#Pop Music

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Celebrities 1998–2001 peak

98 Degrees

The boy band that built itself—assembled independently by four guys chasing the dream in Los Angeles, without a Lou Pearlman or corporate svengali telling them who to be. They cracked the charts with 1997's "Invisible Man," then spent 1998–2000 as Motown Records' R&B-leaning answer to the Backstreet Boys and NSYNC, delivering a handful of genuine hits including one number-one collaboration with Mariah Carey, then watched their moment fade when Nick Lachey married Jessica Simpson in 2002 and reality TV captured his afterlife.

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Music 1994–present

Mariah Carey — "All I Want for Christmas Is You"

Released October 1994, it spent a quarter century as the season's most inescapable song before the streaming era finally made it official: its first Hot 100 number one came in December 2019, the longest road from release to the top in chart history. Now it returns every December like a holiday ritual, a Phil Spector–style wall of sound that has somehow become the definitive modern Christmas song.

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Music 1997

Backstreet Boys — "As Long as You Love Me"

The sweeping mid-tempo ballad that showcased the softer side of the BSB formula—all yearning strings and harmonies, shipped to radio without a physical single. Ineligible for the Hot 100 under 1990s chart rules, it still became a top-three hit across the world, and that folding-chair choreography in the music video became instantly iconic.

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Celebrities 1996–2001 peak

Backstreet Boys

Orlando's harmonizing five-piece formed the template for late-90s teen-pop dominance. The Backstreet Boys' matching choreography and Lou Pearlman's boy-band machinery made them a TRL staple, an arena-tour juggernaut, and the answer to every teen magazine's "Who's your favorite Backstreet Boy?" quiz.

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Music 2005–2006

"Bad Day" — Daniel Powter

'Cause you had a bad day, you're taking one down... The piano lament that conquered European radio in 2005, topped the Billboard Hot 100 in 2006, and soundtracked every single American Idol elimination that season. It was everywhere, for everyone, about nothing in particular — and that was exactly the point.

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Music 2004–2005

"Beautiful Soul" (Jesse McCartney)

I don't want another pretty face. The blond swoop of hair, the earnest guitar-pop chorus, the song scrawled on a million middle-school binders — Jesse McCartney's debut single was the official crush anthem of 2005.

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Celebrities 2003–2008 peak

Beyoncé

The girl-group superstar who bet on herself and became simply the biggest star in music. From "Crazy in Love" in the summer of 2003 to "Single Ladies" closing out 2008, Beyoncé's solo run WAS the sound of the decade.

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Celebrities 1998–2004 peak

Britney Spears

A former Mickey Mouse Club kid whose debut single '...Baby One More Time' (September 1998) and January 1999 album catapulted her to megastardom as the defining pop voice of the millennium. TRL countdown staple, Rolling Stone covers, Pepsi deals, and cultural omnipresence through the early 2000s with 'Oops!... I Did It Again' (2000) and 'Toxic' (2003–04).

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Celebrities 1999–2006 peak

Christina Aguilera

The Mickey Mouse Club grad who became the 2000s' designated voice—every critic conceded she could really sing, which was the whole point of the rivalry with Britney Spears. She went from a 1999 debut that shipped ten million records to the leather-chaps reinvention of Stripped, proving she was more than a pretty face with pipes.

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Music 1997–1998

Backstreet Boys — "Everybody (Backstreet's Back)"

The song that announced the arrival with attitude—released July 1997, it became the MTV template for boy-band spectacle when director Joseph Kahn shot the legendary haunted-mansion video where each member transformed into a classic horror monster. The production cost a reported million dollars, the choreography was airtight, and the "Am I original? Yeah!" call-and-response became instantly quotable.

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Music 1999

Christina Aguilera — Genie in a Bottle

The summer song of 1999, a three-minute explosion of vocal runs and pop perfection that launched a teenager into superstardom. "Rub me the right way" sent pearl-clutchers to their fainting couches while every radio station played it anyway. The second best-selling single of the year, triple Platinum, and famous enough that Blink-182 parodied it months later.

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Music 1997–1998

Hanson — Middle of Nowhere

Three teenage brothers from Tulsa who somehow launched a global phenomenon with one unstoppable pop earworm. Hanson's 'MMMBop' was inescapable in 1997 — chart-topping, radio-saturating, and the subject of collective confusion when everyone realized Taylor Hanson was actually a boy.

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Celebrities 2001–2005 peak

Hilary Duff

Lizzie McGuire on TV, platinum pop star on the radio, and the face on every 2003 tween's binder. Hilary Duff was the blueprint Disney Channel superstar, running the show-to-albums-to-movies pipeline that a whole generation of stars followed.

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Music 1999

Backstreet Boys — "I Want It That Way"

The boy-band anthem that became iconic despite its infamously nonsensical lyrics, which even Kevin Richardson admitted "really doesn't make much sense." Peaked at number six on the Hot 100 due to chart technicalities, but hit number one in over twenty-five countries and spent ten weeks atop the US Adult Contemporary chart—Rolling Stone later ranked it among the 500 greatest songs of all time.

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Music 2000

NSYNC — "It's Gonna Be Me"

NSYNC's only Billboard Hot 100 number one—a fact that still surprises people because "Bye Bye Bye" felt bigger. Released May 2000 as the second single from No Strings Attached, it rode the Cheiron formula to the top for two weeks that summer, then spawned one of the most baffling memes of the 2010s when "It's Gonna Be May" took over the internet every April 30.

