(In 2018, the Billboard staff released a list project of its choices for the Greatest Pop Star of every year, going back to 1981 — along with a handful of sidebar columns and lists on other important pop star themes from the period. Find one such sidebar below about how Lorde unforgettably took the air out of an increasingly puffed-up 2013 pop landscape, and find our Greatest Pop Star picks for every year up to present day here.)
Over the early 2010s, as a class of rising and returning stars was minted on radio, iTunes and YouTube, pop’s arms race was accelerating to unsustainable levels of hype. Each major-label release was a self-proclaimed event, each expected to be bigger than the last. Something had to give, and in 2013, the dam broke — over and over again. Lady Gaga’s ARTPOP, Katy Perry’s PRISM, Jay-Z’s Magna Carta… Holy Grail, Britney Spears’ Britney Jean, Justin Timberlake’s The 20/20 Experience – 2 of 2; each promised the world, and each fell short in different, fascinating, and exhausting ways.
Amidst all the hubbub emerged a 16-year-old with humble origins and a grand name: Lorde.
Popular music had never seen a teenage star quite as self-possessed as the New Zealand native, whose debut single “Royals” was pointed directly at the state of the pop zeitgeist: “Jet planes, islands, tigers on a gold leash/ We don’t care/ We aren’t caught up in your love affair/ And we’ll never be royals…” Her Queen-like vocal harmonies swoop above her dramatic, yet conversational lead vocals, barely accompanied by producer Joel Little’s kick drums and finger-snaps. This was a pop song with no obvious predecessor, whose negative space forced the listener to lean in and take notice.
“Let me live that fantasy,” Lorde sang with a knowing irony — that even as a buzzy artist signed to Universal, she’d likely never reach those heights. Incredibly, she did: From its initial release in November 2012, “Royals” slowly made its way up charts and playlists across the globe. By late 2013, it had not only topped the Billboard Hot 100 for nine weeks, but also reached top five on alternative and hip-hop/R&B radio — becoming a truly post-genre hit.
If Lana Del Rey was the first figurehead in pop’s trajectory towards moodier, more hip-hop-inflected territory over the 2010s — scoring her own first two top 40 hits in 2013, after her splashy 2011 debut and subsequent backlash the next year — Lorde took it to another level. Her debut album Pure Heroine more than delivered, bringing her tales of teenage ennui to a mass audience, while only hinting at the potential she’d unlock with 2017’s sweeping Melodrama. Though Lorde wouldn’t maintain her brief position as a singles-driven hitmaker, she’d become even more beloved as a cult pop artist.
“Post-genre,” “alt-pop” — these were labels that had never been applied to mainstream pop even as late as 2010, that have now become the norm for an entire class of streaming-era artists who aspire to cultural cachet over traditional pop stardom. “Royals” was one of the decade’s most minimalist hits, but it dared to dream big — leaving a long-term impact even Lorde herself could never have imagined.
(Read on to our Greatest Pop Star of 2014 here, or head back to the full list here.)
