Since 2009, Drake has become a cross-genre streaming star, while Swift’s glow-up has transformed her into a blockbuster brand – and their co-command of ‘pop 2.0’ isn’t wavering yet

By embracing vulnerability at a time when all the old rules about the genre were breaking down, the LA collective broadened what it could be

Balvin was a minor Colombian artist who became the fifth most streamed on the planet without using English, showing how embracing national pride can be a force for cultural good

By blending music from across the black diaspora – the UK, US, Africa and Caribbean – while facing down cyclical violence, the east Londoner has become a totemic figure in British music

Somewhere between Britney and Billie Eilish, liberated by social media and their direct relationship with fans, millennial and Gen Z women claimed the right to be complicated pop auteurs

Collectives like NON and Naafi helped to loosen the west’s stranglehold on club culture – and now the most exciting dance music is coming from east Asia, Africa and Latin America

He rewrote the jazz rulebook and brought a genre once thought dead to a new generation of music fans

With their positivity, euphoria and transcendence, the group open up a portal for converts to metal, turning it into high art

Leading a creative revolution whose ripples were seen from Kanye to Donald Glover to Little Simz, Beyoncé consigned the idea of performers ‘sticking to the music’ to history

Where once the biggest acts were outlandish and explosive, now they trade on their relatability. Is ordinary the new normal?