Billboard’s Greatest Pop Stars of the 21st Century: No. 5 — Lady Gaga
With the first quarter of the 21st century coming to a close, Billboard is spending the next few months counting down our staff picks for the 25 greatest pop stars of the last 25 years. You can see the stars who have made our list so far here — and now, we examine the century in Lady Gaga, a game-changing phenomenon whose peerless opening run continues to loom large in contemporary pop music. (Hear more discussion of Gaga and explanation of her list ranking on our Greatest Pop Stars podcast here.)
When considering the entirety of pop star greatness across the first 25 years of this century, there might not be a more iconic sound than these five nonsensical syllables: “Rahhh, rahhh, ah-ah-ahhh!”
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Behold “Bad Romance,” pop perfection incarnate. There’s that earworm refrain, followed by formidably declarative verses, a powder keg of a chorus and a high-concept bridge. There’s the collection of raved-out synths, and the voice that met their harshness with beauty and command. There’s the music video — still perhaps the greatest of the 21st century so far — full of bathhouse coffins, exploding beds, disorienting contact lenses and bewitching dance moves. There were the TV performances, which ranged from piano-medley stately to nude-bodysuit, alien-mask outrageous. It all elevated contemporary pop — clock the French phrases before the final chorus, or the body horror and feminist fury of its video — without looking down on it, or veering too far away from its most immediate pleasures.
Every millimeter of Lady Gaga’s 2009 single, and how it was presented to the world, stood out as special — burned into the memory of any pop fan paying the slightest bit of attention 15 years ago, and largely remaining so today. “Bad Romance” was not Gaga’s first hit, her biggest hit, and it’s not her most-streamed song today. Yet a moment like “Bad Romance” – one that capped a year of increasingly massive moments, in one of the most unforgettable breakout runs in pop music history – is the reason why Lady Gaga is so indispensable to the modern pop landscape, an audacious superstar who can stun, thrill, bewilder and satisfy in the span of one radio-ready single.
Such is the power of Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta, who has spent her career holding up fragile ideas of modern pop stardom and vigorously shaking them like a snow globe. Lady Gaga started off as an overnight sensation, then maintained that superstardom as pop’s center of gravity for the next few years -– before an inevitable comedown period, a fascinating reinvention (or three), and a return to music’s forefront that sees Gaga remaining one of its top hitmakers and headliners today.
Once her hits multiplied, she switched up her electro-pop aesthetic, diving into classic rock, country and the great American songbook; she has made philanthropy and LGBTQ+ rights a core part of her professional identity; and she is the only person on the planet who has been nominated for a best actress Oscar and headlined a Super Bowl halftime show. She has kept us on our toes for 15 years, reinventing what a modern pop star can achieve, while also delivering banger after banger.
That run began with “Just Dance,” which catapulted the native of New York’s Upper West Side — a musical prodigy and theater kid who landed a role as an extra on The Sopranos a few years before attending NYU — onto top 40 radio with her first single as a solo artist. Adopting her moniker from the Queen song “Radio Ga Ga” after dropping out of college, she kicked around the industry for a few years, playing NYC club gigs and writing for other artists — but ‘00s pop and R&B hitmaker Akon took a shine to Lady Gaga, signed her to his KonLive imprint through Interscope, and co-wrote “Just Dance” with Gaga and a rising producer named RedOne.
Before turbo-pop took off at the beginning of the 2010s by enmeshing top 40 with EDM music, Gaga’s glammed-up synth-pop anthem captured the feeling of being bleary-eyed at the club but dancing to your favorite song anyway. “Just Dance” (which featured another Akon protege, Colby O’Donis) was a bright, ultra-catchy entry point for Gaga, spending three weeks atop the Billboard Hot 100 in early 2009 and introducing her as a striking new star, a lightning bolt painted on her cheek in its music video. The song — which almost ended up with The Pussycat Dolls or Gwen Stefani before Gaga claimed it as her own — may have downplayed her audacious personality for sake of accessibility, but “Just Dance” was a spiked-toe boot in the door.
With “Poker Face,” the follow-up single that followed it to the Hot 100’s summit a few months later, Gaga kicked that door wide open. The song was another club-ready electro-pop jam, but contained far more Gaga fingerprints, from the murmured “Muh-muh-muh-MA!” refrain, to the steely cool of the verses, to the big-voiced chorus, to the “I’m bluffin’ with my muffin!” winks. Its music video began with a cracked disco ball fashioned into a mask covering Gaga’s eyes, stepping out of a pool in slow motion as lightning crackles in the sky behind her; it’s a superhero’s entrance, and it helped establish Gaga as a striking visual artist, worthy of peak-MTV greatness and ready to dominate in the YouTube era.
