How Pop Sounds Now: The Playlist There are new rules. Here’s what they sound like. 1 “Roses” (with Juice WRLD feat. Brendon Urie) benny blanco, Juice WRLD, Brendon Urie

2 “Lose It” Kane Brown

3 “Mic Drop” [feat. Desiigner] (Steve Aoki Remix) BTS

4 “Mi Gente” (feat. Beyoncé) J balvin, Willy William, Beyoncé

5 “Drinkin’ Too Much” Sam Hunt

6 “Taki Taki” (with Selena Gomez, Ozuna & Cardi B) DJ Snake, Selena Gomez, Ozuna, Cardi B

7 “Mia” (feat. Drake) Bad Bunny, Drake

8 “I Like It” Cardi B, Bad Bunny, J Balvin

9 “Sunflower” from “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” Post Malone, Swae Lee

10 “Stop Trying to Be God” Travis Scott

11 “In My Feelings” Drake

12 “Kiss and Make Up” Dua Lipa, Blackpink

What pop means changes depending on what angle you’re looking from. It can be a descriptor of audience size, indicating something that’s popular, or it can be a genre tag, specifying a sound. But for much of the last three decades, these two definitions have effectively been one and the same.

You know the sort: Katy Perry’s confetti cheer, Justin Timberlake’s feather-light chirps, Lady Gaga’s exorbitant theater, Taylor Swift’s guileless guile. Music that strives for gloss, pep, ecstasy, spectacle. Often an expression of whiteness, too. A one-size-fits-all solution. For a time, in the 1980s, this kind of pop music — think of Michael Jackson and Madonna — was effectively monoculture, which is why the two meanings of pop have been so tightly tethered, and so difficult to disentangle.

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But in the last couple of years, this framework has been almost completely dismantled, owing in large part to the widespread adoption of streaming. What were once regarded merely as pop subgenres — K-pop, Latin trap, melodic hip-hop and more — have become the center of the conversation.

Cardi B’s “Invasion of Privacy” wasn’t available as a physical CD upon its release.

This is not an arbitrary agglomeration of styles. This is Pop 2.0 — music that comes from several different scenes, but works with its own distinct set of rules. It is the first time in decades that the playbook for pop success has been updated, and it has profoundly reshaped the sound of America.

Previously, when artists from hip-hop, country or hard rock were said to be going pop, that implied they were sacrificing something essential about themselves in exchange for something plastic and transitory. Pop was a softening. A compromise.

Now, thanks to the largely frictionless internet, and the evolution in how Billboard calculates its charts — accounting for streaming data in addition to sales and radio play — these styles top the charts in unfiltered fashion. Hip-hop almost completely dominates streaming. Latin trap and reggaeton thrive on YouTube. K-pop, the dominant sound of young South Korea, has become a live-concert blockbuster and outrageously popular online worldwide. All of that has made for Billboard charts that look vastly different than they did a decade ago, and sets the template for how all of pop music will sound moving forward.

How Much Is a Stream Worth? As CD sales and paid downloads declined, Billboard began incorporating digital streams into its charts by determining how many plays count as the equivalent of one album sold. One album sold... = 1 CD bought = 10 track downloads = 1,250 paid streams (For subscribers to services like Apple Music and Spotify) = 3,750 free streams (On YouTube, for example, or Spotify’s free-tier) Source: Billboard How Much Is a Stream Worth? As CD sales and paid downloads declined, Billboard began incorporating digital streams into its charts by determining how many plays count as the equivalent of one album sold. One album sold... = 1 CD bought = 10 track downloads = 1,250 paid streams (For subscribers to services like Apple Music and Spotify) = 3,750 free streams (On YouTube, for example, or Spotify’s free-tier) Source: Billboard

Even though they have emerged from different scenes, these artists are in many cases working with a common grammar. They both rap and sing, switching between or blending the two depending on the situation. Their moods are melancholic, rarely ecstatic. Their production borrows from trap, the brawny Southern rap of the last decade. In some cases, they are casually bilingual (and in some others, they take in musical ideas from around the globe). They are artists who are as effective guesting on other people’s songs as they are anchoring their own. And they are, by and large, performers who are extremely gifted at self-presentation on social media — they learned to invent themselves online as much as in a studio.