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Celebrities 1999–2006 peak

Jessica Simpson

The third lane of the late-90s teen-pop trinity—Britney, Christina, and Jessica Simpson, marketed above all on that big Texas church-choir voice. Her debut album was a platinum hit, but her real dominance came via a reality TV show that turned her marriage into ratings gold and a Chicken of the Sea moment into the decade's defining soundbite.

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Celebrities 2002–2007 peak

Justin Timberlake

The NSYNC kid who went solo in 2002 and owned the decade. Justified, the Super Bowl, "SexyBack," "Dick in a Box" — by 2007 nobody thought of Justin Timberlake as the boy-band guy anymore.

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Celebrities 2008–2009 peak

Katy Perry

The candy-striped retro-pinup pop star who opened summer 2008 with a song that topped charts for seven straight weeks and didn't let go all year. Katy Perry was inescapable.

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Music 2003–2004

"Milkshake" by Kelis

"My milkshake brings all the boys to the yard." The hook that launched a thousand ringtones and playground chants, Kelis's 2003 smash — produced by The Neptunes — became one of the decade's most quoted lines before anyone even agreed on what it meant.

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Celebrities 2008–2009 peak

Lady Gaga

A New York songwriter who wrote for Britney and the Pussycat Dolls — and got dropped by Def Jam — reinvented herself as Lady Gaga and detonated across 2008–09. The Fame sent "Just Dance" and "Poker Face" to #1, and within a year she'd gone from songwriter-for-hire to the sound of pop.

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Celebrities 1990–2000 peak

Mariah Carey

The voice: a five-octave range and that signature whistle register that became the sound of 1990s radio dominance. Columbia executive Tommy Mottola heard her demo tape at a party in December 1988, signed her, and launched a decade-long reign that would see her become the first artist whose first five singles all reached number one, and close the 1990s with fourteen #1 hits and Billboard's Artist of the Decade award.

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Music 1997

Hanson — MMMBop

The inescapable earworm of 1997 — three teenage brothers from Tulsa, a falsetto hook, and a chorus of cheerful nonsense syllables. "MMMBop" topped charts in a dozen countries, launched a thousand "wait, that's a boy?" conversations, and still detonates on any '90s playlist.

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TV 2003–2005

Newlyweds: Nick & Jessica

MTV's cameras moved in with pop's most photogenic married couple and struck gold in the very first episode, when Jessica Simpson stared at a can of tuna and asked, "Is this chicken, what I have, or is this fish?" Newlyweds turned domestic squabbles about laundry and Chicken of the Sea into appointment television — and made Nick and Jessica bigger than either of their music careers ever had.

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Celebrities 1998–2002 peak

NSYNC

'Bye Bye Bye' and its jerky-dancing video were inescapable on TRL, announcing that five boys from Orlando could rival the Backstreet Boys. NSYNC was teen pop's other empire during the late 90s, built by the same producer and fueled by a rivalry that defined a generation.

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Celebrities 2000–2009 peak

P!nk

The raspy-voiced anti-pop-star of the TRL era — the one who mocked the pop machinery while beating it at its own game. Missundaztood sold 13 million copies on pure attitude, and "Get the Party Started" is still doing exactly what it promised.

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Celebrities 2002–2006 peak

Sean Paul

The Jamaican dancehall artist who put Kingston rhythms and patois on top of American pop radio. Sean Paul turned reggae into a staple of every club and school dance for five years straight: three number-one hits (one of them a Beyoncé collab), a Grammy, the sound of the mid-2000s.

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Music 1997–1998

Robyn — "Show Me Love"

A Swedish teenager on American radio a year before "…Baby One More Time" — written with Max Martin and produced at Stockholm's Cheiron Studios before the Cheiron sound conquered the world. It hit #7 on the Hot 100 (not to be confused with Robin S.'s 1993 house classic of the same name).

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Music 2004–present

"Since U Been Gone" — Kelly Clarkson

The breakup-scream anthem of the 2000s. Kelly Clarkson needed an identity beyond American Idol; Max Martin and Dr. Luke handed her a pop-rock chorus that demanded everything a voice could give, and every car ride since has been a rehearsal.

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Celebrities 2006–2009 peak

Taylor Swift

The curly-haired country teenager with a guitar who ended the 2000s as the name on everyone's radio. "Love Story" and Fearless made her a household name; the Kanye moment made her a headline. Everything after is a much bigger story—this entry is about when she was new.

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Music 1997–1998

NSYNC — "Tearin' Up My Heart"

NSYNC's European breakout—released in Germany in February 1997, it conquered the continent while America went about its business, only hitting US radio in June 1998, months after the self-titled debut finally arrived stateside. Written by Max Martin and Kristian Lundin at Cheiron Studios and originally pitched to the Backstreet Boys, the song introduced America to frosted-tip Justin Timberlake in a sweat-soaked warehouse video that somehow became iconic.

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Music 2004–2010

"Unwritten" (Natasha Bedingfield)

Feel the rain on your skin. The pep-talk anthem that opened every episode of The Hills, played from every radio in 2006, and still makes millennials narrate their own lives like a season premiere.

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Celebrities 1985–1998 peak

Whitney Houston

The Voice, no qualifier needed. Whitney Houston arrived in 1985 with a record-breaking debut and never slowed down: seven consecutive #1 singles — still unmatched — and, with The Bodyguard, the best-selling soundtrack of all time. For a stretch of the '90s, she simply was the pop ballad.