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  • Congratulations to Charli XCX and Lorde: winners of the 2024 Popjustice Twenty Quid Music Prize
  • The 2024 Twenty Quid Music Prize: Shortlist
  • The 2023 Popjustice Twenty Quid Music Prize: Shortlist
  • Fine, let's do a Substack then.
  • The 2022 Popjustice Twenty Quid Music Prize: shortlist
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  • The Briefing

This is a photograph of five recording artists.

  • February 21, 2018
  • Popjustice

This is, if nothing else, a feat of scheduling.

This is also 76m combined monthly Spotify listeners.

This is the answer all popstars should give when they are inev­it­ably asked, because they're always asked aren't they, who they'd cast in a modern version of Lady Marmalade.

This is a stage school kid whose big break was a telly ad for The X Factor, alongside someone who went to art school and joined a punk band, alongside someone who crashed out of a European version of Pop Idol five years ago, alongside someone who was playing shithole gigs when she was 14, alongside someone who won a Swedish TV show when she was 10.

This is people who've pursued success, it's someone who found herself on the most-streamed song of all time, and it's one person who's delib­er­ately swerved chart dom­in­a­tion, despite it being theirs for the taking, in pursuit of their own musical vision.

This is three people who didn't break through with their first album, one person who did, and one who's TBC.

This is one person smiling like she's on an 80s pop magazine cover, one person doing that mouth-open thing only popstars can pull off without it looking like they're in the middle of eating, two people looking like they mean serious business and one person avoiding eye contact all together.

This is, admit­tedly, not the greatest advert for ethnic diversity in pop.

This is still a hint of what happens when different per­son­al­it­ies with different ideas and different exper­i­ences and different talents, of different ages, from different back­grounds in different countries, make sense in a room together.

This is a group of people whose ages range from only-just-20 to a‑few-months-off-30.

This is five artists nobody who's currently putting bands together would put in a band together. They'd write their own Number One single and direct their own video.

This is a one-off moment, but why does it need to be?

This is what girlbands could be like in 2018 if the music industry wasn't such a bag of shit.

  • ALMA
  • charli xcx
  • DuaLipa
  • MO
  • Zara Larsson
Previous Article
  • The Briefing

New Music Friday: Kim Petras releases her first superstar single

  • February 16, 2018
  • Popjustice
Have a read
Next Article
  • The Briefing

Janelle Monáe is back and all other pop music is cancelled until further notice

  • February 22, 2018
  • Popjustice
Have a read
Further listening
Greatest hits
  • Sandi Thom's Real Tooting
  • Robbie Williams interview
  • An amazing Charli XCX interview-slash-chat
Further reading
  • 1
    Congratulations to Charli XCX and Lorde: winners of the 2024 Popjustice Twenty Quid Music Prize
  • 2
    The 2024 Twenty Quid Music Prize: Shortlist
  • 3
    The 2023 Popjustice Twenty Quid Music Prize: Shortlist
  • 4
    Fine, let's do a Substack then.
  • 5
    The 2022 Popjustice Twenty Quid Music Prize: shortlist
  • 6
    2021 Popjustice Twenty Quid Music Prize: Laura Mvula wins
Est 2000. Still going.
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