Emily Armstrong is taking the bitter with the sweet as she steps into her new role as Linkin Park co-vocalist amid the band’s surprise comeback.

While speaking to Billboard‘s Jason Lipshutz about the rock group’s secret return, the Dead Sara co-founder opened up about both the excitement she feels as well as the emotions that come with filling in for Chester Bennington, whose death in 2017 led Linkin Park to take a seven-year hiatus. “There is so much to this band — this is a very, very important band to this world,” Armstrong said in Billboard‘s exclusive published Thursday (Sept. 5).

“I’m on cloud nine, but then it hits you that there’s a lot of work to be done,” she continued. “And going into these [older] songs, by a singular voice that’s beloved by so many people — it’s like, ‘How do I be myself in this, but also carry on the emotion and what he brought in this band?’”

“It’s Chester’s voice, and it’s mine, but I want it to still feel the way I feel when I listen to the song, because that’s what the fans love,” Armstrong added. “There is a passion to it that I’m hoping I can fill.”

The interview arrived on the same day Linkin Park announced its grand return, with Armstrong on board as Mike Shinoda’s new co-vocalist and Colin Brittain signing on as drummer and co-producer. The band also has a new album, From Zero, arriving Nov. 15, and plans to embark on a major tour starting with six arena shows this fall.

The group also spoke to Billboard about keeping their reunion under wraps leading up to the big announcement, wanting to make sure everything was done perfectly in respect to their late bandmate. “Part of working under darkness was simply the fact that we didn’t know how far we would get in our efforts,” DJ/visual director Joe Hahn said. “We didn’t want to set ourselves or anyone else up for disappointment if we weren’t able to do it.”

He added, “This has been years of struggling to understand what it can and should be.”

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. We’ve already named our Honorable Mentions and our No. 25, No. 24, No. 23, No. 22 and No. 21 stars, and now we remember the century in Bruno Mars — one of the century’s great writers, performers and hitmakers, who essentially arrived to early-’10s pop already on top of the world and has scarcely left his perch since.

Before Bruno Mars became synonymous with near-flawless Grammy track records and surefire Billboard Hot 100 smashes, the 21^st century’s preeminent old-school musical showman was cutting his teeth in the pop songwriting trenches. By racking up hits and placements across pop and R&B on both sides of the pond, Mars set a sturdy foundation for one of the most towering male pop careers of the 21^st century. 

Born Peter Gene Hernandez – “Bruno” comes from a childhood nickname and “Mars” is because he’s “out of this world,” and wouldn’t you agree? — and hailing from Hawai’i, Mars grew up in a family of musicians and began his performance career at the ripe age of four years old. That Mars got his start performing in his family’s band, The Love Notes, and developed an early reputation as his Hawai’i’s own Little Elvis is nothing short of cosmically poetic given how his career and positioning in the American pop ecosystem is informed by that of both Elvis and Michael Jackson. 

After four years of false starts with a failed label deal and a slow-burner of a publishing deal, Mars began to hit his stride in 2008. By then, Mars had cracked the code of his personal twist on pop songwriting in collaboration with Philip Lawrence and Ari Levine, collectively known as The Smeezingtons: explorations of love and pain rooted in grand, sweeping metaphors and live instrumentation steeped in cross-genre ‘80s influences. Just two months into 2009, Mars netted his breakthrough hit as a songwriter: Flo Rida and Kesha’s 2009 Billboard Hot 100-topper “Right Round.”  

That anthem arrived in the first month of the last year of the ‘00s decade, and Mars quickly followed it up with a pair of tracks – K’Naan’s “Wavin’ Flag,” Coca-Cola’s 2010 FIFA World Cup anthem, and Sugababes’ “Get Sexy” — that both hit No. 2 in the U.K. the following year. Recognized and respected for his songwriting chops, Mars closed out 2009 with the release of the song that would launch him into pop’s mainstream as a vocalist and artist in his own right: B.o.B.’s bubbly Hot 100-topping “Nothin’ On You.” 