What looks like the simultaneous triumph of several parallel sounds — molten, streaming-oriented hip-hop; punkish SoundCloud rap; bulbous Latin trap; chaotic K-pop; forward-thinking country music and more — is in fact the ascendance of one set of ideals that define what pop music has become. Pop, the genre, is no longer pop.

The Popularity Game 2018 music consumption by genre... If you factor in streaming, the most popular genre in the United States is no longer pop or rock — it’s R&B/hip-hop INCLUDING STREAMING 13% 9.5% 54% 19% TRADITIONAL SALES ONLY 14% 20% 23% 33% R&B/HIP-HOP POP ROCK COUNTRY Source: Nielsen Music The Popularity Game If you factor in streaming, the most popular genre in the United States is no longer pop or rock — it’s R&B/hip-hop 2018 music consumption by genre... INCLUDING STREAMING 13% 9.5% 54% 19% TRADITIONAL SALES ONLY 14% 20% 23% 33% R&B/HIP-HOP POP ROCK COUNTRY Source: Nielsen Music

It’s now time to think of pop music — the Katy Perry, Justin Timberlake, Britney Spears variety — as merely a subgenre, one component of pop. (Even the Grammys appear to have finally caught on: Swift, Ariana Grande, Pink, and Shawn Mendes were all nominated for best pop album, but none received a nod for album of the year.) In its place is this new, utterly modern, increasingly global pop, the end result of the progression of genres that have been asymptotically approaching one another for more than a decade.

As with much in contemporary popular culture, you can trace the roots of this evolution back to hip-hop. By the mid 2000s, thanks to the successes of the labels Bad Boy and Death Row, built upon by the dominance of Jay-Z, 50 Cent and others, rap had become the lingua franca of American popular music, especially for young people.

Kane Brown’s willingness to collaborate with stars outside of country is helping tug the genre in a new direction.

Today’s rising generation of pop stars has never known a time in which Kanye West — or really, Drake — wasn’t the most progressive, creative and meaningful performer working in the mainstream.

The stage was set for this takeover by hip-hop’s pop-rap ascendance of the late 1990s and early 2000s. The critique of hip-hop in those moments was that the genre had traded its edge for wide acclaim. And perhaps that was true; at that time, the balance of power appeared to tilt in the favor of pop centrism, especially since to many, hip-hop still felt like an arriviste genre.

But what was actually happening was a wholesale remaking of the pop tool kit: rock ceding ground to hip-hop, hand-played instruments giving way to (or used in concert with) computer programs. And then there was the internet, which had begun deregulating who had access to certain sounds or styles. Hip-hop took to it quickly, taking advantage of its speed and virality to disseminate itself faster than ever. While participants in other genres were squeaking the last profits out of the old way of doing business, hip-hop relentlessly pushed forward: online mixtape distribution, ringtones, Vine dances, a general lack of interest in traditional album cycles, and much more. Practically every significant music-internet innovation of the last 15 years took hold in hip-hop first.

The Sales vs. Streaming Divide If you factor in streaming, eight of the top 10 albums of the year are rap. If you count only traditional album sales (physical and digital downloads), things look very different — and notably whiter. Some of the top streaming releases were not even available as CDs upon release, indicating their dependence on digital listens. Top 10 albums of the year... INCLUDING STREAMING TRADITIONAL SALES ONLY 1. Drake, “Scorpion” 1. 2. 3. “The Greatest Showman: Original Soundtrack” “A Star Is Born” Soundtrack Eminem, “Kamikaze” 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. Post Malone, “Beerbongs & Bentleys” “The Greatest Showman: Original Soundtrack” Cardi B, “Invasion of Privacy” Travis Scott, “Astroworld” Migos, “Culture II” XXXTentacion, “?” “Black Panther: The Album” Ed Sheeran, “÷” Post Malone, “Stoney” 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. Jason Aldean, “Rearview Town” Justin Timberlake, “Man of the Woods” Travis Scott, “Astroworld” Dave Matthews Band, “Come Tomorrow” Carrie Underwood, “Cry Pretty” Post Malone, “Beerbongs & Bentleys” Pink, “Beautiful Trauma” R&B/HIP-HOP *Not available in stores upon release Sales through November. Source: Nielsen Music The Sales vs. Streaming Divide If you factor in streaming, eight of the top 10 albums of the year are rap. If you count only traditional album sales (physical and digital downloads), things look very different — and notably whiter. Some of the top streaming releases were not even available as CDs upon release, indicating their dependence on digital listens. Top 10 albums of the year... INCLUDING STREAMING 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. Drake, “Scorpion” Post Malone, “Beerbongs & Bentleys” “The Greatest Showman: Original Soundtrack” Cardi B, “Invasion of Privacy” Travis Scott, “Astroworld” Migos, “Culture II” XXXTentacion, “?” “Black Panther: The Album” Ed Sheeran, “÷” Post Malone, “Stoney” TRADITIONAL SALES ONLY 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. “The Greatest Showman: Original Soundtrack” “A Star Is Born” Soundtrack Eminem, “Kamikaze” Jason Aldean, “Rearview Town” Justin Timberlake, “Man of the Woods” Travis Scott, “Astroworld” Dave Matthews Band, “Come Tomorrow” Carrie Underwood, “Cry Pretty” Post Malone, “Beerbongs & Bentleys” Pink, “Beautiful Trauma” R&B/HIP-HOP *Not available in stores upon release Sales through November. Source: Nielsen Music

