The Breakout Stars of 2024 The Breakout Stars of 2024
The New York Times
Across the arts world, these 10 performers broke away from the pack this year by channeling guts and grit into their work.
Audacious, original and wielding a clear vision, the stars who rose to the top in 2024 pushed boundaries and took bold, even risky, choices. Here are 10 artists who shook up their scenes and resonated with fans this year.
It’s almost incomprehensible to think that last year, Chappell Roan still had time to work as a camp counselor.
It’s not that she hadn’t been pursuing pop. Her debut album, “The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess,” was released in 2023. One of its now-hit singles “Pink Pony Club” was released back in 2020.
But it was this year that all the pieces coalesced: Her album hit No. 2 on the Billboard 200 album chart and No. 1 in album sales; her extravagant drag-inspired persona, 1980s-influenced pop sound, soaring vocals and edgy performances have become wildly viral; she outgrew her tour plans; and her dance-along anthem “Hot to Go!” was even featured in a Target ad and played at sporting events.
All the while, her lyrics tackle queer issues frankly. Her track “Good Luck, Babe!” — about a relationship between two women that collapses because one is, as Roan has put it, “denying fate” — was one of the biggest hits of the summer.
For a man who rose to fame in the gilded yuppie era of New York City, today’s ringing the bell to open the stock exchange, and being named Person of the Year by Time, must have a certain appeal.
A visual tour of the show that seems to defy all the rules.
This was a year whose high points included Joan Jonas’s luminous survey, the extravaganza “PST ART,” and the 24-karat beauty of a show “Siena: The Rise of Painting, 1300-1350.”
This visually inventive adaptation of a Colson Whitehead novel follows two boys at an abusive school in Jim Crow-era Florida.
What happens when violent crimes are overshadowed by appearances?
Between her experience on “Babygirl” and her mother’s death, the star has come to understand a lot about women in unfulfilled lives.
As Elon Musk has become a key player in President-elect Donald J. Trump’s world, Tesla owners are marking their cars to signify where they stand — for or against.
Whether on Prince William, JD Vance or Jacob Elordi, facial hair gets people talking.
Art Kane’s “Harlem 1958” gathered giants of the music. Sonny Rollins, 94, looks back at the historic picture.
A bipartisan crowd honored Francis Ford Coppola, the Grateful Dead, Bonnie Raitt, Arturo Sandoval and the Apollo Theater. Some wondered if Donald J. Trump would attend next year.
Back out on the road, and after working through his extreme grief, the longtime rocker is connecting with more fans than ever.