Positioned as the lead single from B.o.B.’s — then a buzzy Blog Era emcee – major label debut LP, “Nothin’ on You” still stands an era-defining rap&B love ballad, and its success foretold the hip-hop collaboration template Mars would return to throughout his navigation of Top 40’s zenith. Mars would release another pop-rap collab — “Billionaire” (with Travie McCoy) just three months later, earning him another Hot 100 top five hit (No. 4) and more good will with Top 40 radio, while helping usher in 2010s social media’s obsession with speaking things into existence.  

Two months after “Nothin’ on You” topped the Hot 100 in May 2010, Mars properly launched his recording career with “Just the Way You Are,” his debut solo single and lead single from his career-launching Doo-Wops & Hooligans LP. Although some critics initially discounted the song’s sappy lyrics, “Just the Way You Are” eventually became Mars’ first solo Hot 100 chart-topper and earned him his first Grammy, for best male pop vocal performance. That sappiness – which is often just a dual heavy-handed dose of earnestness and appreciation for eras of pop music’s past – is what drew listeners to Mars’ heart-on-your-sleeve anthems throughout the 2010s, especially as the decade began its descent into the kind of cynicism that now derides such displays of ardor. 

Doo-Wops & Hooligans peaked at No. 3 on the Billboard 200 and has since spent nearly 700 weeks on the ranking. In addition to “Just the Way You Are,” the set also spawned the No. 1 hit “Grenade,” while third single “The Lazy Song” hit No. 4. Doo-Wops, a whimsical debut that melded Mars’ love of R&B and reggae with his pop appeal, found Mars taking his trademark tenor to soaring new heights, delivering feel-good anthems and love-proclaiming power ballads in one fell swoop. The spirit of Elvis shined through his look – hipster era fedora-toting artsy guy who occasionally sports a pompadour-inspired haircut – and his stage show.  

Mars’ music didn’t yet call for the physicality of funk, so he found a sweet medium playing a coy multi-instrumentalist heartthrob who wasn’t afraid to bust out a few hip thrusts to get some pulses racing. His debut LP was the kind of smash album that spun gold out of deep cuts: Though they weren’t officially promoted as U.S. radio singles, you’d be hard pressed to find an American over the age of 15 who doesn’t know “Runaway Baby,” “Count on Me” or “Marry You.” Even “Talking to the Moon” got an unexpected TikTok-led resurgence in 2021. 

Though Mars went straight for pop music’s zeitgeist with Doo-Wops, he always kept several toes in the worlds of hip-hop and R&B. For one of the tours he went on to promote the album, he co-headlined a 29-date joint trek with Janelle Monáe — who also released her debut LP in 2010, cementing herself and Mars as the decade’s mainstream torchbearers of funk. In 2011, the year between his debut and sophomore efforts, Mars also scored three consecutive Hot 100 top 20 hits alongside rappers: Bad Meets Evil’s “Lighters” (No. 4), Lil Wayne’s “Mirror” (No. 16) and Snoop Dogg & Wiz Khalifa’s “Young, Wild & Free” (No. 7). 

By 2012, Mars had morphed into a more evolved synthesis of his inspirations as opposed to just a 2010s-tinted reflection of them. Unorthodox Jukebox, which featured his first collaborations with one Mark Ronson (wink wink), effortlessly cemented Mars’ status as one of the most commercially dependable male pop stars of his time. Lead single “Locked Out of Heaven,” ushered in a friskier Mars, who had traded the saccharine doe-eyed glimmer of Doo-Wops for the more explicit musings of an embattled lothario. Just over a year removed from notching one of the young decade’s earliest surefire wedding anthems with “Marry You,” Mars brought a chorus of “your sex takes me to paradise” all the way to the top of the Hot 100.  

