Pop may be full of solo artists and individually tailored streams, but the Eras tour, Brat summer and Oasis reunion showed we still long to be part of a crowd

The past year brought with it intriguing musical movements, not least a sudden pivot towards country by a succession of mainstream pop stars. Heralded by Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter album and amplified by the release of Post Malone’s F-1 Trillion, the trend also brought huge hits for the hitherto-unknown Shaboozey and Dasha, while Zayn Malik called on the services of a Nashville producer and Lana Del Rey announced a country-influenced album.

2024 also brought with it new stars, most obviously Chappell Roan, who had spent the best part of a decade plugging away in obscurity, being signed then dropped by a major label, before releasing a debut album that slow-burned its way to the top of the charts: The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess initially came out in 2023 to little response (one of its biggest hits, Pink Pony Club, was first released four years ago). As with Sabrina Carpenter – whose 2024 breakthrough Short N’ Sweet was her sixth album – Roan had clearly had the space to work out exactly what she wanted to do and how she wanted to present herself, with appealingly idiosyncratic and uncontrived results.