original Q - who's the Best Artist Since 2000....
No overall single figures springs to mind, I'd have to divide it up into categories and with multiple contenders jostling for the top spot
* Pop Star as Public Figure - Kanye West versus Ke$ha versus Lady Gaga (with the proviso I've little appetite for the audio bar "Bad Romance") versus Drake
* Performer / Vocal Presence - Future versus Ke$ha versus Dizzee
* Beat-maker - Terror Danjah versus Metro Boomin versus Mustard (aka Dijon McFarlane - no really that is his actual name).
* Pop Group in the Bygone and Obsolete Sense - Vampire Weekend versus Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti.
* Endless personal pleasure tinged with awareness of marginality in the scheme of things - Ghost Box versus Moon Wiring Club versus Ariel Pink versus Ekoplekz/eMMplekz
* A Compelling Case to Be Made although somehow I don't quite feel it fully myself - Burial versus Radiohead versus Daft Punk
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
2025 thoughts / amendments
Some new categories
Truth speaker - Florence Shaw of Dry Cleaning
Sound sorcereress - SOPHIE
"Masterpiece Theater" - Kendrick Lamar, Lana Del Rey
A widening world - Rosalía
Additions to Existing Categories
Performer / Vocal Presence - Young Thug, Playboi Carti
Endless Personal Pleasure - Migos
Pop Star as Public Figure - Taylor Swift (objective measurement, not subjective partiality)
Demotions
Vampire Weekend
12 comments:
What's good from Rosalia? Haven't paid attention really
"Pop Star as Public Figure"
I'd probably go with Beyonce here. She's the only genuine A lister for the entire period 2000 until now.
Taylor Swift is quite a curious phenomenon in some ways - objectively a far more limited singer than any of her rivals (Bey, Gaga, even Kelly Clarkson) her fame seems to rest on her being a lifestyle avatar for her fans...it strikes me that her high profile love life and relationships with celebrity buddies seem every bit as integral to her success as her music.
Well, that's the nature of pop fame at this point innit - music is just one component of the package. She's like a gigantic engine / vortex of fan engagement, a machine for generating obsession. Full-spectrum dominance, all eyes / minds / ears on me. But with "ears" being the least of it really.
She's one of the artists (see also Bad Bunny) who's broken the Anglophonic hegemony. Also a bit of a Bjork figure - pop, but experimental, but plugged into traditional music (flamenco specifically).
Yes. Her art is really the persona she has constructed, through interviews, videos, social media, fan engagement. Her lyrics are hermetic texts, full of clues that send fans scurrying to uncover hidden meanings and correspondences to the supposed facts of her life. It’s a refinement and development of participatory fan culture for the internet age. It’s also similar to QAnon, another defining new media phenomenon of the 21st century. As you say, the music is just a small part of it.
That list of “pop star as public figure” hits a bit different eight years on. Drake has had his reputation destroyed by Kendrick Lamar. Kesha, we now know, was having a horrendous time during her period of pop stardom. Lady Gaga seems to have Fallen Away completely. And Kanye West has not so much fallen away as swan-dived into Tartarus.
Huh: I discover that Lady Gaga has not only been making new music, she has been nominated for several Grammys. I stand corrected!
Although I would stand by my contention that she is nowhere near the centre of pop culture at the moment. And Grammy nominations actually confirm that.
Gaga is not troubling the charts like she was, and I can't remember the last single that was any kind of HIT. But she has had a successful movie career - was actually compelling in A Star Is Born. She's a bit like late-phase Madonna now I think - once you've ascended to that level of hugeness it's hard not to remain a phenom.
I think Beyonce is actually the same - you don't really hear her songs on the radio but each project is strikingly conceived and manages to commander public attention, gets tons of analysis from crits and journos.
Perhaps this is the distinction between a star and a superstar - a star really can fade and dwindle, nearly return to a normal life, but a superstar is a permanent fixture in the sky.
Yeah but there's no denying the name recognition - and the long, long run of chart dominance in Drake's case.
Kesha had a second career as a sort of site of solidarity - Free Kesha etc. I think she did the inevitable thing somewhere in there, after a grown up albums dealing with her woes, she did the back to my trashy early fun identity move - don't think it worked, though.
I mean, yes West's a car crash, an embarrassment, genuinely reprehensible. - but he's still mega-megafamous (no such thing as bad publicity? well he's testing that theory)
"Infamy, infamy - they've all got it in for me" - Frankie Howerd in .... Carry On Up the Coliseum? Up Pompei?
Taylor Swift is more analogous to Harry Potter than anything else.
Great analogy! I still haven’t got over the shock of seeing about 30 grown adults playing Quidditch - without actually flying, obviously - in our local park.
Funnily enough, Lord Patten was corrected on this one recently by the historian Mary Beard:
https://x.com/wmarybeard/status/1987987124264857753?s=46&t=B99yOMpNjtYkl7CXK4W2JA
She says it was Kenneth Williams in Carry On Cleo. But as you will see from the replies there, there is a lively debate about who said it first.
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