Young people grow and evolve through references and inspirations that, on many occasions, belong to the music industry. Therefore, in this humble magazine, we wanted our readers to answer the question in the headline through a survey , in which you could vote for a maximum of three artists for a week. We proposed nine candidates to be proclaimed the most well-known, mainstream pop musical icon with the greatest impact on generation Z (people born between 1995 and 2023) and these are the results:
1. Ed Sheeran – 149 votes (47.30%)
With just four albums published during his ten-year career, Ed Sheeran has created his own musical style and an easily recognizable personal image: a red-haired British boy always accompanied by his guitar. He is one of the most followed and listened to artists on YouTube and Spotify , considered (by myself) as the king of these platforms : he has three songs among the 25 most viewed music videos on YouTube and four among the 20 most listened to songs on Spotify. the story, like Shape of You , Perfect or Photograph . That is to say, Sheeran is a singer of enormous global success who, without a repertoire worthy of being heard in nightclubs , is an icon and reference of pop music for today's young people who can feel identified with the nostalgic and romantic lyrics of his compositions.
2. Miley Cyrus – 59 votes (18.73%)
Cyrus and her different facets have accompanied us while growing up. The American was our quintessential Disney girl, our Hannah Montana. And some of her hits from back then, like The Climb , are still present on our playlists . We saw her around the time of Party In The USA when she was beginning to leave behind the Disney side of her, and when she completely broke it with the controversy she unleashed around the time of Bangerz . For example, with the Wreking Ball music video or her performance of We Can't Stop at the VMAs. Now, most artists do what was considered so controversial at the time. Miley was one of the precursors of this musical and social liberation. She is an icon , both of our Disney era and of the present, she has known how to play with different genres and styles and has been a social phenomenon . All this makes her the artist of my generation for me.
3. Taylor Swift – 42 votos (13,33%)
Since she released her first album at the age of 16 in , the American's career has been shaped as we, the young people of Generation Z, have grown up. Although she began as a teenager who composed country heartbreak songs with her guitar, today she is one of the most influential and successful artists internationally with an astonishing record sales rate. He has everything we could expect from a musical pop star: controversies with other celebrities ( Kanye West , Katy Perry ) and with his own record label, the hatred of a large part of the public for whom he disappeared for a year or a worrying addiction to awards . Grammy that made him radically change his musical style . In this sense, she has given us iconic video clips, massive concert tours, classics like Shake It Off or Look What You Made Me Do , romantic dramas dedicated to her ex-boyfriends like Blank Space or Dear John and music to cry like All Too Well or her latest album , with which he continues to achieve records and win the affection of all these people .
4. Ariana Grande – 18 votes (5.71%)
The American is perhaps the quintessential pop star of the latter half of the , capturing the spirit and style of the time. The artist, who has a Grammy for her album De ella Sweetener de ella, never stops breaking records. In fact, she started the year making history , surpassing The Beatles in 1964, by placing three of her songs at the top of the Billboard Hot 100 list from her album thank u, next . She has continued to break records with new songs like Stuck with U with Justin Bieber and Rain On Me with Lady Gaga, before releasing her new album, Positions . The promotional single reached number one just before the album's release on October 30, which topped the charts again. In addition, she is the most listened to female artist on Spotify in history, taking the place from Rihanna herself. To conclude, I dare to say that Ariana is one of the best vocalists of the last decade, and even more so live . Whether you like her pop songs or not, there is no doubt that her voice is prodigious when she has been chosen to pay tributes to great icons like Aretha Franklin or Whitney Houston and when she reaches tones only achieved before by Mariah Carey .
5. Bad Bunny – 16 votes (5.08%)
There is no doubt at this point that Puerto Rican Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio is one of the greatest artists in the world. It would not be difficult to fall into the cliché and assure that Bad Bunny's fleeting rise to the Parnassus of pop stars is solely due to being in the right place at the right time: the explosion of trap, urban music and reggaeton created the perfect environment for the unforgettable (perhaps due to crushing) song Now I'm Worse to catapult the Soundcloud musician to the mainstream . However, charisma, cunning and creativity freed the Puerto Rican from the curse of the One Hit Wonder , as the musician not only knew how to provide continuity to his career, with the help of valuable collaborations, but also managed to give life to a charismatic and close that connects perfectly with the concerns of the mass audience of generation Z.
Bad Bunny is not the tormented “street” rag man, nor is he the wild, womanizing millionaire rock star. Benito has found and exploited the perfect combination of humility, simplicity and extravagance to take reggaeton off the streets and make it mainstream. Bad Bunny, as they sell him to us, could be any of us: a neighborhood boy neither too ugly nor too handsome who is neither too good nor too bad in love. He does not pretend to be a star, nor an idol, but a normal person who, however, has marked a before and after in the music of the 21st century.
