This article is an overview of the major events and trends in popular music in the 2010s.
Musical trends
By the mid-2010s, the hushed style of vocal delivery commonly used in indie music garnered widespread popularity among pop artists, used often by Selena Gomez, Lana Del Rey, Lorde and Birdy. The Guardian dubbed this style "whisperpop", characterized by subdued vocals, muted notes and breathy intensity.
Traditional instruments, such as the mandolin, dulcimer, ukulele, bongos, and accordion, were used more often, especially by indie rock musicians and singer-songwriters, including Mumford and Sons, Vance Joy, Phillip Phillips, and the Lumineers, along with country players, such as Chris Stapleton and Zac Brown Band.
Adult contemporary music was successful on the charts. Pop acts like Taylor Swift, Justin Bieber, Bruno Mars, Ed Sheeran, Adele, P!nk, Shawn Mendes, Kelly Clarkson, and Maroon 5 achieved a No. 1 single during the decade. Artists like Sara Bareilles, Jason Mraz, Michael Bublé, Charlie Puth, Colbie Caillat, Christina Perri, CeeLo Green, and Shawn Mendes all incorporated soul, pop rock, and folk into their music.
Throughout the 2010s, hip-hop grew as a genre. In 2017, with the increase in streaming services influence over the Billboard Hot 100, rap music became the most popular genre in the US in its 4th decade of growth, surpassing rock and pop music. Artists like Drake, Kendrick Lamar, Future, Chance the Rapper, Nicki Minaj, Travis Scott, Playboi Carti, J. Cole, Gucci Mane, Migos, Young Thug, Lil B, Tyler, the Creator, ASAP Rocky, 21 Savage, Cardi B, Big Sean, Lil Uzi Vert, Lil Yachty, XXXTentacion and Juice WRLD all rose to prominence in this decade. In the decade, movements like trap music, cloud rap, drill music, and emo hip hop became mainstream. The 2010s are also notable for the increasing prominence of rap producers; examples being Young Chop, Sonny Digital, DJ Mustard, DJ Khaled and Pi'erre Bourne.
Progressive and experimental rock enjoyed some popularity, mainly in the second half of the decade. Artists such as Nothing More, Highly Suspect, Twelve Foot Ninja, Dead Letter Circus, and Marmozets, and DIY ethic bands, including Bad Omens, Sylar, Æges, and Silver Snakes, enjoyed success through concerts and streaming services.
EDM became more mainstream mostly due to the release of Justin Timberlake's FutureSex/LoveSounds (2006); some 2010s successes include David Guetta, Skrillex, Steve Aoki, Swedish House Mafia, Headhunterz, Wildstylez, Da Tweekaz, Clean Bandit, Major Lazer, DVBBS, Avicii, Alesso, Owl City, the Chainsmokers, Calvin Harris, DJ Snake, Diplo, ShockOne, Drumsound & Bassline Smith, Blasterjaxx, Martin Garrix, Marshmello, Alan Walker and Zedd. The prominence of novel EDM genres in the pop sphere like future bass and EDM trap resulted in newer styles and innovations within the dance-pop sound, though house genres like future house, tropical house, and electro house remained the most common regardless. The latter was especially popular in the early part of the decade continuing from the late 2000s. Reggaetón and dancehall were other major influences for many dance-pop hits.
The genres of Europop and Eurodance also achieved commercial success, evidenced by Swedish producer Max Martin's ubiquity in the decade's most successful pop albums. Katy Perry's Teenage Dream (2010) drew heavily from this style and became the first album by a female artist in history to release five number one U.S. singles. Europop and electronica were used more extensively in the early 2010s as a result of the success of Lady Gaga and disk jockeys like David Guetta and Calvin Harris also influencing the work of female solo acts like Rihanna, Robyn, and Kesha. Some of the best-selling songs of the decade, including "Only Girl (In the World)" and "S&M" by Rihanna, were strongly influenced by Eurodance. In 2012, a large number of songs by American instrumentalists featured quintessential Eurodance elements, especially synthesizer and strong beats during the chorus mixed with rapping or vocals for verses. Flo Rida, Pitbull, LMFAO, and Black Eyed Peas were popular hip-house acts from the early half of the 2010s.
Teen pop made a comeback throughout the decade, with the likes of Miley Cyrus, Demi Lovato, Selena Gomez, Justin Bieber and Ariana Grande. Like their predecessors Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, and Justin Timberlake, who rose to fame in the late 1990s and early 2000s, most of these stars were associated with Disney Channel and Nickelodeon at the genesis of their careers. An exception is Canadian artist Justin Bieber who rose to fame through YouTube and social media. Throughout the 2010s, they expanded control over their careers and came of age with their music to varying degrees of success, and many teen pop musicians outside the former companies have continued to launch promising careers.
Throughout the 2010s, different movements in music and the music industry were formed because of the rise of social media such as YouTube, TikTok, and SoundCloud. Some new genres of music were introduced, such as vaporwave, whilst other previously "underground" genres such as lofi hip-hop and bedroom pop received increased mainstream exposure. Vaporwave music is one of the first genres of music that has an aesthetic heavily influenced by elements from the 1980s and 1990s. Bedroom pop grew in popularity in the mid to late 2010s on platforms such as YouTube with amateur artists rising to fame making pop music from their bedroom using inexpensive music creation equipment and software such as GarageBand. Elements of some of these genres began influencing more mainstream pop music by the late 2010s, continuing into the 2020s.