How the Subcultures Took Over

In Nashville, country music has been importing hip-hop flourishes since about 2012, generating signature hits for Luke Bryan and Blake Shelton, among others. Before abandoning this approach in favor of neutered warm-bath ballads, Florida Georgia Line built a career on it: The remix of its megahit “Cruise,” featuring Nelly, was the pioneer of the form.

But country did not truly have a modern pop star until the breakthrough of Sam Hunt four years ago. An intuitive melodist with hip-hop in his DNA, Hunt is a fully hybrid performer, and his 2014 debut album, “Montevallo,” is the new-sound prototype. He’s recently been joined by Kane Brown, who is part country traditionalist, part genre disrupter. Country stars have been mega-popular before — Garth Brooks, Shania Twain — but the music has not sat at the leading edge of pop ideology until now.

In the mid 2000s, reggaeton had its first American crossover moment with Daddy Yankee’s riotous “Gasolina,” and the potential spread of the genre — which was both sung and rapped, and found common ground between hip-hop and Caribbean music — appeared limitless. But even in the powerful wake of that hit the genre still remained at arm’s length from English-speaking audiences.

Bad Bunny spent 2018 stealing the spotlight on other people’s songs — and making a name for himself.

Reggaeton’s second pop wave arrived a few years ago, headed up by Colombian stars like J Balvin and Maluma, armed with the lessons of the first go-round, and a robust understanding of the new pop rule book. J Balvin built on the Drake formula of rapping and singing and became a global icon, and Ozuna demonstrated even greater flexibility, as he casually slipped between reggaeton, bachata, Latin trap and pure pop. Their success also indirectly paved the way for the rise of Bad Bunny, a self-aware, eccentric Puerto Rican rapper who became the most in-demand guest artist of 2018. This is another part of the new pop playbook: You can be the accent piece, and don’t always have to be the central star. Online, especially, there’s little functional difference.

In the late 2000s, the pop-punk and metalcore that dominated the Warped Tour began to absorb aspects of hip-hop as well. There were a slew of cover songs and, increasingly, bands that incorporated something like rapping into their arsenals. This was partly a long-tail extension of the rap-rock that dominated at the turn of the century — bands like Limp Bizkit and Korn — but it also showed how hip-hop’s methodology was infiltrating even scenes with hidebound rules.

