Apart from Taylor Swift, who’s God status in the industry has assured her chart dominance regardless of what’s happening around her, these titans of the genre were kept out of the limelight by three other women to whom mainstream success at this level was a foreign concept. Those women are Sabrina Carpenter, Charli XCX, and Chappell Roan. With Grammys season approaching and pundits penciling these women in as major players to watch for at the ceremony, it feels like the perfect time to explore what caused these three bench players in the pop diva world to rise to star player status across a three month span.

Well first, we have to rewind to far before the pivotal summer of 2024. The paths for the three artists are obviously different, but looking at what they share and what remains unique to each one can explain their rise in popularity. Whether it is opening for an established star’s tour to  build their own fanbase (Sabrina with The Eras Tour and Chappell with the GUTS Tour) or inspiring viral dance trends to grow their music’s reach (Chappell’s “HOT TO GO!” dance and Charli’s “apple” dance), these artists were able to reach a broader audience in 2024.

Sabrina Carpenter is using the by the numbers pop star playbook. Of these three women, her success was the easiest to forecast to anyone who had their ear to the ground in the pop music world in late 2023. She cut her teeth the same way many pop icons have before her, by starring on the Disney Channel. As previously mentioned, she spent part of 2023 and 2024 opening for the biggest artist on the planet, Taylor Swift. Her setlist consisted almost exclusively of songs from her fifth studio album “emails I can’t send,” which she has said felt a lot like a first album for her. The album was her debut under her current label, Island Records. This allowed a lot of the tracks from the album such as “Nonsense” and “Feather” to gain traction far beyond the album’s initial lifespan and provided her with momentum into 2024. That is where Sabrina stood before her big break. However, as Coachella 2024 neared, Sabrina teased a new single that would debut live during her set, and no one could have predicted the impact this song would have.

However, there are still two more artists that need to be introduced, one of which is Charli XCX. On paper, Charli’s success seems the most random of the three artists. This upcoming album, “BRAT,” was going to be her sixth album, and I can count on one hand the amount of modern pop acts who have a big break with their sixth studio album. Nevertheless, Charli has amassed a reputation over the last decade as a respected act in the industry, even if she had not managed a big hit since “Boom Clap” in 2014. Her fingerprints were still seen on the pop scene through songs she wrote such as “Senorita” or “Same Old Love.” She was also tapped by Mark Ronson to contribute a song to the 2023 “Barbie” movie, which ended up being her return to the Billboard Hot 100. Despite that little blip, it seemed Charli’s fate was sealed, and she was confined to the B-list, a supporting character in the large scale hollywood production that is popular music. She was also advertising a set at NYC’s BOILER ROOM where she would likely play new music that she had been teasing, but there were few indications this would allow her to grow past her current space in the pop music sphere.

There is much less preamble to the world of Chappell Roan compared to the other two pop heroines of our story. There are no previous five albums to go over or years starring on the Disney Channel. In fact, there is not even any need for me to build anticipation over the release of her debut album “The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess” because it did not make noise commercially upon its release in late September of 2023. While the general public did not latch on to it, the album was a favorite from those within the industry, placing on the best albums of 2023 lists for Time, Billboard and Rolling Stone. Chappell closed out 2023 with aspirations of pop stardom, but it seemed this album cycle was not going to be the one to do it for her. Regardless, she had a big few months ahead of her as she was slated to serve as opener for Olivia Rodrigo’s GUTS tour from late February to early April.

With the foundation laid, the stage was set for Sabrina, Charli and Chappell’s breakout moments. For Charli, this moment was her BOILER ROOM set on Feb. 22, 2024. This set had been generating buzz before it even started due to the record number of RSVPs the venue got beforehand. Charli played remixes that featured the foundations of tracks that would go on to shape her sixth studio album. However, beyond the music being played, the most important thing about the BOILER ROOM set was the effortlessness with which she controlled a room, which showed just how versed she was in the space. DJing was not a world that she was stepping into just to make a quick buck off its fans because Charli had been doing DJ sets like this since she was 14 years old. Six days later she would officially announce her sixth studio album “BRAT” and its lead single “Von Dutch,” in which the opening line is, “It’s ok to just admit that you’re jealous of me.” Therefore, it was obvious that being effortlessly cool was going to be a core tenant of the album’s thesis. Charli had successfully sewed the first seeds of the album that would change her life.

Meanwhile, a few months later, Chappell Roan was wrapping up her stint as Olivia Rodrigo’s tour opener and getting ready to perform at the biggest music festival in the world, Coachella. She would not be the only one of our main characters to perform there though, as Sabrina Carpenter also prepared for a performance at the California based festival. Both women wanted to add an extra wrinkle to their sets, and in the week prior each released singles by the names of “Good Luck, Babe!” by Chappell Roan and “Espresso” by Sabrina Carpenter. These singles both debuted live at Coachella and went on to become the two women’s most successful commercial songs to date. Chappell, in particular, seemed born for the pageantry of live performance, sporting an over-the-top makeup look inspired by that of drag and even modifying a famous quote from drag icon Sasha Colby by introducing herself as “Your favorite artists’ favorite artist.”