With influences ranging from Jackson to The Police, Unorthodox Jukebox appropriately cast a wider sonic net than its predecessor, but the piano-and-vocal ballad “When I Was Your Man” proved to be the album’s most enduring hit. A heart-wrenching beg-on-your-knees ballad, “When I Was Your Man” became just the second exclusively piano-and-vocal song in Billboard history top the Hot 100. The first track? None other than Adele’s “Someone Like You” the year prior, a neat chart stat that reveals Mars as something of a parallel to Adele – two 2010s commercial juggernauts whose old-school affects and robust vocals made them pop music powerhouses in the aftermath of the EDM takeover. With “When I Was Your Man,” Mars racked up his first five Hot 100 No.1s faster than any male soloist since Elvis. How’s that for a guy who spent his childhood professionally impersonating The King of Rock ‘N’ Roll? “Treasure” — whose funky disco synths laid the foundation for Mars’ next sonic evolution – was the final hit single from Unorthodox Jukebox (No. 5) and remains a staple in his live shows.  

Unorthodox Jukebox was another triumphant era for Mars, so much so that it helped launch him to one of pop music’s biggest stages: the Super Bowl halftime show. Yes, Mars had netted a Grammy for both of his LPs, alongside a hefty bag of hit singles, but it was still borderline unfathomable that a pop artist under the age of 30 with just two studio albums was asked to headline Super Bowl halftime . Mars wasn’t just one of pop’s biggest stars, he arguably had the widest appeal of any musician at the time – thanks to his diverse background and the fondness for both the classic and modern, he’s been embraced by audiences across generations and genres — and if the 2010s have taught us anything, it’s that those two things aren’t always synonymous. (Of course, it also helped his Super Bowl gig that his special guests were Red Hot Chili Peppers.) 

Mars’ halftime show – which was the highest-rated at the time and drew more viewers than the game itself – found him powering through his small, but mighty, discography, flaunting his chops as a vocalist, dancer and instrumentalist. This era also spawned Mars’ first and only theatrical role: Roberto in the $500 million-grossing animated film Rio 2. The modern pop star template normally includes flashy relationships, major brand deals, and flirtations with other lanes of the entertainment industry, but Mars has avoided all of that for pretty much his entire career. Yes, he has a handful of brand deals and endorsements under his belt, but Mars’ stardom is almost uniquely tied to his music and not much else. Nobody really cares who Bruno Mars might be dating or what he might be wearing or what products he might use. We care about the hits, and few can deliver them as consistently as he does. 

Mars would take four years to drop off his third studio album, but the years in the interim between Unorthodox Jukebox and 24K Magic were anything but quiet. After opening the year with his Super Bowl performance, Mars closed it out with the release of “Uptown Funk!” As Billboard’s No. 1 Hot 100 Song of the 2010s, “Uptown Funk” is the kind of genuine cultural phenomenon and musical juggernaut that feels damn near impossible in this age of hyper-fragmented social media silos. From Mars’ annoyingly charming vocal performance to an irresistible brass breakdown, “Uptown Funk” was simply inescapable. Mars’ presence on the track was also so outsized that many forget it’s not even his song. “Uptown Funk,” the lead single from Ronson’s Grammy-nominated 2015 Uptown Special LP, gifted the famed producer his biggest hit in close to a decade. The song was such a big hit that it didn’t even really feel like Mars was between album cycles — a period that also found him co-writing “All I Ask” from Adele’s 25 album and staging an epic dance battle alongside Beyoncé during Coldplay’s Super Bowl halftime show. 