Rappers Might Not Sell ... STREAMS 2018 Drake, “Scorpion” Juice WRLD, “Goodbye & Good Riddance” Jason Aldean, “Rearview Town” 4,000,000,000 1,300,000,000 373,000,000 But they make up for it elsewhere. While the country singer Jason Aldean may have sold more traditional albums than Drake and an internet up-and-comer like Juice WRLD, the rappers’ numbers dwarf Aldean’s in more modern mediums. TRADITIONAL ALBUMS SOLD 2018 Jason Aldean, “Rearview Town” Drake, “Scorpion” Juice WRLD, “Goodbye & Good Riddance” 439,000 297,000 21,000 Sales through November. Source: Nielsen Music Rappers Might Not Sell ... But they make up for it elsewhere. While the country singer Jason Aldean may have sold more traditional albums than Drake and an internet up-and-comer like Juice WRLD, the rappers’ numbers dwarf Aldean’s in more modern mediums. STREAMS 2018 Drake, “Scorpion” Juice WRLD, “Goodbye & Good Riddance” Jason Aldean, “Rearview Town” 4,000,000,000 1,300,000,000 373,000,000 TRADITIONAL ALBUMS SOLD 2018 Jason Aldean, “Rearview Town” Drake, “Scorpion” Juice WRLD, “Goodbye & Good Riddance” 439,000 297,000 21,000 Sales through November. Source: Nielsen Music

Position the next week, without: Juicing the Numbers Through Bundles Billboard position with a ticket bundle: NO. 1 Artists have increasingly used ticket and merchandise bundles to land a chart-topping release: A copy of a new album is built into the price of a concert ticket or T-shirt, whether the fan wants it or not, and if the album is redeemed, it counts as an album sold. Those releases tend not to last very long near the top of the chart. Mumford & Sons, “Delta” NO. 23 20 Dave Matthews Band, “Come Tomorrow” NO. 25 40 60 Jack White, “Boarding House Reach” NO. 62 80 100 120 140 160 Bon Jovi, “This House Is Not For Sale” NO. 169 180 Source: Billboard Juicing the Numbers Through Bundles Artists have increasingly used ticket and merchandise bundles to land a chart-topping release: A copy of a new album is built into the price of a concert ticket or T-shirt, whether the fan wants it or not, and if the album is redeemed, it counts as an album sold. Those releases tend not to last very long near the top of the chart. Position the next week, without: Billboard position with a ticket bundle: NO. 1 Mumford & Sons, “Delta” NO. 23 20 Dave Matthews Band, “Come Tomorrow” NO. 25 40 60 Jack White, “Boarding House Reach” NO. 62 80 100 120 140 160 Bon Jovi, “This House Is Not For Sale” NO. 169 180 Source: Billboard

A decade later, those conversations have found a logical endpoint in the SoundCloud rap explosion of the last two years, which brought the solipsism of emo and pop-punk into hip-hop, and made stars of XXXTentacion and Lil Peep, both now dead, and Juice WRLD, who recently collaborated with Brendon Urie of Panic! at the Disco. This music lives alongside bands like Twenty One Pilots and the 1975, quasi-rock outfits that sound like new-pop moodboards, spanning R&B, reggae, new wave and hip-hop.

And then there is K-pop, which took a sui generis path to this party. For the past few years, K-pop has been hybrid at its core — unburdened by genre restrictions as they exist in this country, groups like BigBang and 2NE1 rendered hip-hop and R&B as ecstatic, arena-filling pop. The result had its own particular sheen that transcended language — K-pop is generally performed in Korean, not English, though that may be starting to change slightly — and these groups began to find substantial audiences here, and elsewhere, outside of their home country. Now, K-pop groups often appear on the Billboard album charts.

This year, the boy band BTS landed the first No. 1 K-pop album on the U.S. album chart. Then it did it again.

The biggest beneficiary has been BTS, a seven-member boy band that in the last two years has become one of the most successful acts in the world, and which recently performed its first stadium show in the United States, at Citi Field. It features rappers and singers, though all the members are fluid in their approaches. And the pomp that has been all but drained from American pop music is here in boatloads: almost no American artists — apart from perhaps Travis Scott — are working on live shows with BTS’s level of intensity and detail.

In this climate, collaborations that would have been considered absurd a decade ago begin to make a kind of sense: Kane Brown and the pop singer Becky G, BTS and the rapper Desiigner, Bad Bunny with Marc Anthony and Will Smith, Cardi B with everyone. Since they’re all drawing from the same well, the fact that they might come from different scenes feels like a small quibble at most.

A Critical Moment for the Old Guard

As all of these developments were taking place outside of hip-hop, hip-hop itself was mutating. The melodic softening proposed by Kanye West and Pharrell Williams received a full embrace from Drake, who would become the genre’s signature change agent beginning in the late 2000s. Previously, rappers typically outsourced the singing that happened in between their verses. Drake took on the responsibilities himself, making melody the genre’s central concern.