Those two smashes kicked off one of the finest imperial eras in modern pop stardom: The Fame, Lady Gaga’s 2008 debut album, became a juggernaut through 2009, as follow-up singles like “LoveGame” and “Paparazzi” streaked into the top 10. The hits showcased different sides of Gaga’s aesthetic: while the “LoveGame” music video placed her sexuality front and center as Gaga kissed men and women, “Paparazzi” received an extended visual fantasia, commenting on the trappings of fame while exacting vengeance on a murderous lover, played by Alexander Skarsg?rd.
As they started to take off on the charts, Gaga went on a run of jaw-dropping primetime performances: most memorably at the 2009 VMAs, where fake blood dripped down Gaga’s torso as she belted out “Paparazzi,” eliciting gasps from the audience. At the start of the 2010 Grammys, where The Fame was nominated for album of the year, Gaga played “Poker Face” as a heart-wrenching ballad, before surprise guest Elton John came out to perform his classic “Your Song” and her own ballad “Speechless.” Just like that, the most audacious pop performer of his generation had seemingly blessed the new torchbearer.
Every new Gaga single from The Fame hit with force, every new music video created an eye-popping ecosystem, every awards performance became must-see TV – and the artist in the eye of the hurricane started to look like a generational talent. Then, Lady Gaga decided to do the best thing she could at the end of The Fame era: she extended it. The Fame Monster, an eight-song project bundled with the rest of its predecessor that was released in time for the 2009 holidays, sent her even higher into pop’s stratosphere – first with “Bad Romance,” then the breathless Beyoncé team-up “Telephone” and finally the Europop opus “Alejandro,” which all hit the top 10 and added to her cultural ubiquity. The “Telephone” music video – a nine-minute, revenge-fueled Tarantino riff co-starring Gaga and Bey – was the type of pop culture event that was seldom seen in a post-TRL pop landscape.
The Fame Monster may have existed as a precursor to the modern deluxe edition of an album, but those singles proved so vital that it followed The Fame to an album of the year Grammy nom the following year. Meanwhile, the project also set up Gaga’s first arena headlining shows as part of the Monster Ball tour, which kicked off one week after the release of The Fame Monster and emerged from the ashes of a failed co-headlining tour with Kanye West. No matter: Gaga got to dazzle in front of her ever-growing fan base, the Little Monsters, and after opening the tour with theater dates, the Monster Ball eventually grew big enough to produce an HBO special filmed at New York’s Madison Square Garden.
The fact that Lady Gaga kept making headlines as her first proper era started to wind down — at the 2010 VMAs, for instance, she won Video of the Year while rocking the immediately iconic “meat dress” — heightened expectations for her follow-up to an unfathomable level. Gaga’s rise was meteoric; how could she possibly top it, now working with a much bigger budget and impossible clout?
Born This Way, released in 2011, brandished its flashier pedigree in spots, with E Street Band sax-man Clarence Clemons and Queen guitarist Brian May listed among the liner notes. But the album’s mix of empowering dance-pop and bombastic arena rock was unquestionably Gaga’s brainchild — no one else made the decision to place her head at the front of a motorcycle on the album cover. The title track’s whirring percussion and synth throb was overshadowed by its message of self-acceptance, explicitly aimed at the LGBTQ+ community (“Don’t be a drag, just be a queen,” goes the most quotable line), and it made history as the 1,000th song to top the Hot 100 when it debuted at No. 1 in February 2011 — becoming the first chart-topper to include the word “transgender” in its lyrics.
The rest of the Born This Way era was a bit bumpier than the all-killer-no-filler Gaga run that preceded it: though it was an immediate smash, the title track never escaped accusations that it sounded too similar to Madonna’s “Express Yourself,” with both artists asked about the melodic callback throughout 2011 and sharing different POVs on what was and was not re-created. And the singles that followed “Born This Way” — the thumping RedOne reunion “Judas”; the lungs-deflating rock anthem “The Edge of Glory”; the country-tinged, Mutt Lange-helmed “Yoü and I,” which introduced Jo Calderone, Gaga’s male alter ego-as-performance art — were all top 10 Hot 100 hits, but not quite with the radio-rupturing magnitude of her Fame singles. Yet at this point, Gaga was too big to fail: Born This Way bowed with 1.1 million copies sold in its first week, which easily remains the best mark of her career — although Amazon offering the full album as a 99-cent download during its release week ultimately placed something of an asterisk next to those seven figures in the view of some onlookers.