To usher in 2016’s 24K Magic era, Mars traded in the snazzy slightly unbuttoned sex appeal of Unorthodox Jukebox for matching silk sets and gold rings galore. After dropping heavier hints with each subsequent release, Mars’ R&B era was finally here in full effect. 24K Magic – a lovingly crafted ode to funk and new jack swing – arrived during something of a transitional period for mainstream R&B. The genre’s future stars – SZA, Summer Walker, etc. — hadn’t yet made their major label debut, while The Weeknd’s rise to stardom thrusted murky blogosphere soundscapes to pop’s mainstream, upending expectations for what male R&B crossover stars could and should sound like. Enter Bruno Mars doubling down on some of R&B’s most vocally and physically intensive styles in the face of an era that all but formally rejected classic entertainers in favor of Internet mystique. It’s no wonder 24K Magic landed the way it did; here was someone making classic R&B jams during a time when we were debating whether half the stuff labeled as “R&B” even belonged under that umbrella. 

24K Magic launched three Hot 100 top five hits: the title track (No. 4), “That’s What I Like” (No. 1) and “Finesse” (No. 3). Now six years into his recording career, Mars was able to bend top 40 radio to his will, sending some genuine R&B jams to the top of Pop Airplay in an era where hip-hop had all but eclipsed R&B as far as Top 40 was concerned. Though he himself still side-stepped becoming an all-around cultural figure, Mars showed off his eye and ear for what makes the interwebs buzz by tapping Zendaya for the “Versace on the Floor” music video and Cardi B – in the midst of her breakout year – for the “Finesse” remix and its accompanying In Living Color-themed music video. 

At the 2017 BET Awards, Mars opened the show with “Perm,” a 1960s James Brown-indebted funk track in which he sings, “Throw some perm on your attitude/ Girl, you gotta relax.” It was quite the sight to watch a non-Black man open a Black awards show using a perm metaphor to tell (presumably Black) women to calm down. That performance perfectly encapsulated the tension that lay at the heart of the 24K Magic era: What were we to do with this non-Black pop star taking overtly Black sounds and styles to the apex of mainstream music while actual black R&B artists struggle to get a second look? Claims of cultural appropriation hounded Mars throughout this era, and Black music elders (somewhat unsurprisingly) came to his defense.  

Mars himself would address the discourse years later in a 2021 Breakfast Club interview where he said, “The only reason why I’m here is because of James Brown, is because of Prince, Michael [Jackson] … that’s it. This music comes from love and if you can’t hear that, then I don’t know what to tell you.” To a degree, he’s right. Mars’ case isn’t like Iggy Azalea’s or Miley Cyrus’ or Post Malone’s, but it’s still one of the more uncomfortable byproducts of a music industry constructed with the building blocks of racial capitalism. Just as his inspiration Elvis proved decades prior, it’s always easier to sell Black music to America with a non-Black face. 

By the end of the album cycle, 24K Magic netted five Soul Train Music Awards, his first two BET Awards, his first three NAACP Image Awards and seven Grammys – including album, record and song of the year, as well as his first wins in the R&B field. Moreover, the set’s supporting tour earned Mars his first $300 million-grossing trek. If it wasn’t clear already, anything Bruno Mars touched turned into 24k gold. 

In the period following 24K Magic, Mars laid low – and there was no “Uptown Funk”-level hit to blow his cover. Anderson .Paak served as the opening act on the European leg of the 24K Magic World Tour, beginning a fruitful period of collaboration between the two funk and R&B aficionados. Meanwhile, he dropped “Please Me” with Cardi B (one of the more forgettable singles in both of their catalogs), dipped his toes into hard rock alongside Chris Stapleton on Ed Sheeran’s “Blow,” and earned rhythmic radio smash with “Wake Up in the Sky” (with Gucci Mane & Kodak Black). 

After spending the majority of the pandemic’s first year writing, Bruno emerged in 2021 alongside .Paak as the superduo Silk Sonic. The move was as left-field as Mars gets: He was undoubtedly the bigger star of the two, but the slightly edgier .Paak held the key to the kind of critical acclaim that sometimes evaded him as a more crowd-pleasing entertainer. .Paak — who is half-Black – also helped cover that base as Mars moved into his most R&B-indebted era yet. Zeroing in on Philadelphia soul, Mars and .Paak effectively became a tribute act, from their sultry falsetto-laden harmonies to their snazzy earth toned costumes. “Leave the Door Open,” the lead single from An Evening With Silk Sonic, was met with near-universal acclaim, earning the No. 1 spot on the Hot 100 and four Grammys. For many listeners, “real” R&B was back on top after years of vibey trap&B dominating the airwaves and streaming playlists alike.  