6. Justin Bieber – 7 votes (2.22%)
Hello? All good? Not putting Justin Bieber on this list and not affirming, de facto, that he has all the ballots to be the artist who represents generation Z would be like talking about 21st century football without mentioning Messi. The Canadian broke them all on YouTube with the single Baby, a song that was inevitable to know even if you didn't like this artist. And that is Bieber's greatest asset, if possible. From those helmet-style bangs to Yummy 's pink hair , there's no one who doesn't know good old JB. Since , Bieber has had numerous world-famous artists like Usher or his namesake Timberlake hitting on him to collaborate with him. It was the easiest insurance bet in the history of music. A boy with such a massive impact on public opinion that he has been loved and hated excessively ( Baby, the video with the most likes and dislikes on YouTube at the time), and that has sucked the entire essence of his being out of him. Is there anything, perhaps, more 21st century than that? The non-satiation with what is offered that always makes us want more, and more, to the point where Justin himself ended up needing a good vacation from his album Purpose to get married and live a bit of a normal life. Yes, Justin Bieber represents Generation Z and 21st century society alike like no one else before. Also, even if you don't like him, you have to admit that he's back and he's doing some good shit.
7. Billie Eilish – 6 votes (1.90%)
Within our desire to put labels on music, the sound of this Californian artist is closer to what is considered indie than to the mainstream . However, the union of catchy rhythms and lyrics full of social denunciation have turned it into a mass phenomenon since it became known (in a totally unexpected way) with a melodic song, ocean eyes , although at the level commercial compositions with a more forceful production such as Bad Guy have especially stood out . Her talent runs in the family, and this is so to the point that she forms an artistic team exclusively with her own brother , fellow musician Finneas, to create all of her songs. Furthermore, the influence of Billie Eilish (whose name is compound and pronounced eye/lish ) is not limited only to the purely musical: much has been said about the most frequent style in her public appearances, with dark and very baggy clothes , and whose reason for being was none other than to avoid the constant hypersexualization to which a woman's body is subjected. The breaking of these barriers occurred in the form of an audiovisual piece, where the singer launches a poisoned dart towards those people who have prejudged her solely because of her physical appearance.
8. Post Malone – 5 votes (1.59%)
The musician from Syracuse , New York, represents generation Z as he embodies the punk and transgressive spirit that lives in the hearts of all young people. In the case of children who have been born between screens, absorbing culture from here and there and consuming all kinds of records, the most natural rebellion against what is established is that marked by miscegenation and postmodern collage , which dissipates the borders between high and low culture and the very genres that have been defining artistic works until now. Maybe that's why Generation Z is a generation without expectations and with a little less prejudice, and maybe that's why a guy with a face full of tattoos and dubious personal hygiene who came out of nowhere has managed to succeed by creating melodic and catchy pop songs over beats . From rap. His tattooed face is the face of a generation that does not want (or cannot) be pigeonholed , that flees from complexes and embraces innovation and sincerity over purism. Post Malone is not only the most representative artist of our generation for his contribution to the music or aesthetics followed by thousands of young people around the world, but his work reflects the philosophical attitude and culture that has nourished us since we came to the world.
9. Drake – 2 votes (0.63%)
At the end , who really misses Drake? Okay, the Canadian rapper knew how to ride the wave of new hip-hop influenced by the explosion of trap that shook the music industry a few years ago. But aside from Hotline Bling and God's Plan , what's left of Drake? At a mass level, just the memory of those beats and video clips that were reproduced and recreated through countless memes and edits . Drake's music will not be remembered in 50 years, but the phenomenon he sparked, and his own ephemeral nature, evidence the current mass consumer's own phagocytic tendency . Drake had the 15 minutes of fame that Warhol promised us all, thanks to the new tools and attitudes made possible by Web 3.0 . And for that reason, because to a greater or lesser extent we were all Drake , whether he sought it or not, the rapper deserves a place in this competition, representing the unpredictable, unfair and cruel consumer-hive-mind . Drake doesn't come close to surpassing any of the artists on this list in absolutely anything, but one card plays in his favor: luck, which in the strange world of the Internet can make you number one , even if only for a short time. which already seems like the most remote past. It is more than proven .
Finally, with almost half of the votes, Ed Sheeran becomes the Biggest Pop Icon at the Discordia Music Awards! It is worth mentioning that the survey allowed you to propose candidates outside of our list, and the most repeated names were Lady Gaga and Rihanna , with two votes each. Thanks for participating!
