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Home > Atlanta Music Scene > Archives > 2008 > January > 14
Monday, January 14, 2008
Atlanta’s Akon Top Pop Artist
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The numbers are in, and Billboard magazine has announced them.
Drumroll please…The top pop artist of 2007 was none other than Atlanta’s own singer, songwriter and producer Akon (pictured above). Rounding out the industry publication’s Top 5 were Fergie (2), Justin Timberlake (3), Daughtry (4) and Carrie Underwood (5). And hometown observers will be happy to know that another Atlanta made it into the top 10, Akon’s artist T-Pain, who came in at No. 9 on the pop listing.
The pop designation, in particular, brings to mind an oft-debated question: What qualifies as a pop act or pop music these days? The general notion is that “pop” is simply short for popular — which can mean anyone or anything that’s selling well and getting frequent airplay.
But when Atlanta’s Usher had the best-selling CD of the year a few years back with “Confessions” - a CD, mind you, that topped Billboard’s CD and singles pop charts —and wasn’t nominated in any pop categories at the Grammys, the AJC music staff explored what it perceived to be a snub; and again, the meaning of pop.
Usher himself thought the pop Grammy omissions were curious, as he did Rolling Stone magazine tagging Justin Timberlake the New King of Pop (after Michael Jackson).
What’s your take on this? When you think “pop” do you think Britney and Justin? Akon and Usher? Or all of the above?
V-103 morning announcer Frank Ski weighed in on this a bit on the air, when he relayed the news from Billboard about Akon: “People here don’t even think of [Akon] as anything other than hip-hop or R&B. But around the world he is a global superstar. He’s a pop superstar…We’ve got to think bigger about what pop means.”