To an extent, “Leave the Door Open” was lightning in a bottle: Between the hype of Mars’ comeback, the promise of a new musical superduo and the strength of its melody, “Leave the Door Open” reached heights unmatched by any of its follow-up singles. “Smokin Out the Window” was the album’s lone additional top 10 hit, reaching No. 5. Silk Sonic’s debut LP entered the Billboard 200 at No. 2, shifting 104,000 units in its first week with 42,000 copies sold in traditional album sales – a solid showing for what could have easily been written off as a side project, but still somewhat eyebrow-raising considering Mars’ past opening week totals. 

Now over a decade into his recording career, Mars has once again returned to the top of the charts. This time, he tapped Lady Gaga for “Die With a Smile,” a soaring ballad that blends pop, soul, country and rock. Already both artists’ first No. 1 hit on the Billboard Global 200, it wouldn’t be surprising in the slightlest if the Grammy-contending duet soon notched both superstars their latest Hot 100 chart-topper. 

In addition to his breathless catalog of hit singles and smash albums, Bruno Mars also has some of the century’s biggest tours and residencies under his belt. In many ways, Mars is a true songwriter’s pop star. Sure, there are jokes about his past cocaine use and alleged (and debunked) Vegas debt, but the vast majority of his cultural pull comes from his dependability as a commercially successful pop singer and prodigious pop songwriter. Who needs a cult of personality or a decade’s worth of lore to sustain a 21^st century pop career when you’ve got that level of talent and charm, and a hefty bag of enduring wedding-level classics to boot? Bruno Mars is complete proof that the pop templates of past eras can still thrive in the 21^st century – as long as they come in the form of a curly-headed and superhumanly talented short king. 

Read more about the Greatest Pop Stars of the 21st Century here and check back on Tuesday when our No. 19 artist is revealed!

Travis Scott was fired up. “IM FCKING JUMPING THRU WALLS,” he wrote on Instagram. The reason: He planned to officially re-release Days Before Rodeo, his decade-old pre-stardom mixtape, on streaming services on August 23. 

Sabrina Carpenter‘s Short n’ Sweet was slated to come out the same day, and before Scott’s announcement, it was expected to coast to the top of the Billboard 200 albums chart — an inevitable coronation after a string of high-flying singles. Instead, Carpenter’s release squeaked out a No. 1 finish, earning 362,000 units to Scott’s 361,000. 

Short n’ Sweet out-streamed the rapper’s old mixtape by a wide margin, racking up 233 million official on-demand streams to Scott’s 40.6 million. But remarkably, he sold 300,000 digital downloads of Days Before Rodeo, according to Luminate. On the final day of the tracking week, Scott put out six different digital variations of his album — each of which included at least two extra tracks and cost just $4.99, the minimum price for chart eligibility — as part of a ferocious last-ditch attempt to snatch victory from Carpenter. She responded in kind, serving up three $4.99 digital variants of her own and ultimately selling 45,000 digital downloads. (All nine variants were available exclusively on the artists’ web stores.) 

This tactic has been around for years: Release digital variants near the end of the week; sell them cheap; polish off a rival; tout the accomplishment. The technique is getting more attention lately because clashes between titans are being decided by digital variant release strategies. Scott was nearly able to erase Carpenter’s mile-wide streaming lead thanks in part to his blitz of variants. And these duels have spurred the latest round of music industry conversations about whether artists and labels are trying to game the charts — or take advantage of their most devoted followers.