If cracks in the foundation of Gaga’s superstardom started to show over the course of the Born This Way campaign, its 2013 follow-up Artpop was a full-blown sinkhole. Dreamed up as a multimedia compound of fine art and modern pop, Artpop was rolled out with “the world’s first flying dress,” named the Volantis; new works by renowned artists like Jeff Koons (who created a statue of Gaga for the album cover), Marina Abramovi? and Robert Wilson, among others; and an app that let fans create their own pieces of artwork while chatting about the new album. Oh yeah, the album: It was a re-imagining of Gaga’s synth-pop beginnings – with lead single “Applause” serving as an EDM-adjacent commentary on performing on the world’s grandest stages – but also included forays into hip-hop (“Jewels n’ Drugs,” with T.I., Too Short and Twista), glam rock (“Venus”) and industrial (“Swine”).
Artpop remains a fascinating mishmash of styles and messages, and “Applause” became another top 10 hit, but the album underperformed relative to Gaga’s track record, was derided as a flop, and generally confused a public that was hungry for more groundbreaking songs and videos. A decade later, even the album’s cult following still can’t figure out what the heck the flying dress had to do with anything. Worst of all, second single “Do What U Want” co-starred R. Kelly as Gaga’s duet partner — released years prior to the R&B star’s conviction on sex trafficking and racketeering charges, but around the time that allegations had begun to resurface. Upon Kelly’s 2019 arrest, Gaga removed “Do What U Want” from streaming services, a moral stain wiped away from a misfire.
Following Artpop, Lady Gaga needed a reset — and she turned to an unexpected source. Tony Bennett was 88 years old when Cheek to Cheek, an album of jazz-standard duets with Gaga, was released in September 2014, an industry legend who sounded as warm and charming in the studio as ever; meanwhile, Gaga could showcase the potent vocals that had distinguished her as a theater student but had been masked by artifice on Artpop.
Cheek to Cheek was a surprise hit, bringing Gershwin and Porter songs to the top of the Billboard 200 decades after their deaths; Gaga’s mojo had been slightly regained, but more importantly, her creative partnership and personal friendship with Bennett blossomed. When they re-teamed for another set, Love for Sale, in 2021, the pair earned an album of the year Grammy nomination, Bennett’s final such nod before his 2023 passing at the age of 96.
The reinvention that Cheek to Cheek represented coincided with Gaga taking some time away from album-campaign mode and delving into other interests. She dabbled in Hollywood projects like Sin City: A Dame to Kill For and American Horror Story, and became an ambassador for a Versace campaign. At the 2015 Academy Awards, Gaga earned a standing ovation for belting out a medley from The Sound of Music — and at the following year’s Oscars, she was a nominee for best original song, for the harrowing “Til It Happens to You” from the campus rape documentary The Hunting Ground. As more time elapsed from Artpop, Gaga reminded the world that she was a captivating visual performer and gifted vocalist; the comeback narrative was ripe for the taking.
Joanne, Gaga’s 2016 album, was named after her late aunt, and featured Gaga looking up into a cowboy hat on its cover. As such, the full-length was more personal than Artpop and boasted a country undercurrent, with nods toward classic rock and Americana akin to Born This Way. Gaga had moved into a different phase of her career as a hitmaker by this point — “Perfect Illusion,” the album’s sneakily excellent dance-rock lead single co-produced by Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker, received a splashy rollout, but peaked only at No. 15 on the Hot 100, and its parent album debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 but drew mixed reviews. Yet Gaga’s return to the spotlight was in part presented as a legacy artist with a bulletproof back catalog, thanks in part to something that took place four months after Joanne: the Super Bowl.
Although Gaga’s halftime performance on Feb. 5, 2017 was not the politically barbed showcase that some expected following the election of Donald Trump a few months prior, her show was both visually dazzling (beginning with a dive from the rooftop of Houston’s NRG Stadium) and culturally impactful (performing “Born This Way” on the biggest stage in the world was a raised fist in support of the LGBTQ+ community). And the Super Bowl halftime show also partially redeemed the commercial legacy of Joanne: “Million Reasons,” the album’s piano-led power ballad, was given a prime slot in the set list, and belatedly reached No. 4 on the Hot 100.
The success of “Million Reasons” unwittingly served as the blueprint for an even bigger hit the following year. After spending the rest of 2017 touring the world behind Joanne (including a headlining slot at Coachella, swooping in to replace a pregnant Beyoncé atop the bill), Gaga devoted 2018 to her first Hollywood starring role, in Bradley Cooper’s remake of A Star is Born. After spot acting roles in the 2010s, Gaga was given ample room to emote and bewitch as Ally, a struggling singer-songwriter who begins a wind-swept romance with Cooper’s country-rock A-lister, Jackson Maine.