Now we reach the pivotal week in June where all three of our stories converge. The week began on June 3, 2024, when Sabrina Carpenter announced her second album under her current label, titled “Short N Sweet.” She also teased more to come in the next few days, which turned out to be a single titled “Please, Please, Please,” featuring an accompanying music video starring her Oscar-winning boyfriend, Barry Keoghan. This single would be a rousing success, netting the star her first Billboard No. 1 hit. Sabrina was not the only one making moves, however, as June 7 would see the release of Charli XCX’s “BRAT” to widespread acclaim, debuting at No. 3 on the Billboard Top 200 albums chart and getting bestowed with the rare “Best New Music” label from popular music criticism outlet Pitchfork. While they were setting personal bests commercially, Chappell Roan was ready to continue her festival hot streak at the Governors Ball in New York. After being moved up to the main stage closing lineup due to popular demand, Chappell delivered one of the most talked-about performances of festival season. Sporting a getup meant to mirror the Statue of Liberty, Chappell performed all the hits she had become known for and even debuted a song titled “Subway,” which remains unreleased to this day. But the biggest moment came at the end of the performance where Chappell took a moment to speak to the crowd, informing them that she had declined an invitation to perform at a Pride event at the White House as she felt that the current administration was not inclusive enough for her to represent their beliefs. This, of course, stirred up quite the controversy, as it tends to be a sensitive topic, but it also reinforced who Chappell is–someone who marches to the beat of her own pop star drum. There’s no formula to follow for being an out sapphic pop star who’s discography is filled with songs specifically about lesbian love. It worked for Chappell too, as she ended this week with her album entering the top 10 of the Billboard top 200 for the first time in her career.

So we have the whats, now we need the whys. What stars aligned for all three of these explosions to happen near concurrently with each other? Well, a good place to start would be finding any themes that these three works might share, and luckily there’s one that rises above the rest, these songs and albums all stress the idea of being insecure and finding confidence in that insecurity. Tina Fey made headlines earlier in 2024 for telling one of her peers on a podcast that “authenticity is dangerous and expensive,” and while she might have been right in that context, our trio of pop divas have shown what can happen when you weaponize authenticity to your benefit. Many pop titans like Ariana Grande, Dua Lipa and Kacey Musgraves failed to leave the same commercial impact as our trio with their albums this year, all of which portrayed a subject at emotional peace and having persevered through whatever challenges were ailing them. While that is a very nice sentiment, it seems the general public was more interested in thesis that our trio put out of smiling through the emotional pain and reckoning with it in the moment on record. Take “BRAT” for example, while a lot of that album is party anthems that make Charli look like the coolest person in the world, they are mixed in with songs like “I think about it all the time,” where Charli laments not being a mother or “Girl, so confusing,” where Charli tries to parse out the complicated feelings that she has for a peer in the industry. This rings true for both Chappell and Sabrina as well who oscillate between despondent break-up ballads like “Casual” or “Don’t Smile” and high-energy anthems about the joys of romance like “Red Wine Supernova” or “Juno” respectively.

In Charli’s case, there’s also the genius marketing push that resulted from the ubiquity of her album’s cover which consists of only the word “BRAT” against a neon green backdrop. This trend got to such high heights that even the sitting vice president got in on the action.

Now, as we stand near the end of the year, with “Brat Summer” a distant memory and Chappell Roan having played her last festival just a few weeks ago at the time of writing this. Where do we leave off the three main characters of pop music’s 2024 after all of them just endured a life-changing summer?

The busiest by far is Sabrina Carpenter, who is in the midst of an arena tour traveling across American cities until Nov. 18 before a brief hiatus, followed by a European leg starting in March 2025. Meanwhile, Charli XCX is just wrapping an arena tour of her own that she embarked on with Troye Sivan. While Chappell is taking some well deserved time off after the festival gauntlet she went through in 2024.

Next summer, a year to the day from that pivotal week where Charli dropped “BRAT,” the three will all be headlining the Barcelona-based festival “Primavera Sound.” Charli reacted to this serendipitous booking on the popular social platform X by saying “headlining primavera sound next year with sabrina and chappell. finally holy trinity unlocked ;)” marking the first time that any of the three of them had publicly acknowledged their rises to the A-list happening concurrently.

Regardless of how the future plays out for any of them, no one can ever take away the summer of 2024 from these artists, from the record-setting crowds to internet-breaking collaborations. We can only hope they enjoyed it as much as we did.