The Drake Effect Weekly streams of Travis Scott’s “Astroworld” by song As in the CD era, one breakout streaming hit can lead to millions of albums sold — especially if that song includes the current king of streaming. One song featuring Drake from Travis Scott’s “Astroworld” has increasingly buoyed the album over time. Week 1 Week 2 Week 17 15% 20% 71% 349 million total streams 167 million total streams 52 million total streams “SICKO MODE,” FEATURING DRAKE ALBUM’S 16 OTHER SONGS COMBINED Source: Nielsen Music The Drake Effect As in the CD era, one breakout streaming hit can lead to millions of albums sold — especially if that song includes the current king of streaming. One song featuring Drake from Travis Scott’s “Astroworld” has increasingly buoyed the album over time. Weekly streams of Travis Scott’s “Astroworld” by song Week 1 Week 2 Week 17 15% 20% 71% 349 million total streams 167 million total streams 52 million total streams “SICKO MODE,” FEATURING DRAKE ALBUM’S 16 OTHER SONGS COMBINED Source: Nielsen Music

If there is a lodestar of Pop 2.0, it is Drake. Almost every important star or innovation in the genre in the last decade can be traced back to him — directly or indirectly, in homage or in opposition. He has effectively remade hip-hop in his image: You see him in younger artists who effortlessly blend singing and rapping, and he has bestowed his imprimatur on Migos, Fetty Wap, French Montana and so many more.

Just one track featuring Drake can change an album’s commercial fate.

The Drake formula, distended to extremes, ends up somewhere near the music of Post Malone, a face-tattooed onetime folk singer who has become a kind of post-rap incantation specialist. His album “Beerbongs & Bentleys” — soupy, moany and unexpectedly sprightly — was the year’s second-most-consumed album, after Drake’s “Scorpion.” These albums together encapsulate the ne plus ultra of the new pop.

That they also constitute a new, stand-alone umbrella approach to pop is made even more clear by the fact that the one place where this approach hasn’t firmly taken hold is in the world of the old pop — pop as it once was, that is.

While younger pure-pop stars, like Mendes and Grande, are finding success, they are effectively a niche proposition in the wider conversation. And old 1.0-mode stars like Perry and Timberlake have essentially faded from relevance: They may still be viable touring acts, and collect endorsements, but they are cashing in on old fame. Before long, they’ll be replaced in those worlds, as well. (Other superstars are effectively outsiders. Adele exists in her own ecosystem, barely in dialogue with the rest of pop; Bruno Mars is so focused on picture-perfect homage that he also effectively works in his own space.)

Chart Longevity Is Hard to Come By (If You’re Not Streaming Well) Position on the Billboard album chart over time NO. 1 Traditional pop albums without a long-running streaming hit have a much harder time sticking around than they used to, as seen in the story of the last two Taylor Swift releases: 2 “1989” (2014) 3 “Reputation” (2017) 4 5 WEEK 1 4 8 12 16 Source: Billboard Chart Longevity Is Hard to Come By (If You’re Not Streaming Well) Traditional pop albums without a long-running streaming hit have a much harder time sticking around than they used to, as seen in the story of the last two Taylor Swift releases: Position on the Billboard album chart over time NO. 1 2 “1989” (2014) 3 “Reputation” (2017) 4 5 WEEK 1 4 8 12 16 Source: Billboard

That said, there is plenty of Pop 2.0 in Rihanna, the most modern of all pop singers. She is fluid — a singer, a rapper, a toaster — equally comfortable with R&B ballads, EDM thumpers and dance hall slither. And there is flexibility in Beyoncé, too; her rapping on “Everything Is Love,” her collaborative album with Jay-Z this year, was impressive, but she is such a ferocious singer that anytime she veers from that, it feels like only a dalliance.

And what about the stadium-show busker Ed Sheeran, who delivers infectious melodies with an unassuming manner?

From a distance, he appears like a stalwart of the old guard, a mainstream folk singer. That’s not the whole story, though. He also slips into rapping sometimes. And he collaborates with rappers. And also contemporary African musicians. And possibly, he hinted recently, BTS. He was comfortable with the old playbook, but he can navigate the new one, too. A survivor as his old peers become extinct.