“People are keeping that ammo in the chamber: ‘Let’s save these four variants that we know we’re going to have to drop at different times throughout this week,’” says one major-label A&R who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly. “Does it enhance the fan experience, or does it actually lessen it? I think it’s manipulative.”

When asked about this practice, another prominent manager would say only that “it’s ironic that the institution which is allowing the problem to exist is reaching out for a quote.” (“Billboard is always reviewing, in consultation with Luminate and the industry at large, what sales channels are included for chart eligibility, and has updated its policies when necessary based on market behavior,” Silvio Pietroluongo, Billboard‘s executive vp of charts and data partnerships, said in a statement.) 

On the other hand, some label executives believe that digital variants help create eye-catching first-week totals and race-to-the-finish-line dramas that are good for the music industry, sort of like its version of Barbenheimer: Before Taylor Swift’s showdown with Billie Eilish in May and Carpenter vs. Scott more recently, it had been a whopping eight years since two albums cracked the 300,000-unit mark during the same week. 

And the contest between Carpenter and Scott was a nail-biter until the end, as both camps released their final variant in the last two hours of the tracking week. Since January 2020, there have only been seven weeks when the gap between Nos. 1 and 2 was less than 1,000 units. (Representatives for Carpenter and Scott did not respond to requests for comment.) 

Despite the prominence of digital albums in some recent release campaigns, digital album sales have plummeted from 103.3 million in 2015 to 18.3 million in 2023, according to Luminate’s annual reports. Within this category, Luminate also tracks an “others” grouping that reflects sales from artists’ direct-to-consumer web stores along with non-major digital retailers. So far this year, sales in “others” total just 1.7 million, which amounts to 0.23% of year-to-date total album consumption (730.45 million equivalent album units*).

While this represents a tiny sliver of overall activity, it can make a difference in close chart races. Swift released additional digital variants when she went head to head with Eilish and against Ye and Ty Dolla $ign‘s Vultures 2 in August. (Eilish and Ye and Ty released their own as well, to no avail.) And Blink-182 used a digital variant of One More Time as part of a successful effort to scrape by Drake‘s For All the Dogs and nab No. 1 in October. 

These face-offs also demonstrate how far labels and artists are willing to go to try to get that top spot. Getting a No. 1 demonstrates that labels “still have the ability to move the needle,” says industry veteran Ray Daniels. “That is a big reason why certain artists will go to certain labels.” And “ego is a lot of it,” adds Joey Arbagey, a former major-label A&R executive. 

Most prominent artists want to top the chart as well, though they may be loath to admit it. “It’s a way of an artist on the rise saying they have arrived,” Daniels says. And scoring a No. 1 can then serve as a springboard, creating “a domino effect of other opportunities, whether that’s working with brands or getting significant press,” according to Nick Groff, an artist manager and former A&R. 

In more recent years, artists and labels have used hyper-aggressive price discounting, bundling albums with tickets or merchandise, box sets, vinyl variants and other techniques to try to jack up an album’s chart position. (There are dissenters: “It’s crazy how much time and energy is wasted on shit like this,” says one former major label executive, practically eye-rolling through the phone, “instead of focusing on signing good artists and making good music.”) When chart rules change, so do the industry’s strategies for impacting them. 

Some of these options disappeared in 2020 after Billboard stopped counting albums sold in merchandise bundles and ticket bundle offers. Label executives say selling digital variant downloads is one of the few maneuvers they have left to goose numbers late in a chart week. The other is putting a deluxe version of the album with additional tracks on streaming services, also an increasingly common tactic.

But adding an unreleased track or two onto the album and selling it exclusively through an artist’s web store is a more potent option. This can also be done quickly and at the last minute, as a Hail Mary when a chart race suddenly becomes competitive. Acts usually make these releases available for a limited time only, which both further juices fan interest and underscores that the artists are focusing on the all-important release week. 

