It’s been a hell of a year in pop. We’ve seen new stars crowned, enjoyed some amazing new records and styles and – sadly – lost more than a few legends.
After years of bemoaning the lack of real stars, and music increasingly becoming a faceless streamed-in commodity that leaks out of speakers rather than blows them up, 2024 has been a bit of a return to form.
Rather than run a finger down a relentless list of releases and ponder ‘who?’ it’s easy to point fingers at 2024’s winners and note the fact that they’re pretty much all female.
Yes, it’s been quite the year for the girls as our month-by-month rundown reveals… Hit it!
January
2024 got off to a flying musical misfire as Green Day – aware of 2024’s upcoming American election and with a prime spot on the US TV’s biggest New Years Eve show (the preposterously titled Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve With Ryan Seacrest) – decided to use the exposure and airtime to put the boot into one Donald J Trump.
Altering the lyrics of American Idiot from “I’m not a part of a redneck agenda”, to “I’m not a part of the MAGA agenda”, frontman Billie Joe Armstrong’s swipe at The Don’s ‘Make America Great Again’ catchphrase ruffled feathers, becoming just one of the contentious highlights of a show that later gave away $1m, only to have its hapless winner seemingly die live on television.
Green Day’s attempts to kick-start the steal made perfect sense at the time, but the jibe quickly drew ire online, including from one Elon Musk who took to his Twitter plaything to retort, “Green Day goes from raging against the machine to milquetoastedly raging for it.”
Green Day goes from raging against the machine to milquetoastedly raging for it 🤣🤣January 1, 2024
And indeed, following such a convincing subsequent Trump win later in 2024 and the world settling down to spending four years with a guy who’s going to buy Greenland and invade Panama, the band’s covert year-opening rant only ever grew more out of tune.
And the start of 2024 also saw one of pop’s biggest stars similarly willing to go nuclear.
Countering rumours that Charli XCX and Julia Michaels had been invited to pitch songs for her long-awaited comeback, Britney Spears took to her socials to violently baulk at the suggestion, announcing that not only would she not be using their songs, but would actually never be recording another song ever again.
“Just so we’re clear, most of the news is trash !!!” she exploded (in a subsequently deleted post). “They keep saying I’m turning to random people to do a new album … I will never return to the music industry !!!”
Not only that but Spears revealed that she herself had written over 20 songs for other artists over the past two years and that “When I write I write for fun or I write for other people !!! I’m a ghostwriter and I honestly enjoy it that way !!!”
Her January boast/promise has - so far at least - proved 50% true. Spears has indeed failed to release any new music in 2024 (her last album was 2016’s Glory) and she must be using a pseudonym for her writing work as she’s similarly not earned a single writing credit elsewhere yet too…
Enjoying a more successful start to the year was Sophie Ellis Bextor who, following the use of her 2002 number two hit Murder On The Dancefloor in bathwater-drinking angst-fest Saltburn, saw the track rocket back up the charts.
Thanks to the movie’s millennial pile-on, Ellis-Bextor’s second single once again made it to number 2, 22 years after it last burned this goddamn house right down.
Finally, the dark days of January proved to be the perfect grow bag for the planet’s dormant Jungle producers who – when handed a sample gift horse by Amol Rajan on University Challenge – rose to that challenge with aplomb.
Fielding the question “What name is given to the genre of dance music that developed in the UK in the early 1990s out of the rave scene and reggae sound system culture associated with acts such as A Guy Called Gerald and Goldie?” Rajan slapped back contestant Osbourne’s hopeful “Drum and Bass?” offering with a curt “I can’t accept Drum and Bass, we need Jungle I’m afraid.”
The rest became meme legend.
February
February kicked off what was to become one of 2024’s most prevalent musical themes – the all-powerful presence of female stars throughout the year, either kick-starting their careers or sustaining their rule by providing the majority of the year’s biggest tunes.
February’s Grammy Awards, therefore, were dominated by women with Taylor Swift, SZA, Miley Cyrus, and Billie Eilish winning the evening’s biggest prizes.
