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    Chappell Roan, Kai Cenat, Shannon Sharpe Are Among Our Breakout Stars of 2024

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    Audacious, original and wielding a clear vision, the stars who rose to the top in 2024 pushed boundaries and took bold, even risky, choices. Here are 10 artists who shook up their scenes and resonated with fans this year.Pop MusicChappell RoanIt’s almost incomprehensible to think that last year, Chappell Roan still had time to work as a camp counselor.It’s not that she hadn’t been pursuing pop. Her debut album, “The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess,” was released in 2023. One of its now-hit singles “Pink Pony Club” was released back in 2020.But it was this year that all the pieces coalesced: Her album hit No. 2 on the Billboard 200 album chart and No. 1 in album sales; her extravagant drag-inspired persona, 1980s-influenced pop sound, soaring vocals and edgy performances have become wildly viral; she outgrew her tour plans; and her dance-along anthem “Hot to Go!” was even featured in a Target ad and played at sporting events.All the while, her lyrics tackle queer issues frankly. Her track “Good Luck, Babe!” — about a relationship between two women that collapses because one is, as Roan has put it, “denying fate” — was one of the biggest hits of the summer.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Best Songs of 2024

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      Listen to 68 tracks that made major statements, boosted big beefs, propelled up-and-comers and soundtracked the party this year.Jon Pareles | Jon Caramanica | Lindsay ZoladzJon ParelesA Little Strife, a Lot of RhythmHere’s a dipperful of worthwhile tracks from the ocean of music released this year. The top of my list is big-statement songs, ones that had repercussions beyond how they sound. Below those, it’s not a ranking but a playlist, a more-or-less guided cruise through what 2024 sounded like for one avid listener. I didn’t include any songs from my list of top albums, which are worth hearing from start to finish. But in the multiverse of streaming music, there are plenty of other possibilities.1. Kendrick Lamar, ‘Not Like Us’Belligerent, accusatory and as tribalistic as its title, “Not Like Us” wasn’t an attack ad from the 2024 election. It was the coup de gras of Kendrick Lamar’s beef with Drake, a rapid-fire, sneering assault on multiple fronts. Its spirit dovetailed with a bitterly contentious 2024.2. Beyoncé, ‘Texas Hold ’Em’“Texas Hold ’Em” isn’t just an invocation of Beyoncé’s home state. It’s a toe-tapping taunt at the racial and musical assumptions behind country music as defined by record labels and radio stations. Rhiannon Giddens picks an oh-so-traditional claw-hammer banjo intro and Beyoncé — raised in Texas — promises “a real-life boogie and a real-life hoedown,” singing about drinking and dancing and daring gatekeepers to hold her back.3. Sabrina Carpenter, ‘Please Please Please’Sabrina Carpenter delivers a sharp message on the slick “Please Please Please.”Nina Westervelt for The New York TimesComedy is tricky in a straight-faced song, but Sabrina Carpenter’s eye-roll comes clearly through the shiny pop of “Please Please Please.” The singer tries to placate and possibly tame a boyfriend who sounds more obnoxious in every verse. “I beg you, don’t embarrass me,” she coos; eventually she reaches a breaking point.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Grammys Snubs and Surprises: Charli XCX, André 3000, the Beatles and More

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      A look at the nominations’ unexpected and intriguing story lines, including the role of an absent Drake, the validation of André 3000’s flute music and overlooked gems.The names headlining this year’s Grammy Award nominations make a lot of sense: Beyoncé, Kendrick Lamar, Billie Eilish and Taylor Swift are perennial favorites with imperial reach. Sabrina Carpenter and Chappell Roan have stormed the mainstream. Shaboozey and Charli XCX made themselves inescapable.While there was once a time when it was easy to argue that the Grammys were out of touch, barely attempting to be an accurate representation of popular music in a given year, the major acts of 2024 are all accounted for. Shedding some of its fusty baggage under the Recording Academy chief executive Harvey Mason Jr. and a slate of new industry voters, the awards show has brought itself more or less in line with the Billboard charts, radio and streaming services, centering the celebrities of the moment.Still, it’s the Grammy Awards — not everyone can be happy. So after poring over the 94 categories that make up the 67th annual class of nominees, The New York Times’s pop music team — the reporter Joe Coscarelli, the chief pop music critic Jon Pareles, the pop music critics Jon Caramanica and Lindsay Zoladz and the Culture editor Elena Bergeron — were left with a few lingering questions: Is Beyoncé’s cross-genre domination really warranted? What are the Beatles doing here? And have the Grammys gotten too safe?We broke down the richest — and most baffling — story lines, snubs and surprises.Sabrina Carpenter’s success on the charts was mirrored in her Grammy nods: six of them.Emma Mcintyre/Getty Images for CoachellaA Mirror to the MainstreamJOE COSCARELLI I must admit, I’m almost sad at how predictable the Big Four categories — album, record and song of the year, plus best new artist — are these days, and this year in particular. Back in my day — not that long ago! — Beck was beating Beyoncé to close the night. And sure, you still have your occasional upsets by Jon Batiste (album of the year, 2022) or Bonnie Raitt (song of the year, 2023). But the odds of a truly destabilizing major win in February feel quite long now, likely by design.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Beyoncé and Young Women Pop Sensations Lead 2025 Grammy Nominations

