The last nine months of pop can perhaps be summed up in one word: ‘Femininomenon’. The title of Chappell Roan’s 2023 hit, a portmanteau of ‘feminine’ and ‘phenomenon’, embodies a spirit of unapologetic female independence: one that has dominated much of the music of 2024. Sabrina Carpenter’s hit single ‘Espresso’ spent five weeks at the top of the UK Singles Chart, and the release of Taylor Swift’s new album, The Tortured Poets Department, made headlines worldwide. The ‘pop girls’ even infiltrated political campaigns as Kamala Harris famously became the first presidential candidate to be declared a ‘brat’.
The first of these hits was an album released in 2023, but one that rose to prominence in 2024: Chappell Roan’s debut album, The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess. Defined by a thematic interest in queer identity and culture, Roan takes the listener on a journey of love, loss, and self-acceptance. Her most notable release, ‘Good Luck, Babe!’ topped charts worldwide, and was nominated for ‘Song of the Summer’ at the 2024 VMAs. With lyrics exploring the complexities of ‘comphet’ (compulsory heterosexuality), and self-denial – ‘shoot another shot, try to stop the feeling’ – Roan brought the nuances of queer relationships to the forefront of mainstream art. The singer also attracted attention through her homage to drag culture, clear in her eye-catching approach to makeup and staging. In an interview with BBC Radio One, she aligned her appearance with the ‘outrageous spectacle’ of drag queens, citing the ‘humour’ that connects a career in pop music to the experience of performing drag. From nearly giving up on her music career entirely to performing at the VMAs within a year, Chappell Roan has finally received the success she has always deserved.
April 19th marked the release of the much-anticipated The Tortured Poets Department. Despite being released to a mixed critical reception, Taylor Swift’s eleventh album still attracted a record-breaking 1.8 billion streams in the week following its release. As the most awarded artist in MTV history, Taylor Swift continues to prove her place as one the leads of pop iconography: her Eras Tour was also one of the most anticipated events of 2024 for millions of fans worldwide.
The VMA’s ‘Song of the Year’, however, was claimed by Sabrina Carpenter’s ‘Espresso’, from her pop album Short ‘n Sweet. The star-studded cast of the album’s music videos, most famously Barry Keoghan (‘Please Please Please’) and Jenna Ortega (‘Taste’), further amplified Carpenter’s presence in the public eye. But Carpenter’s success, like Roan and Swift’s, was not achieved overnight. She had a long career in acting before moving into music in 2022. Having ended her summer success via her mashup VMAs performance, it is surely justified to deem Sabrina Carpenter as one of the key pop icons of the 2020s.
Finally, the 7th of June 2024: the day the world was ‘bratified’. Though a previously well-established artist, Charli xcx relaunched herself into the public consciousness with brat. Her team’s innovative marketing style helped to propel the artist to number one on global charts. Her tribute to hyper-pop legend, Sophie, and discussions of being compared to other female artists also expressed a clear solidarity with women within the music industry.
From the EDM undertones of Charli xcx’s ‘Von Dutch’ to Chappell Roan’s virtuosic pop ballads, it is clear that there is no single way to create a hit. The fact that there is a growing space for new female sounds within the industry can surely provide an incentive for artistic risk taking: it seems that now more than ever, the music industry is rewarding artists who have developed and experimented with their craft over years. If there’s one thing we can learn from the careers of these exceptional female artists, then, it’s the importance of perseverance. Is it that sweet? I guess so.