February was also home to the sad news of the passing of Boney M founder Frank Farian who died aged 84. Farian was best known as the hit songwriter, musician and producer behind Boney M, famously writing and producing all their hits while performing all the male vocal parts (mimed to by the band’s Bobby Farrell), across their entire career.
Farian would, of course, go on to work similar covert magic as the writer, producer and performer of all of Milli Vanilli’s famously artist-free output.
In music biz news, all the talk was of Sony Music’s acquisition of half of Michael Jackson’s back catalogue. The deal – placing a value of $600 million on half of his output (and rights to other records owned by Jackson) – would be the largest ever for the acquisition of a single artist’s work.
Jackson himself was, of course, a famously shrewd music rights investor himself who, after getting advice from Paul McCartney that he should buy up rights to famous tunes as a lasting investment, promptly snapped up all of Lennon and McCartney’s songs with The Beatles, much to Macca’s chagrin.
And speaking of investments, special mention to Jennifer Lopez's self-financed (to the tune of $20 million) self-destructive, self-ish movie mess This Is Me… Now.
Released this month, with a plot too contrived to explain here and ‘action’ and ‘acting’ barely recognisable as such, its trailer suggested that the movie comes “from the soul of Jennifer Lopez.” Wow. Jennifer Lopez’s soul sucks ass.
It’s not all bad though. If nothing else, TIMN proved that pop vanity and insanity were still alive and well even in 2024’s more enlightened times.
March
March caught Lizzo fans by surprise as the star announced that she was quitting… something… we weren’t quite sure what exactly. But it appears that shortly after attaining fame, it had brought her nothing but trouble with sexual harassment and toxic working environment legal claims landing from members of her tour crew.
"I'm getting tired of putting up with being dragged by everyone in my life and on the internet," Lizzo fought back, adding that she "didn’t sign up for this s_t. I QUIT!”
The news prompted social media confusion and upset, requiring a clarification post days later.
"When I say 'I quit,' I mean I quit giving any negative energy attention. What I'm not going to quit is the joy of my life, which is making music and connecting to people.” Phew.
March’s musical highlight was of course The Brit Awards. Effectively headlined pre-show by Dua Lipa, it was actually the lesser-known Raye’s ongoing triumph over label adversity that caught the attention on the night.
Having been nominated for seven awards, the R&B, pop, soul, blues, jazz juggernaut went on to win a stunning six off them, beating the record jointly held by Adele, Harry Styles and Blur who’d all harvested four wins in previous Brit landslides.
Performance of the night? We’ll go for plucky Chase and Status with a blossoming Becky Hill, busting out a Baddadan/Disconnect mash-up. ‘Ere dis:
And big up to Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant (Who? - Ed) who became unlikely musical celebs in March (and throughout the rest of 2024) by spending an estimated $600 million on their wedding, a huge chunk of which went into the pockets of popstars.
Determined to make their nuptials go with a bang, the barmy billionaires drafted in a legion of pop royalty to serenade them at multiple parties in stunning venues all across the globe, right throughout the year.
Firstly Rihanna performed a 19-song private set at a pre-wedding celebration, her first gig in eight years, earning her an estimated $8 million.
The party continued onto a cruise through the med with sets from David Guetta, The Backstreet Boys, Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli on consecutive nights, and – appropriately enough for the couple’s globe-shattering shindig, a gig from ‘Mr Worldwide’ himself, Pitbull. (Pitbull?? - Ed)
But the big guns were being held back for the wedding itself with none other than the (semi-retired?) Justin Bieber surfacing to press the flesh and trouser an estimated $10 million in the process.
Less joyous March news saw the ‘official’ kick-off to Kendrick Lamar’s beef with Drake and associated hangers on.
Despite having previously shared the mic on collabs, and Drake effectively bringing Lamar under his wing and into the limelight, it seems that when J Cole suggests that he, Drake and Lamar are ‘the big three’ on First Person Shooter (from October 2023), Lamar disagreed. Thus in March 2024 Lamar raps “Motherf–k the big three, n—a, it’s just big me.” on his appearance on Metro Boomin’ and Future’s Like That, officially kick-starting a beef-with-all-the-trimmings that’s still rumbling on.
