Why spring 2024 may be the greatest diva season in pop history — from Beyoncé and Taylor Swift to Billie Eilish
Beyond those April showers, it’s raining pop divas this spring.
Ever since Ariana Grande kicked off the season atop the Billboard 200 with “Eternal Sunshine” — scoring what was then the biggest opening week of any album in 2024 — while simultaneously notching a No. 1 debut on the Hot 100 with her current single “We Can’t Be Friends (Wait for Your Love),” it’s been one boss lady after another running the music game.
Indeed, before we even got to April Fools’ Day, we were also flipping our lace-front wigs over new albums by Kacey Musgraves (“Deeper Well”) and, of course, Beyoncé (“Cowboy Carter”). And in the next few weeks, we’ll be girl-crushing over the latest LPs from both Taylor Swift (“The Tortured Poets Department,” out April 19) and Dua Lipa (“Radical Optimism,” due May 3).
As if that weren’t enough to have us licking our lipstick, this week Billie Eilish — hot off of a Song of the Year Grammy and a Best Original Song Oscar for her “Barbie” ballad “What Was I Made For?” — announced that she would be joining the spring rush of pop’s leading ladies with her third studio album, “Hit Me Hard and Soft,” out May 17.
Forget that total solar eclipse — the array of A-list starlets blasting through our galaxy in femme formation is truly unprecedented.
In fact, with these half-dozen women owning 31 No. 1 hits and a staggering 67 Grammys between them, it’s shaping up to be the greatest diva season in pop history.
Certainly, Grande, Musgraves and Mrs. Carter have already delivered three of the best sets of 2024, a trio of LPs that are sure to make some year-end Top 10 lists — and are already strong contenders for Album of the Year nominations at the 2025 Grammys.
Four years after “Positions,” Grande — who had released six LPs between 2013 and 2020 — returned from her unusually long album hiatus with the shimmering sumptuousness (and brilliant vocal arrangements) of “Eternal Sunshine.”
Like Grande, Musgraves — riding high on “I Remember Everything,” her chart-topping duet with Zach Bryan — landed the coveted musical guest spot on “Saturday Night Live” last month. And after her previous album, 2021’s “Star-Crossed,” the country-pop darling returned to twangier territory on “Deeper Well.”
Meanwhile, Beyoncé’s countrified “Cowboy Carter” opus has been the undisputed event record of 2024. Released to rave reviews (including mine) and record-shattering streams on March 29, the ambitious album lassoed the biggest opening of the year in its chart-topping debut on the Billboard 200 this week.
The early front-runner to finally win Bey the Album of the Year Grammy, “Cowboy Carter” also made Queen B the first black woman to reign over the Billboard Top Country Albums chart, while simultaneously holding the top three spots on the Hot Country Songs chart — led by her No. 1 single “Texas Hold ’Em.”
The bar has been set high for Swift, but after the Empress of Eras just won a record fourth Album of the Year Grammy for “Midnights” in February, is there any doubting what she’s capable of when “The Tortured Poets Department” drops next week?
Likewise, Eilish has been on a seemingly unstoppable roll as the most important artist of her generation since releasing her influential debut album “When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?” five years ago — when she was all of 17.
It would seem hardest for Lipa to keep up with this competition. Her first two singles from “Radical Optimism,” “Houdini” and “Training Session,” have failed to crack the Top 10, but it wasn’t long ago that she was right there with her “Barbie” bop “Dance the Night.”
Either way, there is no doubt that in this diva season, the pop patriarchy has been overthrown.