In many cases, this strategy is effectively a sale of a lone song masquerading as an album purchase — artists often just add one live track or unreleased loosie to the original project and make it available as a new variant. Some artists don’t even include a new song in a digital variant; they just change up the artwork, or digitally “sign” the album art.

“If there is exclusive music available in these variant releases, that can be a great strategy and a fun way to engage with your fan base,” says Greg Hirschhorn, founder of the distribution company Too Lost. “If there is only a change in the track list or a different album artwork, I feel like the only real goal or outcome is chart manipulation.”

Steeply discounted digital variants also threaten to snub the diehards who ordered an album ahead of time at full price. If a fan pays $9.99 for a pre-order on iTunes, they may feel like a sucker when they see the same album augmented with bonus material and made available for just $4.99 near the end of the tracking week. “It feels like people should wait until Thursday afternoon to buy the album” and get the best deal, the major-label A&R says.

But for now, any potential fan backlash to the rise of variants appears to be outweighed by their impact on the charts. “When you’re in it and you’re fighting so hard for No. 1, it can seem obnoxious [to people outside the industry], but that’s the only thing that matters,”Arbagey says. “They’re pulling out all the stops.”

“I’ve definitely been in one of those heated races,” Groff adds. “You figure out everything you can possibly do to boost the numbers.”

*Through the week ending Aug. 29, total U.S. album consumption in 2024, as represented by equivalent album units — excluding units caused by user generated content — equals 730.45 million, according to Luminate. Each equivalent album unit equals one album sale, or 10 individual tracks sold from an album, or 3,750 ad-supported or 1,250 paid/subscription on-demand official audio and video streams generated by songs from an album.

Teezo Touchdown accepted the Rookie of the Year award at Billboard‘s 2024 R&B/Hip-Hop Power Players event Thursday night (Sept. 5) at Times Square Edition in New York.

Senior R&B/Hip-Hop/Afrobeats writer Heran Mamo introduced the 31-year-old artist, describing him as someone who “embodies the emotional melodies of an R&B singer, the clever lyricism of a rapper and the instrumental intensity of a rockstar.” As his manager Amal Noor described in his Rookie of the Year feature, “Teezo is your favorite artist’s favorite artist. He respects these artists’ careers, and to know that they love him creatively is an amazing feeling.”

“Father God, I want to say thank you for my gift that has taken me from a small town in Beaumont, Texas, to corners of the world I couldn’t even imagine. I want to say thank you in a room full of people who I still study and admire to this day, just as I would right before I close my eyes at night and immediately after I open them in the morning,” he started his acceptance speech. “I want to say thank you to my team for tirelessly helping me scratch every single goal I have off my list and pushing me to write down more wilder than the last.”

“I want to say thank you in a room full of peers who understand that the satisfaction of seeing someone succeed is a feeling that will never get old, just as I would after a quick phone call or Zoom meeting. I want to say thank you to Billboard for this prestigious award, Rookie of the Year,” he continued. “I want to say thank you to every single veteran for being so kind and insightful for giving me a firsthand lesson of how to nurture and instill knowledge to the next person who’s coming in after you.

“Last but not least, I want to thank the future — future artists, future execs, the people who are on their way to change the world as we know it,” he concluded. “I want to say thank you in advance for the innovation you will bring to the art and your perspective that can potentially change the world. I want to say thank you in a room full of people rooting for you with open arms and are here if you ever need anything. Thank you.”

Teezo is Billboard‘s fourth R&B/Hip-Hop Rookie of the Year, following Baby Keem (2021), Blxst (2022) and Ice Spice (2023). He was also Billboard‘s R&B/Hip-Hop Rookie of the Month in November 2023.

Playboi Carti, Megan Thee Stallion, Joey Bada$$ and Victoria Monét‘s manager Rachelle Jean-Louis were also honored at R&B Hip-Hop Power Players.