But the big release of March 2024 had to be Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter. Featuring Bey in full country music mode with lead tracks 16 Carriages and Texas Hold ‘Em breaking rules and boundaries and seemingly catching fans and the entire music industry on the hop… Most specifically the playlist programmers of radio station KYKC Oklahoma who had denied a listener’s request to play Beyoncé's latest “as they are a country music station”…
Fortunately common sense soon prevailed and Texas Hold ‘Em hit the number one slot on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart, making Beyoncé the first Black woman to do so.
April
Incoming… Taylor Swift’s latest, The Tortured Poets Department was released in April of 2024 and instantly set the agenda for what was to become very much ‘her year’.
Sure, lead off single Fortnight seems to have been picked because it was the album’s 'side one track one' but at least the (idiotically?) honest I Can Do It With A Broken Heart – in which she basically says that it’s all an act and you’re stupid for not realising – goes some way to capture some of the meaningful magic of her previous single bests.
Far less magical was Grimes' Coachella DJ set in April, which will doubtless live on as the perfect lesson in ‘how not to DJ’ until… Quite probably, the end of time.
Living out every DJ’s worst nightmare the artist stepped onto the world’s stage to play a heavily prepped and cued set – complete with large and lavish synched projections and visuals – only to have her tracks run at double speed and prove impossible to mix, control or rectify.
Turning the performance into a piece of performance art (rather than the blinding DJ set she had planned) Grimes spent the duration of her cringing time in the hot seat explaining on mic as to what had gone wrong, over a soundtrack of random music and non-synced lighting and video before admitting defeat and leaving the stage.
Moral of the story? Always prep your own USB stick then never let it out of your sight.
Likewise not particularly enjoying Coachella this April were Blur who – being the Brit fish out of water, playing a gig in a desert – entirely failed to ignite a Girls and Boys call and response audience participation singalong.
“You’re never seeing us again,” chided Damon Albarn, at least, in that fleeting moment, capturing the Coachella audience’s sentiments perfectly.
May
Charlie Puth. Who hell he? Well, if you were in any doubt as to the identity and talent of Charlie Puth prior to Taylor Swift’s namecheck on The Tortured Poets Department’s title track, then you were certainly illuminated after it.
Swift, seemingly thinking out loud explains how she and [insert unnamed ex-lover here] ”declared Charlie Puth should be a bigger artist”… And the man himself couldn’t have been happier about finally making the big time, revealing to Rolling Stone that he burst into tears when he heard his name mentioned.
“My first thought was like, ‘Wow. She said my name.’ She kind of said it like P-O-O-T-H,” he said. “And I just cried, dude.”
Similarly shedding tears in May were Girls Aloud who finally hit the road, two years after they had planned to.
Predictably, the group had planned to reunite in 2022 for a 20th anniversary tour (after the success of their 10th back in 2012) but the illness and subsequent death of band member Sarah Harding forced them to abandon plans.
This reunion was therefore a bittersweet affair, delighting fans with a celebration of their music, all the while highlighting Harding’s contribution to the band and sadness for her not being present.
And May proved to be the curious choice of month in which Apple Music dropped their pick of the best 100 albums of all time, slowly eking out the list across the month, releasing their findings in blocks of ten – with some surprising results.
Their number one album of all time? Lauryn Hill’s The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill from 1998, with the fact that it remains Hill’s only ever solo album making its appointment all the more poignant.
But the big album release from May 2024 had to be the arrival of Billie Eilish’s Hit Me Hard and Soft. The album – her third – shows Eilish reaching peak songwriting and performance form, maturing considerably from her faux-emo electronic dabblings to deliver genuine pop perfection in the shape of Birds of a Feather.