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      Charli XCX, Billie Eilish, Chappell Roan and Sabrina Carpenter will compete in the biggest categories, along with Taylor Swift and Kendrick Lamar.Beyoncé and Taylor Swift will face off in all top categories at the 67th annual Grammy Awards, leading a pack of nominees that also features buzzy young female stars who have dominated the pop charts over the past year.With 11 nods, Beyoncé has more citations than any other artist this year, for “Cowboy Carter,” her gumbo of country, R&B and acoustic pop that spurred conversations about the Black roots of many American genres, including country.The other top nominees, with seven apiece, are Billie Eilish, a onetime teenage disrupter who is now a Grammy and Oscar darling; Kendrick Lamar, the rapper laureate, whose nominations stem from a no-holds-barred battle of words with Drake; Post Malone, a pop shape-shifter gone country (and who appeared on both Beyoncé and Swift’s latest albums); and Charli XCX, the British singer-songwriter and meme master whose digital-nostalgic iconography was borrowed by the Kamala Harris campaign.Swift has six nominations, as do Sabrina Carpenter and Chappell Roan — two of this year’s fresh pop sensations, each receiving their first Grammy nods.The awards ceremony is set for Feb. 2 in Los Angeles.The biggest contest this year, at least in terms of celebrity wattage, is Beyoncé vs. Swift. Both are juggernauts in the culture and at the Grammys. With 32 career trophies, Beyoncé, 43, has already won more awards than any other artist, and is now also the most-nominated person, with 99. Yet she has never taken album of the year, despite four previous nods.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Grammy Nominations 2025: See the Full List of Nominees

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      Artists, albums and songs competing for trophies at the 67th annual ceremony were announced on Friday. The show will take place on Feb. 2 at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles.Beyoncé is the top nominee for the 67th annual Grammy Awards with 11 nods for her genre-crossing “Cowboy Carter.” The LP and its songs will vie for record, song and album of the year, as well as competitions in pop, rap, country and Americana categories.The superstar — who has already won more Grammys than any other artist — leads a pack of contenders that includes Charli XCX, Billie Eilish, Kendrick Lamar and Post Malone (all with seven nods apiece), followed by Sabrina Carpenter, Chappell Roan and Taylor Swift, who have six each.The ceremony, which is scheduled for Feb. 2, 2025 at the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles, will recognize recordings released from Sept. 16, 2023 to Aug. 30, 2024.Here is a complete list of the nominations, which were announced on Friday by the Recording Academy.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Reinventing the ‘Theater Kid’ Label With Help From Ariana Grande and Lady Gaga

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      For stars like Ariana Grande and Lady Gaga, showmanship is a virtue. That’s a big change from the days when Anne Hathaway was vilified for her effortful work.Ariana Grande used to downplay the fact that she was a theater kid.Yes, she began her career as a teenager on Broadway in the musical “13” before finding fame on Nickelodeon. But when she first set her sights on international pop stardom, she concealed that side of herself. She adopted a disaffected persona and wore oversize sweatshirts as dresses with thigh-high boots. That version of Grande was acting like a girl who didn’t care. (In 2015, she infamously licked some doughnuts and created a national scandal.)Now Grande cares a lot. As a star of “Wicked” alongside Cynthia Erivo, she has thrown herself wholeheartedly into the role of Broadway baby, making it clear that she owes as much to Kristin Chenoweth’s coloratura as she does to Mariah Carey’s whistle tones. She has gone out of her way to demonstrate her commitment to “Wicked,” discussing her long-held love for that Stephen Schwartz musical, dying her hair blond, and announcing on Instagram that she had “decided to put a temporary pin in all things that are not ‘Wicked’ for now.” Grande and Erivo have shown up to multiple events wearing their characters’ signature pink and green. They are not just in “Wicked.” They are living and breathing “Wicked.”Even beyond “Wicked,” this fall’s movie offerings have provided vindication for theater kids everywhere. In addition to Grande and Erivo, a Tony winner for “The Color Purple,” Lady Gaga brought her theater-kid showmanship to Gotham City in “Joker: Folie à Deux.” And two forthcoming art house musicals — “Emilia Pérez,” from the French director Jacques Audiard, and “The End,” from the documentarian Joshua Oppenheimer — embody the theater kid in essence even if they are less Broadway and more Off Broadway in spirit.Ariana Grande in “Wicked.” She has embraced her Broadway beginnings.Giles Keyte/Universal PicturesThe theater kid is also making headway in other areas of entertainment. The pop star Sabrina Carpenter, in her highly kitschy arena tour, comes across as if she’s auditioning for Lola in a revival of “Damn Yankees.” (At a Halloween-themed show in Dallas on Oct. 30, she sang “Hopelessly Devoted to You” in costume as Sandy, Olivia Newton-John’s character from “Grease.”)Carpenter also briefly appeared on the Great White Way for two performances as Cady Heron in “Mean Girls” before the show was shut down because of Covid. Cady’s bully, Regina George, was played by Renée Rapp, who in recent years has turned to sexy, radio-ready ballads, while reminding us of her past as a winner at the Jimmy Awards, the high school musical theater competition. Rapp reprised the role of Regina in the movie version of the “Mean Girls” musical earlier this year. And then there’s Chappell Roan, who borrows from drag as she sings her peppy queer anthems, but whose preference for elaborate costumes has gotten her labeled a theater kid, too.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Chappell Roan’s Rocket-Ship Year

