I think these threads are fun when the takes are hot, so here's some hotter takes. Here's a few I think match the topic that I don't think were mentioned (if so, I apologize) - I would also second Kathleen Hanna/Bikini Kill, Eminem, Taylor Swift, and Beyonce - the latter three at least are absolute no doubters to me.
Usher
I think he’s the single biggest influence on the way pop music changed in the 2000s – at worst Top 3 in my view.
Leading into the 2000s, I think pop music was in a very weird spot. We were coming off the wave of very traditional young, sexy pop music combined with a splash of R&B and adult contemporary ballads. A peek at the #1 singles of 2000 is quite fun – there’s a run of pop princess Christina, sad boy pop Savage Garden, Mariah Carey, Lonestar, and Destiny’s Child. The shift begins a year later as R&B and hip-hop begin to show up way more often in more prominent radio spots, and Usher was at the helm of that with songs like U Remind Me, U Got It Bad, and U Don’t Have To Call – radio accessible R&B/hip hop infused music that could be played anywhere but broke out of the typical pop constructs a lot of musicians who wanted to be on mainstream radio got put into. You then began to see the shift – the biggest songs in the country weren’t bubblegum pop but rather radio-friendly rap and jams (except for the annual American Idol record). Then Yeah! Happened in 2004 when Usher was pretty much the only person on Radio – four number one singles in a year spanning 28 weeks with every song around him getting a little bit harder, a little big edgier, and even forcing some of the pop landscape to follow him (I don’t believe you get Hollaback Girl Gwen or Promiscuous Nelly Furtado without the Usher shift in market for instance). I think we're just recently starting to get out of the Usher realm in terms of pop music but the influences are all still there in some aspects - does The Weeknd have the pathway he has without Usher? I don't feel like he does.
Missy Elliott
There's a glass ceiling of sorts for women in a lot of genres. I think an entire segment of the hip-hop game is open due to the efforts Missy made behind the mic and at the soundboard. Queen Latifah preceded her of course but she had those undeniable, all-timer singles and actively worked with other talented women in the rap and R&B spheres to make their work better.
Outkast:
When I look at the popular music sphere today - you have substantial elements of artists who combine pop, R&B, hip-hop, and dance dominating the charts. They can take form in hugely different forms - I'd argue Harry Styles and Doja Cat do all of it and they are exceedingly different artists. Outkast was a pioneer in combining a slew of different elements (hip-hop, funk, jazz, pop) into music that was critically acclaimed and widely loved. They were essential, I think, in moving hip-hop beyond what it was in the mid-90s and even early 2000s and establishing that sweet spot for the genre in terms of the general music population
Rihanna:
Outside of being one of the five or so biggest pop stars of the past 30 years or so (imo), she's one of the most prominent in pioneering musicians utilizing different revenue streams. This obviously isn't new in itself - musicians have been used to promote and star in movies and side projects forever, but she owned it in a way that few have. Like many of the above she was a bridge artist that brought upon our current pop atmosphere, but you see a ton of prominent artists who own their merchandising and product production and media elements today in a way that wasn't done nearly as frequently before Rihanna took ownership on her end. Speaking of which...Kanye West. I can't stand the dude really...but any thread of important acts of the last 30 years has to include him from both a production and a promotional point of view.