June
June saw Taylor Swift’s Eras tour finally arriving in the UK, with the star playing an incredible three sellout Wembley Stadium in the month followed by five similar sellouts in August. And the London gigs proved particularly star-heavy with Tom Cruise, Liam Hemsworth, Jamie Dornan, Hugh Grant, Ashton Kutcher, Mila Kunis all being spotted in the good seats.
However, it wasn’t Swift’s Tortured Poets Department, Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter OR Billie Eilish’s Hit Me Hard and Soft that walked away with the title of 'most critically acclaimed record of the year'. That honour went to Charli XCX for her sixth and best-yet album, Brat.
The album, released in June, would go on to head up metacritics' top scoring, best-reviewed album list for 2024, and would prove to be the soundtrack of what became known as ‘Brat Summer’ thanks to piledriving hits like 360 and (record of the year?) album lead off Von Dutch.
Similarly enjoying pop triumph in June was Dua Lipa who headlined Glastonbury’s pyramid stage and knocked it out of the park. “I can’t believe this, I’ve dreamed about this my whole life,” she gushed during a rousing all-hits gig that marked 2024 as her career high.
However, June proved not to be a great month for Justin Timberlake. The star was pulled over in June while driving erratically, both failing to stop at a stop sign and failing to keep his car in lane.
Following his refusal to take a breathalyzer test at the scene, the star said Bye Bye Bye to his driving licence after being arraigned on a DWI (driving while intoxicated) charge.
June was also a month that Chris Brown would most likely like to forget after the petulant superstar got stuck, Boris Johnson-style, during a mid-gig aerial stunt gone wrong.
The R&B don had planned to magically fly across the audience during his performance of Under The Influence at the Prudential Centre in Newark, New Jersey but, following a backstage malfunction, was left dangling like a plum instead.
And while Brown continued performing, trying to style it out, his embarrassment and temper tantrum were tangible. And the moment that step ladder comes into shot… Classic.
July
While the rest of womankind seemed to be having a blast through 2024, Katy Perry only ever seemed to be heading in the opposite direction. July saw the release of Women’s World, the lead off single from her 147 album which, despite toting female empowerment themes, was curiously off-message for the cultural shift of the time.
Firstly there were doubts expressed due to the dubious costumery being barely employed throughout its manic video (and a failure to believe Perry’s claims that the video is an ironic pastiche of sexism rather than the actual real thing) and secondly, there was the employment of legendary-but-cancelled Dr Luke as the track's producer – both things that fans took issues with.
Similarly attracting ire this July was Ariana Grande who had been suffering from what could best be described as a vocal malfunction that left fans questioning who the real Grande was.
Growing increasingly higher pitched, sing-song and childlike in tone during her Wicked movie promotion, fans called her out, prompting Grande to post an explainer as to her strange behaviour. “Habit (speaking like this for two years) and also vocal health,” she explained in reply to a post on TikTok. “I intentionally change my vocal placement (high/low) often, depending on how much singing I’m doing. I’ve always done this BYE,” an explanation that only stirred summer’s social media pot even further.
Likewise missing the target was Simon Cowell’s new ‘blink and you missed it’ attempt to put together a new One Direction for Netflix.
The Midas Touch, Cowell’s yet-to-be-broadcast show for Netflix, was to involve the rubber-faced mogul carrying out the sort of mass auditions that made perfect primetime Saturday night entertainment in shows such as X-Factor and Britain’s Got Talent, but auditions in July went with more than a whimper than a bang.
“They started arriving slowly from about 9am on Saturday, but the queue never had more than around 40 people,” a source told the Evening Standard. At the time of writing, Cowell’s show is yet to be officially cancelled.
August
Meanwhile, reading the room perfectly and capitalising on their combined 2024 profile boost, Charli XCX topped off her Brat Summer with a collab with Billie Eilish. Effectively becoming the lead-off from her Brat album’s remix album (the fabulously titled Brat And It’s Completely Different But It’s Also Still Brat) the pair’s track, Guess famously featured a video that’s [yes, we’re going to do this joke one last time] literally pants…
Similarly well dressed was Sam Smith for their appearance at the BBC Proms, injecting some much needed oomph into a musical institution that’s, to put it politely, best enjoyed by music fans of a certain age.
