Melissa Kacar

Dangerous Woman continues to be one of the defining albums of Ariana Grande 's career. This record solidified her place in pop music history and delivered a run of some of the best and biggest hits of the decade. At this point in her career, she was fully taking over pop music, and this album truly solidified her status as the defining voice of a generation. On "Side To Side" , Nicki Minaj ends her verse with a proclamation that "Young Ariana run pop", which has only gone on to be more relevant in the decade to follow. In terms of pure pop aesthetics, Dangerous Woman still stands as the quintessential era of her career in so many ways, and is anchored by some of the strongest track runs she's ever released. It followed the classic hits that made up her 2014 sophomore album My Everything , and it built on that momentum with an even more fierce and empowered stance.  The branding and iconography of the album's cover is also an iconic piece of her career ...

Ariana Grande has reached the incredible milestone of having 14 songs reach over a billion streams each on Spotify! Over the past 10 years, Ariana has amassed over 39 billion streams on the platform and has become a member of the coveted Spotify Billions Club more than any other female artist. This achievement comes as no surprise, as Ariana has been a streaming titan for over a decade and was one of the first to embrace the early streaming era of the early 2010's long before many of her peers in the industry did. "It's a really absurd number – I can’t really wrap my head around the number," Ariana said in the Billions Club episode. "This really shook me a little." She has always been one of my favorite artists and this felt like the perfect time to rank all of her record-breaking songs that are in the Spotify Billions Club, as of February 2024. All of these are staples in her long and ever-growing list of hits. Several more songs are already on the brink o...

"Take Me Home Country Roads" // Lana Del Rey After such an incredible year of so much music, Lana released one last song of 2023, a beautiful cover of the John Denver classic "Take Me Home Country Roads". She was inspired to cover this song after touring all over the country for the last seven months, which she talked about in the announcement of the song in an Instagram caption. "It's really been somethin," she said in her caption, "But there’s so much more to see. And in the meantime..." I hope this is going to be a part of her long-awaited American standards album that she has been talking about for years! I'm sure 2024 will bring so much more gorgeous music from Lana and I can't wait to hear it!  "You're Losing Me (From The Vault)" // Taylor Swift To close off such a monumental year in her career, Taylor finally released "You're Losing Me" on streaming, after initially only being an exclusive track for...