This biggest pop artist right now is Lauren Daigle. In fact, the Louisiana girl landed her first top 40 hit with You Say. She’s unique because she was never backed by a big machine with big budgets for press, celebrity endorsements, advertisements, and other media companies. She built an audience through performing and releasing thought provoking songs that people connect too, influencing a new generation of females.

Upon the release of You Say, we posted an article ‘Lauren Daigle Ready For Domination‘. Now, she’s more than ready. It’s full takeover status. It just comes down to a few big market radio stations jumping on board. Why haven’t they? The good new is Warner Bros. is promoting the song to pop formats, while Centricity continues to work it to Christian radio according to Billboard.

Here is why top 40 radio needs to embrace Lauren Daigle.

You Say has clocked over 115 million on-demand U.S. audio and video streams combined and sold 368,000 downloads to date.

Billboard Mag notes:

Adult pop programmers playing “You Say” find the song an easy fit.

“A segment of our audience is familiar with Lauren Daigle from Christian radio, but whether they know her or not, the song connected quickly,” says Jill Roen, assistant program director and music director at Adult Pop Songs reporter KSTP Minneapolis. CONTINUE READING

Lady Gaga successfully transitioned from a pop singer to a social media star, then to an actress. She is wrapping it all up with a Las Vegas residency debut.

Billboard: “An absolutely delicious smorgasbord of pop music, performance art and fantastic futurism during her 90-minute set that kicked off in true Gaga fashion.”

People Mag: “highly energetic show.”

Rolling Stone: “Brittany Spanos also said “sensory overload” of a performance. “For a show that at first seemed like an excuse to remind us what Gaga is best at, it ended up becoming a show that confirms and begins her legacy”

Yahoo Music: “full-on conceptual production featuring the diva at her campy, crazy best…”

Entertainment Weekly: “weird, wonderful Lady Gaga.”

Consequence of Sound said it best. Lady Gaga is pop’s self-made woman. She kept saying she was a superstar until everyone believed her.

Female pop singers dominated the top 40 charts in 2018 which made headlines. The Guardian ran with “Fame and fortune rising for female pop stars in UK” while The Telegraph printed “Gender gap in pop music charts nearly closed after string of hits by female singers, new data shows”.

So who are these female pop stars that created the monumental shift in 2018? Well that would be rapper Cardi B, Dua Lipa Jess Glynne, and Ariana Grande. These artists had a string of hits that spent nearly 300+ weeks on the top 40 charts.

This is not an orchestrated effort to close a gender gap because next year could look completely different. If Cardi B and Dua Lipa slowed down, then who would take their place? Cardi B spent the longest in the UK top 40 at 77 weeks with songs I Like It and Girls Like You.

The NFL first made waves when it revealed that it does not pay its halftime acts a performance fee. The NFL may want to consider coughing up money because artists simply don’t want the gig anymore. You would think artists would jump at the opportunity to perform for a 100 million watchers.

Although the NFL likes to have younger artists perform, regardless, Maroon 5 took the non-paying Super Bowl gig. The pop band reached out to a half of dozen stars to appear as featured guests, but none have agreed. According to sources, the featured guests including Cardi B, Andre Benjamin, and Mary J. Blige turned down the offer.

As one insider said about the halftime show, “Nobody wants to be associated with it.”

But why? Some say the NFL became overly controversial with a player’s right to protest. A-list artists don’t want the risk of alienating their fanbase for a non-paying gig. Since Atlanta will host the Super Bowl, Maroon 5 is looking for a local act to perform with them.

Although Emo Rap has been around for a long time, analysts say the genre had an explosive year. Emo Rap is a subgenre of hip hop that blends lyrical themes of emo music. Emo rap is also called SoundCloud Rap. Who are these SoundCloud rappers? Well they would be Lil Pump, Lil Peep, Lil Xan, Future, Juice WRLD, and Migos. 

In fact, it was Jarad “Juice WRLD” Higgins that was Spotify’s “breakout artist of the year”. But can a Spotify breakout artist compete in the mainstream? 

Popular charting rappers like J. Cole, Russ, and Eminem have become dissenters while criticizing the scene as mumble rap.  

“Emo rap grew 292 percent in 2018 over last year,” wrote Spotify’s trends expert Shanon Cook in an email. “According to our data, emo rap’s share of listening started increasing in the fall of 2017, but really took off in 2018.”

Erika Montes who works at Soundcloud, said that early artists created the genre using influences from Atlanta’s Trap scene, emo, punk and beats reminiscent of the 90s.

Critics of the genre claims it glorifies drug use. Drugs like opioids, heroin, and fentanyl have been linked to the scene. But then again, those same drugs were linked to the 90’s grunge scene that killed off many rockers. 

The emo rap scene appeals to a community who are searching for something real. Will it dominate mainstream? Probably not. SoundCloud rappers are to rebellious for the mainstream. How long will it last? Nobody knows. The emo rock scene that birthed artists like My Chemical Romance and Fallout Boy lasted for 8 years. Many of the emo bands were embraced by top 40 radio. The SoundCloud rappers are probably to edgy to enjoy the same worldwide appeal, but they are big enough to be trolled by Eminem.