Smith, it seemed, had decided to tone it down, leaving the leather and rubber at home for once, appearing in an austere suit to commence the gig. However, the star opted for a blood-red satin ball gown for his return post-interval, while sounding perfectly on form throughout.
“Don’t worry, I’m not going to get my bum out,” Smith assured the grateful toffs crammed into the Royal Albert Hall. “The clothes are staying on. This is going to be an appropriate show. Even I know there’s a time and place.”
Elsewhere in the live arena, while Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour returned to the UK with her final five Wembley Stadium gigs in August, all the ticket-grabbing talk of the month was only heading in one direction.
After dismissing the notion of a reunion for years, then briefly teasing exactly the opposite on socials, Oasis chose August to make it official and release tickets for a series of gigs beginning in the UK through July and August 2025 before taking the show international through to the end of November.
The fans were, needless to say, delighted but the Oasis team’s choice of dynamic pricing – where ticket prices remain fluid depending on how many people are trying to buy them – saw them hitting a not exactly Wonder(ful) Wall…
After waiting for hours in an online queue for standing tickets at £135, fans were then asked for £337.50 (plus fees) once they got to the pay window. Meanwhile, in Ireland, basic tickets for the Croke Park gigs suffered an even more eye-popping last-minute gouge, surging from €86.50 to €415.50.
The band themselves were quick to distance themselves from the farrago (with the CMA launching an investigation into the matter) but it remains unclear as to who set the prices, while the issue of refunding any overcharging seems to have been quietly swept under the carpet.
September
September saw the eventual release of SOPHIE’s long-awaited album, the eponymously titled Sophie. This second full album by the avant-garde, electronic pop musician, producer and DJ had been nearing completion when, in January of 2024 she tragically fell to her death in Athens while “attempting to glimpse the moon” [from the album’s notes].
Instead, the album was completed by her brother and studio engineer Ben Long, who’d been working closely with her on the record, and intimately understood her vision for it.
Narrowly avoiding such tragedy but similarly remarkable was September’s news that Jon Bon Jovi had saved a life, talking a woman down from a ledge on a Nashville bridge thus successfully ending her suicide attempt.
CCTV footage shows the singer calmly leaning on the railings of the bridge as he speaks to the woman standing on the other side of them, before helping her back to safety. The two hug for a minute, then walk away, leaving the bridge together.
September was, of course, home to MTV’s legendary Video Music Awards and 2024’s show had its share of eye-popping moments and surprises, not least the volume of Britney Spears homage on display.
Tate McRae wore a black lace perfectly recreating the black, lace Dolce & Gabbana number that Spears wore to the VMA’s back in 2001.
Addison Rae went for a skimpy white wedding dress-inspired ensemble, echoing the Britney, Madonna and Christina Aguilera VMA performance from 2003 (itself a homage to Madonna’s 1984 VMA debut).
While Megan The Stallion took the Britney love to the next level, turning up in full Slave For You video costume complete with a live snake…
yes megan thee stallion paying homage to britney spears with a snake! #vmas pic.twitter.com/OR4R5IEefDSeptember 12, 2024
Elsewhere in the month, Coldplay announced and instantly sold out another blast of their endless Music of The Sphere’s tour – this time incorporating an incredible, record-breaking 10 dates at Wembley Stadium.
While things only ever got worse for Sean Diddy Combs in 2024. Having been sued for rape and abuse in 2023, his situation would only darken in 2024 as endless accusations lead to his arrest in September, with trial for racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking scheduled for May 2025.
In happier news, September also saw the announcement of Popjustice’s Twenty Quid Music Prize – the ultimate annual pop accolade where the Popjustice community convenes to decide the best single of the year and bestow its creator with the princely sum of £20.
And 2024’s winner was… Charli XCX and Lorde for their collab The Girl, So Confusing.
What would we have plumped for? Oooh… Got to be a three-way tie between Angel Of My Dreams by JADE, The Thrill of It by Pixey and Charli XCX’s Von Dutch. Thanks for asking.