Since 2011, boy bands and girl groups have returned to mainstream popularity for the first time after the early 2000s, with the most popular examples being British-Irish boy band One Direction and American boy band Big Time Rush. A new generation of successful girl groups was ushered in by acts such as Little Mix and Fifth Harmony. In addition to this, K-Pop groups, benefiting from high visibility on social media and video sharing sites like YouTube, began to capitalize on their viral power and monetize overseas markets by conducting sold-out tours in Western markets during the mid-2010s. Korean acts such as BigBang, Exo, and BTS sold out US tours with little to no promotion or support from mainstream media sources like TV or radio airplay.
In Latin America, Latin pop remained the main subgenre. Tropical, reggaeton, moombahton, and soca were also popular genres while pop rock continued to be successful. In December 2016, Billboard magazine named Enrique Iglesias the 14th most successful and top male dance club artist of all time. "Despacito" by Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee became the highest-certified song of all-time in the United States after receiving a 13× platinum certification by the Recording Industry Association of America for units of over 13 million sales plus track-equivalent streams.
Soundtracks from films topped the charts this decade as well, with number 1 singles from Lady Gaga, Bradley Cooper, Wiz Khalifa, Charlie Puth, Justin Timberlake and Pharrell Williams.
Dubstep and drumstep became widespread subgenres in the early 2010s on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, especially in its native United Kingdom. There, other electronic subgenres, like grime, footwork and trap, also grew in popularity. Drumstep continued its success while hardstyle became mainstream in Australia and United States due to the success of music festivals, such as The Sound of Q-dance and Defqon 1. Grime experienced a resurgence beginning in 2014, initiated by the success of Meridian Dan's "German Whip" featuring Big H and Jme.
In Asia, popular music continued to be influenced by Western pop music. As with the past several decades, C-pop, J-pop and K-pop continued to be successful in the Far East. In J-pop, image songs and the influence of anime on widespread music grew since the late 2000s. K-pop's popularity continued to increase around the world throughout the decade and found wider recognition in Western markets. The media entertainment brand Billboard, responsible for tabulating the Billboard Hot 100 and 200, inaugurated its own K-Pop chart and column presented weekly on its Billboard.com site. The Billboard K-Town column, launched in 2013, continues to report on K-pop music; artists, concerts, chart information and news events. In 2015, the US iTunes store added a K-Pop genre category. Major streaming services such as Apple Music and Spotify both added K-pop categories to their repertoire to cater demand. In 2018, some K-pop artists from the Republic of Korea like Red Velvet even made a performance at the East Pyongyang Grand Theatre in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. In India, Indian pop, rock, and filmi continued to be mainstream. In the United Arab Emirates, Arabic pop, Arabic hip-hop, rock and metal continued in popularity.
Artists like Ellie Goulding, Sam Smith, Jessie J, and Emeli Sandé from the U.K. started to become highly successful and gained popularity from crossover hits in the U.S. Ed Sheeran's "Shape of You" and "Perfect" and Adele's "Rolling in the Deep", "Someone Like You", and "Set Fire to the Rain" all reached the No. 1 spot of the Billboard Hot 100 in this decade. Taio Cruz also garnered successful hits. "Dynamite" and "Break Your Heart" were successful singles with the latter reaching the top spot of the Billboard Hot 100.
North America
Pop
Pop music remained popular in this decade due to dance-pop, electropop and synth-pop. Artists like Lady Gaga, Taylor Swift, Katy Perry, Maroon 5, Justin Bieber, Ariana Grande, Miley Cyrus, Kesha, Selena Gomez and Rihanna were very popular. Chart-topping pop songs this decade include Britney Spears' "Hold It Against Me", Gaga's "Born This Way", Rihanna's "We Found Love", Swift's "Shake It Off", Bieber's "Sorry", Carly Rae Jepsen's "Call Me Maybe", Grande's "Thank U, Next", Billie Eilish's "Bad Guy", and Gomez's "Lose You to Love Me".
Canadian singer Shawn Mendes was another artist who dominated the pop charts in the US this decade. Jonas Brothers made a successful comeback in 2019. Also from this decade were critically acclaimed works from Beyoncé, Lana Del Rey, Bruno Mars, Taylor Swift, Kendrick Lamar, and Kanye West among others. New pop artists that emerged in that decade were Mike Posner, Ariana Grande, Maroon 5, Halsey, Meghan Trainor, Bebe Rexha, Tori Kelly, Alessia Cara, Adam Lambert, Charlie Puth, Shawn Mendes, Omi, Kiiara, Jon Bellion, Julia Michaels, Rachel Platten, Maggie Rogers, Hailee Steinfeld, Lauv, Daya, Camila Cabello, Fun, Bonnie McKee, Bazzi, Alec Benjamin, Billie Eilish, and Ava Max.
Teenage Dream, Katy Perry's sophomore album, released on August 24, 2010, spawned 5 consecutive number-one singles. It was the second album in history to produce 5 number-one singles, the first by a woman to achieve this. Those number-one singles were "California Gurls", "Teenage Dream", "Firework", "E.T.", and "Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)".
Rihanna earned the most No. 1 singles in the decade (nine), spending 41 weeks at the top of the chart, followed by Katy Perry with 8 No. 1 singles at a 26-week reign and Bruno Mars with 7 No. 1 singles leading 32 weeks. Justin Bieber and Taylor Swift both had five No. 1 singles this decade, Bieber spending 23 weeks at No. 1 and Swift 18 weeks. Adele followed with four No. 1 singles at her name spending 24 weeks at the top. Kesha earned three No. 1 singles in this decade, spending 13 weeks at the top of the Billboard Hot 100. Among all those songs who reached No. 1 singles this decade "", "Rolling in the Deep", "Just the Way You Are", "Poker Face", "Shake It Off", and "Dark Horse" were some of the best-selling singles in the digital era.