had the goods to be a pop mainstay with her acclaimed Emails I Can’t Send album, but in 2023 she took even bigger steps towards adult stardom. Emails‘ clever and sweetly horny “Nonsense” brought her back to the Hot 100, largely thanks to a viral Jimmy Kimmel Live! performance that saw her killing the choreography and changing her ending ad libs — something she’d continue to do at performances throughout the year, including at the VMAs’ pre-show. By year’s end she was regularly delighting on social media, opening for (and attending Jets home games) with Taylor Swift and pissing off the Catholic church over her video to slow-burning hit “Feather” (from March’s Emails deluxe reissue), offering the perfect retort: “Jesus was a Carpenter.”
Why Not Top 10: As big as “Nonsense” felt, it only peaked at No. 56 on the Hot 100, and while Carpenter played stadiums on the Eras Tour, her Emails tour was still visiting more mid-sized venues — showing how much room her star still has to grow.
SEXYY RED
Their Year in Pop: Thanks to Sexyy Red, the whole world wanted to go to “Pound Town” in 2023. At the top of the year, Sexyy released the slow-burning single, which eventually rode a Nicki Minaj remix to a peak of No. 66 on the Hot 100. An even-bigger hit followed in the freewheeling “SkeeYee” (No. 62), which became the inaugural No. 1 on the newly launched Billboard TikTok Top 50. Sexyy’s brash, unapologetic, sex-positive persona also nurtured Hood Hottest Princess – her second mixtape and first project under a label – to a peak of No. 62 on the Billboard 200. Oh, and who can forget her opening for Drake and scoring a hit alongside him and SZA with “Rich Baby Daddy”? Beyond the numbers, Sexyy refused to remove her foot from pop culture’s neck this year: From her shocking pregnancy debut to her controversial comments in support of Donald Trump, Sexyy Red towered over the year’s conversations.
Why Not Top 10: Sexyy’s commercial feats didn’t quite line up with how big her presence felt this year. Not to mention, we only had a handful of total songs from the rapper until the Hood Hottest Princess deluxe edition was release a week ago!
SHAKIRA
Their Year in Pop: When you kick off the year by turning a dramatic divorce into Latin Grammy-winning Hot 100 top 10 hit, the rest of the calendar should be light work. Shakira proved as such with a year that saw her exploring the bounties of collaboration: Her Bizarrap collab obviously paid handsome dividends, but so did her linkups with Karol G (the Hot 100 top 10 hit “TQG”), Manuel Turizo (“Copa Vacía”) and Fuerza Regida (“El Jefe”). Don’t be mistaken, however: Shakira can still kill it on her lonesome. Her electric Tonight Show performance of “BZRP Music Sessions, Vol. 53” went viral, the heartfelt “Acróstico” earned a song of the year nod at the Latin Grammys and she shut down the MTV VMAs with a career-spanning medley in honor of her Video Vanguard Award win.
Why Not Top 10: Yes, Shakira had a big year, but with no album or tour in the past twelve months, other artists had bigger, more all-encompassing years.
TRAVIS SCOTT
Their Year in Pop: Questions of whether Travis Scott could still be as relevant in pop music five years after Astroworld — and two years after the deadly Astroworld Festival disaster that still hangs over his career — were answered with the release of this year’s Utopia. The album (and its accompanying Circus Maximus film) took over the music world both for the week leading up to it and for the week after its release, as fans parsed its tracklist for some of the big names included (SZA, Drake, The Weeknd, Beyoncé) and debated personal favorites. The album moved 496,000 units in its first week — easily the best debut for a 2023 rap album — and held on top for four weeks total, then was followed by Scott’s Circus Maximus Tour, taking him around this country’s arenas this fall and winter.
Why Not Top 10: Outside of the couple weeks this summer Utopia clearly dominated its extended impact felt a little muted compared to Astroworld, and the set failed to produce a single as culture-dominating or enduring as “Sicko Mode.”
TROYE SIVAN
Their Year In Pop: With a half-decade separating Troye Sivan from his last LP (2018’s Bloom), the Aussie pop star came back with a vengeance in 2023. After playing a supporting role in the The Weeknd’s largely derided (but still culturally pervasive) HBO drama The Idol, Sivan unleashed “Rush,” a delectable slice of dance-pop that earned him a pair of Grammy nods and his highest-peaking solo Hot 100 entry in seven years (No. 77). Something to Give Each Other, his third studio album, arrived to ample acclaim and spawned another Hot 100 entry in “One of Your Girls,” arguably one of the most radical queer mainstream pop songs in recently memory. That track came complete with an instantly viral Ross Lynch-led music video that, along with the clips for “Rush” and “Got Me Started,” cemented Sivan as one of the most ostentatious visual auteurs of his class.
Why Not Top 10: Troye Sivan has arguably never been more culturally relevant than he is now, but his commercial success was not quite at superstar level this year: Something to Give Each Other landed as his lowest-peaking studio LP on the Billboard 200 (No. 20), and none of its tracks have reached the Hot 100’s top 60.
VICTORIA MONÉT
Their Year in Pop: Victoria Monét’s story obviously begins long before the inflection point that was the 2023 MTV VMAs, but few moments are as emblematic as her revealing that MTV passed on having her perform at the awards show — and then popping out with a whopping seven Grammy nominations a few months later. Among those nods was a record of the year nod for “On My Mama,” the ultimate tribute to ‘00s Southern Black culture, which rode Sean Bankhead’s choreography for its instantly viral music video to the highest Hot 100 peak of her recording career (No. 48). “On My Mama” served as the third single from Jaguar II, Monét’s debut studio album, which picked her up a pair of Soul Train Music Awards, boasted collaborations with everyone from Buju Banton to Earth, Wind & Fire, anchored an acclaimed tour that hit three different continents and earned her her highest Billboard 200 peak yet (No. 60).
Why Not Top 10: Again, a major breakout year for Monét as a recording artist, but her commercial returns don’t quite warrant a top 10 placement at the current moment. Moreover, most of her breakout moments occurred in the latter half of the year, so an even bigger 2024 could be in the cards for her.
ZACH BRYAN
Their Year in Pop: One of the biggest success stories of 2022, Zach Bryan started out 2023 with breakout hit “Something in the Orange” hitting the top 10 on the Hot 100 and only gained steam from there. His well-reviewed self-titled album debuted atop the Billboard 200 in September, and also spawned a Hot 100-topping smash with his Kacey Musgraves duet “I Remember Everything,” as other big-charting 2023 artists from Tyler Childers to Oliver Anthony Music to Noah Kahan could also claim to have been boosted by his rising tide. He also announced a 2024 arenas-and-stadiums tour in August, with luminaries like Jason Isbell and Sheryl Crow as openers, and even when news broke of his arrest in September, it just added to his outlaw legacy — with fans printing T-shirts of his mug shot hours later.
Why Not Top 10: He’s a star for sure, but the “pop” part of it is still a little beyond him — he’s never had a real crossover radio hit or a major TV appearance, and might not be interested in playing the game that would lead to those kind of looks anyway. For now at least, he’s likely content being America’s biggest cult star.