October
It’s safe to say that things only went from bad to catastrophic for Liam Payne and his fans in October. Firstly there was the news that Payne’s second album had been put on hold as his record company pondered what to do with a star whose shine was very much on the wane.
In a gloriously mis-timed fumble of a release, Payne’s lead-off single, Teardrops (out in March 2024), had impossibly failed to even chart. Following the mishap, manager and confidant Roger Norres had quit and Payne appeared troubled and confused on TikTok in October as he revealed how difficult 2024 had been for him and the effort it had taken to make his second, as yet unreleased album.
@liampayne ♬ original sound - Liam Payne
Captioning the clip Payne said: “There were definitely a lot of teardrops shed in making these records and for the first time you really get a picture of what it was like for me each day of making this record. This album literally is that whole last year for me. How I was feeling on those days is each record. It was a snapshot of that day. So you can even help someone through a tough time, help somebody celebrate something.
“That's really what I want to get across in this record and that's the best part I guess about my job.”
Meanwhile the media rounded on the star, totalising his strange behaviour to date and going as far as to describe Payne as the David Brent of music.
Later that same month, while on an unlikely trip to Argentina to take in a gig by (ex-One Direction bandmate) Nial Horan, Payne fell 14m (45ft) from his third-floor balcony at the Casa Sur hotel in Buenos Aires and was pronounced dead at the scene.
Elsewhere in pop’s October there was better news.
Taylor Swift finally (inevitably) surpassed Rihanna as the world’s richest female musician. Figures released in October placed her net worth estimated at $1.6 billion when taking into account earnings from her vast, sold-out Eras tour and the value of her music catalog – buoyed by the complete ownership of her ‘Taylor’s Version’ re-recorded back catalogue.
Notably she’s the first musician to hit the billionaire mark purely due to her musical interests, with second-place Rihanna's fortune ($1.4 billion) mainly coming from her Fenty beauty products and Savage x Fenty lingerie.
Likewise in the money in October were Pink Floyd who sold the rights to their back catalogue, neighbouring rights, band name and likeness to Sony Music for £400 million.
And in a month where ABBA, Radiohead and The Cure rallied together to fight AI, joining a joint statement demanding that AI companies cease training their models on copyrighted work, it seemed that producer Timbaland didn’t get the memo.
Instead the celebrity producer announced a partnership with AI- powered music creation software Suno the self same week.
Suno has admitted that its AI music generator was trained on "essentially all music files of reasonable quality that are accessible on the open internet", with Timbaland claiming to spend 10 hours a day on the platform, stating that "This is not something to be afraid of - this is something that we need to use."
November
November finally delivered good news for Ed Sheeran regarding his long-standing battle to prove that his Thinking Out Loud – released ten years earlier – didn’t rip off Marvin Gaye’s Let’s Get It On.
In a victory for music (and common sense) the US Court Of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled that Sheeran’s 2014 hit did not infringe on Gaye’s Let’s Get It On, instead claiming that both songs only share the “fundamental musical building blocks”.
Sheeran had previously said that he would be “done with music” if he had been found guilty.
“I am obviously very happy with the outcome of the case and it looks like I am not having to retire from my day job after all. But at the same time I’m unbelievably frustrated that baseless claims like this are allowed to go to court at all,” the star said
And perhaps only further highlighting the difficulties in earning money from music in 2024, Kate Nash announced the surprise release of her OnlyFans page, stating that she was going to be selling pictures of her bum in order to finance her tour.
"I think the arse is the perfect combination of comedy and sexuality," she explained. “I actually like bums. I think they're just quite great. I think it's funny. I enjoy taking pictures of my bum. Always been a bit of a flasher. So I'm going to enjoy doing it, and I'm already putting it online anyway.”
Elsewhere in November, music suffered the huge loss of producer Quincy Jones who died aged 91. Jones’ work is, of course legendary, not least his production work with Michael Jackson, including his vital input while crafting the biggest selling album of all time, Thriller.
