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The Greatest Pop Star By Year: 1981-2023 (Updated Staff Picks)

Billboard's Greatest Pop Stars of every year: 1981 to now.

The song’s lyrics didn’t say a whole lot, but the music video did, in its own lo-fi way: With his swinging mop of hair, F-you squint and fringed chaps, John Cougar Mellencamp emerged as a gap-toothed Midwest heartthrob doing the good ‘ol boy two-step, with a bunch of chopper-riding townies and truck-stop dancers who were definitely not out of Central Casting. During a year when everyone from ATLiens OutKast to one-hit wonders Baha Men to MTV icons Britney Spears and Eminem were moving literal truckloads of CDs before the Great Physical Music Meltdown, Justin Timberlake, Joey Fatone, Lance Bass, JC Chasez and Chris Kirkpatrick were the boy band kings of retail island. Cyrus had scored hits prior to this hard pivot to a more mature sound, including 2009’s surprise smash “Party in the U.S.A.,” but Can’t Be Tamed quickly killed her momentum, thanks to a string of singles that failed to touch Top 40 radio, and a persona that felt uninspired alongside edgier new contemporaries like Lady Gaga and Kesha.

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