18 Lana Del Rey's SNL Fail
After the video for "Video Games" made Lana Del Rey a rising, controversial online star, her first big step into the real world was a disaster. Her wobbly "Saturday Night Live" performance was roundly criticized by tweeters from actress Juliette Lewis to NBC's "Nightly News" anchor Brian Williams, with even the comedy show's Kristen Wiig lampooning the singer the following week ( watch below). She made a stronger trip to TV with a "Late Show" performance weeks later, but the damage was done: her "SNL" debut became a meme that lasted all the way through October, when she wound up spinning endlessly in a presidential debate .gif image that went viral.
17 EDM Goes Pop
If 2011 was the year that EDM started to breach the mainstream, 2012 further erased the line between traditional pop vocalists and bass drop engineers. At the Grammy Awards, Skrillex took home multiple pieces of hardware while deadmau5 got to perform with Lil Wayne and Chris Brown. Avicii was joined onstage by Madonna at Ultra Music Festival, and then opened for the superstar on her "MDNA" tour; one month after Ultra, Calvin Harris brought out his "We Found Love" collaborator Rihanna at Coachella. Meanwhile, pop mainstays like Usher and Nicki Minaj worked with producers like Diplo and David Guetta, as EDM stars Swedish House Mafia brought massive audiences to their farewell shows. This year, the Dance Dance Revolution was indeed in full effect.
16 Jenni Rivera's Tragic Death
Although Jenni Rivera was already a mega-star, and by far the top-selling regional Mexican female star in the market, media and her fans were as unprepared for the singer's unexpected death as for the explosive reaction to it. Rivera was officially declared dead 48 hours after the private plane she was traveling in crashed in Mexico. But the media frenzy was unleashed from the onset, with the singer/reality show star/talk show host/entrepreneur fast becoming a Twitter trending topic and the subject of stories around the globe as her music sales skyrocketed. Most telling to the world, reaction highlighted the presence of a big and avid U.S. Latin fan base that is still untapped by the mainstream.
12 Jay-Z and Beyoncé Reign
Jay-Z and Beyoncé buzzed in our ears throughout 2012, and that's without officially releasing music aside from Jay's "Glory," an ode to a new girl in his life. The pair's year started off with the birth of Blue Ivy Carter on Jan. 7. Jay-Z stepped away from the studio to not only take care of his wife and child, but to organize and perform at the first "Budweiser Made in America" festival, then followed up with an eight-day stint to open Brooklyn's Barclays Center, where he'll play again later this month with Coldplay. As for Bey', she stayed busy behind the scenes with motherhood and working on her fifth studio album -- she's been collaborating with notable singer-songwriters such as The-Dream, Ne-Yo, Miguel and Ryan Tedder. The Carters were also vocal supporters of Obama's re-election; they they raised millions at an NYC fundraiser and Jay performed at a rally in Ohio (Bruce Springsteen was his opening act).
9 Revolving Door at Reality Singing Shows
2012 was the year of shake-ups in the reality TV world, starting in January, when judges Paula Abdul and Nicole Scherzinger and host Steve Jones were all ousted from Simon Cowell's "X Factor." In May, the Fox series later upped their celeb status when Britney Spears and Demi Lovato were put on the panel alongside Cowell and Epic Records chairman L.A. Reid. The show underwent yet another change this month, as Reid announced that he would not be returning for a third season. Other judges not returning to their judges' chairs next season are "American Idol's" Steven Tyler and Jennifer Lopez, who both left that Fox series in July. The two stars were replaced by a very different set of judges -- adding Nicki Minaj, Mariah Carey and Keith Urban to the panel alongside Randy Jackson. The show's twelfth season doesn't premiere until Jan. 16, but there have already been reports of turmoil between the two ladies on the panel. Even at NBC, the judges are changing (at least temporarily), with Christina Aguilera and CeeLo Green both out for season 4 of "The Voice." Usher and Shakira will be keeping their red chairs warm.
10. Madonna's MDNA Tour Juggernaut
Ironically, the Queen of Pop enjoyed one of her biggest years ever despite failing to produce a single as beloved as her past hits. Kicking off 2012 with an over-the-top performance at the Super Bowl halftime show, where she performed "Give Me All Your Luvin'" alongside Nicki Minaj and a bird-flipping M.I.A. for the first time.
That single led "MDNA," which debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 upon its March release, and later to the biggest tour of the year.
Madonna's MDNA trek grossed a staggering $228 million over 72 sold-out shows according to Billboard Boxscore, proving that, at 54 years old,
Madonna still knows what it takes to dominate a calendar year.
8. Taylor Swift Sells a Million
Never mind the sold-out arena tours, Album of the Year Grammy and half-decade of superstardom before 2012 -- this year, Taylor Swift somehow became an even bigger superstar with the release of fourth album "Red" and the infectious lead single "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together." The break-up anthem notched Swift her first No. 1 song of the Hot 100 chart, while other "Red" tracks like "I Knew You Were Trouble," "Begin Again" and the title track crashed the Top 10 upon their release. And in October, her most complex album to date, "Red," moved an incredible 1.2 million copies in its first week, easily earning the biggest debut of any album this year as well as surpassing the first-week sales of 2010's "Speak Now." With a Song of the Year Grammy nod and a massive tour coming soon, Swift was able to take songwriting risks while still appealing to… pretty much everyone.