Check out our pick of his greatest production moments here.
And what goes around comes around. November saw the Band Aid charity, led by Bob Geldof announce that there would be a fresh take on Band Aid’s Do They Know It’s Christmas for 2024, celebrating the 40th anniversary of the track’s first release.
And rather than being a straight re-record, the 40th anniversary ‘2024 Ultimate Mix’ would be a clever mash-up of the track's previous versions, in a new production by Trevor Horn. That’s the original version from 1984, the Band Aid 20 effort from 2004 and the most recent version, Band Aid 30 from 2014…
Yes, they’re trying to pretend that Stock Aitken Waterman’s 1989 take on the song simply didn’t happen. Fortunately, you can read all about the Band Aid they tried to forget here.
And similarly wishing that the song didn’t exist was Ed Sheeran who observed that his permission to be included on the 40th anniversary mix hadn’t been sought and, if it had been, he would have refused it.
Citing changing times and temperaments, Sheeran sided with his Boa Me collaborator, Fuse ODG saying that, “A decade on and my understanding of the narrative associated with this has changed, eloquently explained by @fuseodg. This is just my personal stance, I’m hoping it’s a forward-looking one. Love to all x.”
Fuse ODG would go on to release his own We Know It’s Christmas clapback track, telling his side of the story.
December
2024’s festive season didn’t get off to a great start for Adele, who found herself accused of stealing a song from Brazilian composer Toninho Geraes, the outcome of which was the suspension of playback of her music from Spotify and other streaming platforms while the matter was concluded.
Judge Victor Torres ordered an injunction stating that Sony Music Entertainment and Universal Music must stop “immediately and globally, from using, reproducing, editing, distributing or commercialising the song Million Years Ago”.
Geraes created the song, Mulheres, for the Brazilian singer Martinho da Vila with Million Years Ago coming too close to comfort to his creation, by his reckoning. Geraes is currently seeking $160,000 (£125,900) recompense and a songwriting credit on Adele’s track.
As yet Sony Music Entertainment and Universal Music have not commented on the case.
Fortunately December brought better news for Taylor Swift. Not only was she finally allowed to step down from her Eras tour following her final gig in Vancouver, Canada on 8 December, but she became the most decorated artist in the history of the Billboard Music Awards following their reveal this month.
The superstar nabbed 10 awards at the ceremony, including top artist and top album for The Tortured Poets Department. Her latest wins bring her 2024 total to 49 – the biggest number of wins by any artist ever.
“This is like the nicest early birthday present you could have given me, so thank you very much,” Swift said in a pre-recorded acceptance speech ahead of her 35th birthday on 13 December. “I love it. It’s exactly what I wanted.”
Similarly beside themselves with joy were Selena Gomez and songwriter and producer Benny Blanco who announced their engagement this month.
With Gomez famous for hits such as Come & Get It and Love You Like A Love Song and Blanco the brains behind hits for Justin Bieber, Rihanna, Katy Perry and Ed Sheeran the pair are sure to make beautiful music together.
The news prompted a mass celebrity pile-on of congratulations, including a promise that “I will be the flower girl,” from one Taylor Swift in the comments on Gomez’ Instagram post.
Similarly celebrating in December was Sabrina Carpenter who rounded out a stunning year by seeing her hit Espresso be crowned the biggest song of 2024 by BBC Radio 1.
The rising superstar spent seven weeks at the top of the UK charts with the song securing Grammy nominations for record of the year and best pop solo performance.
Second place went to Charli XCX’s 360, with Hot To Go hitmaker (and so hot-for-2024) Chappell Roan in third with her single Good Luck, Babe!, and multi-Grammy winner Eilish in fourth place with Birds Of A Feather.
And it’s good news for Wham! Fans again this year as Last Christmas – another song celebrating its 40th anniversary this year – took the UK’s much coveted number one spot for the second year running.
You can read all about the song’s construction, history and legacy right here.
Congratulations to all of this year’s pop stars. Let’s do it all again in 2025!
