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Billboard’s Greatest Pop Star of 2011: Adele


Adele is Billboard's Greatest Pop Star of 2011 for how she zoomed past an entire pop golden age with a one-of-a-kind sound and style.

Well, she bottled heartbreak into 11 masterful tracks thatwhisked listeners through a wild emotional terrain — rage, revenge, regret, resolve and release — without drowning in syrupy lyrics or cheesy production. If 21 was a jolt in the pop landscape, Adele performing a piano ballad under a single spotlight at the MTV Video Music Awards — the most eye-popping three hours of pomp and circumstance on television — could have incited a riot. Lana Del Rey’s emergence as a blog sensation in 2011 with the haunting, sweeping ballads “Video Games” and “Born to Die” was a polarizing one, leading to questions about her past identity, her authenticity, even her feminism.

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