A Star is Born became a box office smash and meme-spawning pop culture phenomenon that earned Gaga an Oscar nomination for best actress, cementing the pop superstar as a Hollywood headliner. Yet for longtime fans of her music, the film’s original soundtrack was the true payoff from the project, with plenty of heartfelt torch songs and eye-watering balladry across a track list that Gaga helmed with producers like Dave Cobb and Lukas Nelson, and artists like Mark Ronson and Jason Isbell. Most importantly, the film and soundtrack contained a centerpiece song that lived up to its placement.
“Shallow,” a duet between Gaga and Cooper posited in Star as the song that solidifies their characters’ bond forever, harnessed Gaga’s pop power for a country-rock sing-along, recalling the sweep of “Million Reasons” and heightening the drama tenfold. “Shallow” transcended A Star is Born to become a pop hit in its own right — and after Gaga and Cooper performed the duet at the Academy Awards, where “Shallow” won the best original song trophy, the song zoomed to the top of the Hot 100, the general population embracing a special moment at the awards ceremony. Years after dazzling in primetime by covering herself in fake blood, Gaga had graced the Oscars stage with utmost elegance, capable of evolving her talents and becoming a stately pop spokeswoman.
At this point, Gaga was squarely in her thirties and with nothing left to prove as a commercial star — yet it had simply been too long since she had unleashed any radio-ready bangers. Chromatica, her 2020 album that represented a return to unabashedly hooky electro-pop, was released at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown, and acted as a balm for pop fans during a difficult moment in the world.
Although Chromatica recalled elements of The Fame and The Fame Monster sonically and lyrically, with lead single “Stupid Love” built around ecstatic electronic squeals and “Sour Candy” (featuring K-pop girl group BLACKPINK) bursting with sexually charged double entendres, the album featured a more mature perspective as it explored themes of healing, overcoming trauma and embracing positivity. “Rain on Me,” Gaga’s house-inspired duet with Ariana Grande, turned into an unexpected rallying cry in quarantine — “I’d rather be dry, but at least I’m alive/ Rain on me,” goes the chorus — and the song debuted atop the Hot 100, later winning a Grammy for best pop duo/group performance.
More than a decade after her breakthrough, Gaga had successfully returned to the sound where she began, and offered a piece of personal evolution for mass consumption. When lockdown ended, and Little Monsters got to watch Gaga perform “Rain on Me” in stadiums on her Chromatica Ball tour, the moment felt hard-earned, and euphoric.
If the history of Lady Gaga’s career is any indication, she is never going to stop entertaining, even as that entertainment takes different forms and plays out in different media. Just in the past few months, she co-starred in Joker: Folie à Deux, an R-rated musical where she got to play Harley Quinn; released Harlequin, a surprise “companion album” to the film full of jazz-standard covers; scored a soft-rock smash alongside Bruno Mars with “Die With a Smile,” currently the No. 2 song in the country; and dropped “Disease,” a darkly lit synth-pop single that will lead into a 2025 album.
There are viewers and listeners in the center of the Venn diagram that those projects form, but Gaga has also demonstrated an ability to cater to different audiences by allowing her creativity to roam free. She’s been chasing her muse for 15 years, and whatever she comes up with next, you can bet that she’s going to pour her entire artistic soul into that endeavor, and that a lot of people will wrap their arms around it.
That’s why Lady Gaga has resonated with an entire generation of pop fans, from the longtime Little Monsters to the casual fans who can hum along to more of her hits than they realize, to the new stars like Chappell Roan who are internalizing Gaga’s performance art while existing at pop’s current vanguard. As a breath of fresh air on late 2000s radio, a button-pushing provocateur trying on different sounds, or a leading lady gracing the most prestigious stages or a daring performer commanding audiences of thousands, Lady Gaga has always been authentically herself, and will continue to be that forever – whether making social statements, presenting grand artistic projects, or simply proclaiming, “Rahhh, rahhh, ah-ah-ahhh!”
Read more about the Greatest Pop Stars of the 21st Century here — find our accompanying podcast deep dives and ranking explanations here — and be sure to check back every Tuesday this November as we unveil the rest of our top five, leading up to our No. 1 Greatest Pop Star being revealed on Dec. 3!
THE LIST SO FAR:
25. Katy Perry
24. Ed Sheeran
23. Bad Bunny
22. One Direction
21. Lil Wayne
20. Bruno Mars
19. BTS
18. The Weeknd
17. Shakira
16. Jay-Z
15. Miley Cyrus
14. Justin Timberlake
13. Nicki Minaj
12. Eminem
11. Usher
10. Adele
9. Ariana Grande
8. Justin Bieber
7. Kanye West
6. Britney Spears
5. Lady Gaga
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