By some measures, the recorded music business has never been better. U.S. sales grew 8% in 2023 to hit a record high $17.1 billion; streaming continues to grow around the world; and revenue and operating income are rising at the three major labels and many smaller companies as well. The subscription streaming model is appealingly predictable, and the explosion of other forms of online media, from video games to virtual exercise programs, is creating plenty of opportunities for growth.

By other measures, the industry is in a tough spot. The flood of new music pouring into streaming services — both legitimate and not — is diluting the royalty pool for professional musicians. (This, and some other things, might be good for some players, but it seems to be bad for the business.) Although comparisons are complicated, it seems harder than ever to break new acts. Underneath all of this is the part of the iceberg most people don’t see: The deals labels sign with acts are generally less advantageous, because artists have more leverage than ever.

The numbers say it’s the best of times. Layoffs at Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group say otherwise. And although the recorded music business isn’t in any real danger — the only question is how fast it’s going to grow — it’s hard to escape the idea that something just feels off.

Welcome to the music business version of the “vibecession” that’s affecting the U.S. economy as a whole. The term, coined in June 2022 by the financial analyst Kyla Scanlon, describes the apparent disconnect between positive economic indicators and negative public perceptions. In layman’s terms, if the numbers look so good, why do things feel so bad?

Outside the music business, most of the economic news is good, or at least good-ish by the standards of the dismal science. Inflation is down and the economy seems to be growing again. The problem, in industry terms, is that people just aren’t feeling it. One example: Job loss concerns are high at a time when the level of layoffs is low, according to Marketplace. The article compares the current situation to a doctor talking to a healthy patient who thinks he’s sick. There are explanations for this: Perhaps our minds are still adjusting to higher prices, which continue to rise even as the rate of inflation declines, or maybe troubling political news just makes more of an impression than economic indicators.

This could be more than a feeling, as a Boston economist might say, since people and companies that believe the economy will decline might cut back their spending and, inadvertently, contribute to making it happen. Although the music business is much harder to measure, the same thing could happen there. The pessimism that has already led to layoffs and restructuring means there will be fewer A&R executives signing fewer acts and then spending less money on marketing and promotion. That might be necessary. But it’s unlikely to help.

What’s killing the vibe in music? Partly, expectations have changed. The hypergrowth phase of streaming is ending, but big music companies, especially UMG and WMG, are under some pressure to grow faster than the overall business. Subscription streaming is going from the savior of the music business to another new format that boosts some kinds of music at the expense of others. There aren’t many new stars — one of the big hip-hop stories this year was the feud between Drake and Kendrick Lamar. (This is both the winter of our discontent and the season of diss content.) And new albums by established stars like Ariana Grande and Dua Lipa are off to a slow start (although it’s hard to know what that means in a streaming-driven business).

There may also be a sense, both in the music business and in the economy as a whole, that the foundation is not as solid as it seems. There’s more talk of quick fixes, both in the overall economy (Blockchain!) and in the music business (NFTs!). But there’s not much effort to get at the heart of the problems: The economy seems increasingly rigged toward finance and the pro-rata royalty distribution of streaming services prizes viral sensations in a way that may make it hard for different kinds of artists to build careers.

In the meantime, the numbers keep going up. The stock market has skyrocketed, undeterred by COVID, inflation and conflict in the Middle East — but that can’t last forever. The recorded music business keeps growing, too, and it will almost certainly continue to do so — just perhaps not in the ways we have come to expect. Over the past few years, labels have spent fortunes signing viral superstars who win big — but how many of them will be around in a decade? Meanwhile, popular tastes are harder than ever to predict. Two years ago, when it seemed like the future belonged to hip-hop, could anyone have predicted such a big country comeback? Giving people what they want is a fine strategy — but only if they keep wanting it.

It’s a good time to toast the good times — but it’s tempting to ask for a strong drink, too. Both the music industry and the broader economy keep climbing over problems to reach new peaks. And they’re great places to be — until you realize that it’s all downhill from there.