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      Subscribe to Popcast!Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon MusicChappell Roan has become one of the biggest breakout pop stars of the past year, and made it happen in novel fashion: creating grand-scale, 1980s-influenced pop refracted through a queer lens; building a drag-inspired performance character; and calling into question the way that fans worship their heroes while rapidly accumulating fans online and in real life.Her debut album, “The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess,” continues its rise toward the top of the album chart, more than a year after its release. And her festival performances have become wildly viral events. Roan’s ascent has tested the boundaries of contemporary pop, and also may create a template for a next generation of stars.On this week’s Popcast, a conversation about the fits and starts of Roan’s early career, the events that propelled her to fame and the ways in which she is remaking the star-fan dynamic.Guest:P. Claire Dodson, associate director of culture at Teen VogueConnect With Popcast. Become a part of the Popcast community: Join the show’s Facebook group and Discord channel. We want to hear from you! Tune in, and tell us what you think at popcast@nytimes.com. Follow our host, Jon Caramanica, on Twitter: @joncaramanica.Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. More

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      Daniel Nigro’s Path to Hitmaker for Chappell Roan and Olivia Rodrigo

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      The songwriter and producer has helped craft huge albums with Chappell Roan and Olivia Rodrigo. What’s the key to his success? “Dan always believed in me,” Roan said.When Daniel Nigro and Chappell Roan wrote and recorded “Pink Pony Club” back in 2019, Nigro knew they had something special. The problem was, no one believed him.It was the second song the pair had written together, a stirring origin story of Roan’s self-awakening from the Missouri-born Kayleigh Rose Amstutz to the burgeoning queer artist Chappell Roan, spurred by her home away from home, a Los Angeles gay bar where “boys and girls can all be queens every single day.”At the time, Roan was signed to Atlantic Records, which had released her downcast debut EP to little notice. Nigro was scuffling, too; he’d left his middling Long Island emo band to try his hand at songwriting in L.A., where he had some success with credits on songs by Sky Ferreira and Carly Rae Jepsen, among others. But in his mid-30s, he was still paying the bills in part with money he’d earned writing commercial jingles.When Atlantic executives heard “Pink Pony Club,” they were not impressed. “I was convinced the song was incredible,” Nigro recalled, “and then they told me it wasn’t.” The label suggested excising the song’s ebullient guitar solos, played by Dave Stewart’s son Sam, that Roan had pushed for and Nigro helped compose, “and I was like, nope,” he said. Atlantic dropped Roan, and in 2021 Nigro started his own label, Amusement Records, just to release her music. In August, her debut album, “The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess,” hit No. 2 on the Billboard 200.“Dan always believed in me,” Roan said in an email. “He has been there from the beginning, and brought me into realizing what makes me feel good to perform, what makes me feel good to sing, to write about. Because he believed in bringing that part of myself to life, I started to believe in it, too.”Nigro performing in 2010 with As Tall as Lions, the emo band he formed with high school friends on Long Island.Joey Foley/FilmMagic, via Getty ImagesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      It’s Touring Season: Chappell, Sabrina and Mk.gee Hit the Stage

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      Subscribe to Popcast!Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon MusicGrand-sized tours are everywhere you look right now. Sabrina Carpenter and Chappell Roan, young pop stars who’ve experienced sudden jolts of attention that reshaped their careers this year, are playing arenas and amphitheaters. In rooms slightly smaller, you can see the rising guitar hero Mk.gee, who’s become one of this year’s most unlikely breakout successes. Vampire Weekend, Cash Cobain, Bleachers and more are all on the road.On this week’s Popcast, a roundup of some of the bigger tours making their way around the country at the moment, and a discussion of what it takes, creatively, to fill up a very large room, and how some musicians demonstrate parts of their personalities onstage that their albums can’t fully capture.Guest:Joe Coscarelli, The New York Times’s pop music reporterConnect With Popcast. Become a part of the Popcast community: Join the show’s Facebook group and Discord channel. We want to hear from you! Tune in, and tell us what you think at popcast@nytimes.com. Follow our host, Jon Caramanica, on Twitter: @joncaramanica.Soon, you’ll need a subscription to keep full access to this show, and to other New York Times podcasts, on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Don’t miss out on exploring all of our shows, featuring everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts. More