7 One Direction: Up
At this point last year, the names Zayn, Niall, Louis, Harry and Liam were a bunch of vaguely British boys' monikers with little connection to one another. Twelve months later, those five names taught us what made us beautiful, showed us the one thing, and advised us to live while we're young -- all while selling out stadiums worldwide and inspiring comparisons to Beatlemania. With a pair of No. 1 albums, "Up All Night" and "Take Me Home," the former of which became the first debut LP by a U.K. group to start at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, the only direction One Direction went this year was up. This week the group was named Billboard's Top New Artist of 2012.
6 Frank Ocean Writes a Letter
On July 4, Frank Ocean took to Tumblr to open up about his sexuality, confessing to once falling in love with a man. Ocean's statement was honored and admired by many -- from fellow Odd Future member Tyler, the Creator to Beyonce -- and set off a much-needed conversation about homophobia in the R&B and Hip-Hop community. Although Frank never explicitly admitted to being gay or bi-sexual, his words opened many minds. "There's just some magic in truth and honesty and openness," he told GQ this month. Released six days after his open letter, Ocean's debut album, "Channel Orange" bowed at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 and has gone on to sell 396,000 copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan.
5 [Insert 'Call Me Maybe' Pun Here]
Hey, we just met you, Carly Rae Jepsen, but your first song on the Hot 100 chart spent nine weeks at No. 1 and immediately established you as a rising pop star. And this is crazy: the single has inspired covers from Colin Powell, the Harvard men's baseball team, Katy Perry and Justin Bieber, as well as earned a Grammy nod for Song of the Year. But here's a number -- 361 million, the YouTube views for your song's official music video (add that to the 67 million for follow-up hit "Good Time"), which effectively inspired the year's biggest meme and most ubiquitous song. So "Call Me Maybe"? Yes, call us definitely.
4 Chris Brown and Rihanna
Love it or hate it, the year's most controversial couple is back at it. Talk of reconciliation heated up at the end of February when Rihanna released a remix of "Birthday Cake" featuring Chris Brown, while he dropped a remix of "Turn Up the Music," featuring Rih Rih. Were they back together? It's "Nobody's Business," as Rihanna would say. After Chris Brown broke it off with his girlfriend, Karrueche Tran, photos of ChRihanna started popping up, the most talked about one being on Nov. 29 showing them embracing after one of his German "Carpe Diem" shows. Individually, both stars were active and successful on the charts -- Chris Brown's "Fortune" and Rihanna's "Unapologetic" each bowed at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 when released.
3 Another Big Year for Adele
Released 23 months ago, Adele's sophomore album "21" refused to let up this entire year, selling 4.3 million copies in 2012 alone as of December 18 (bringing it to 10,080,000 overall), according to Nielsen Soundscan. It's hard to believe she began her 2012 recovering from vocal cord surgery, but her inspired comeback performance of "Rolling in the Deep" at the Feb. 12 Grammy Awards (along with those six wins) resulted in one of those career-elevating moments only a special artist can provide. The Grammys resulted in another surge for "21" and she went on to achieve a 24th nonconsecutive week atop the Billboard 200. In the second half of the year she recorded "Skyfall," the title track for the new Bond movie (selling 1.1 million copies). In October she became a mom with the birth of baby boy -- true to her independent streak, she has not revealed his name.
2 PSY Leads Year of K-Pop
If there's one meme, song and face that has been truly inescapable in the second half of 2012, it's South Korean rapper PSY and his outrageous "Gangnam Style." The K-pop hit swept through America in July and is now the most-watched video on YouTube, poised to pass 1 billion views by the new year. The song spent seven weeks at No. 2 on the Hot 100 this year, held back from No. 1 by Maroon 5's "One More Night." It found itself atop the On-Demand Songs, Digital Songs and Rap Songs charts, however, and PSY spent 10 weeks at No. 1 on the Social 50 chart. PSY made the biggest impact, but he wasn't the only K-pop star to make a splash within the states -- the Wonder Girls starred in their own TEENick movie and released a collaboration with Akon this year, BIGBANG and 2NE1 both kicked off U.S. arena tours, and IU's "You and I" spent five weeks at No. 1 on the K-pop Hot 100 -- a record matched only by PSY's "Gangnam Style."
1 Losing Whitney Houston
The industry and fans alike are still coming to grips with Whitney Houston's tragic death last Feb. 11 at Los Angeles' Beverly Hilton Hotel. The Clive Davis protégé and six-time Grammy winner, 48, soared her way to a still-unmatched run of seven consecutive No. 1s on the Hot 100 in the '80s. Her influential legacy of ballads and dance tracks include her iconic cover of Dolly Parton's "I Will Always Love You" (14 consecutive weeks atop the Hot 100) and the joyous "How Will I Know" -- featuring backing vocals by Houston's mom, celebrated singer Cissy Houston. Houston's gospel training and musical lineage -- Dionne Warwick was also a cousin -- resonate throughout the singer's latest release, "The Best of Whitney Houston." And in ongoing posthumous tributes and accolades: Houston's 1985 self-titled debut album is among the 27 recordings that will be inducted into the legendary Grammy Hall of Fame in 2013.
Full List
Congrats to all though!
