Resurgence of the Pop Girlies Trivia Quiz

Answer: Chappell Roan

With the runaway success of her 2023 album "The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess" the viral "YMCA-esque" attraction of her single "Hot to Go!', the general viral melodrama of "Pink Pony Club", and her outspoken support of the LGBTQ+ community, Chappell Roan's star was on the rise throughout most of 2024, especially as she made highly-publicized, theatrical appearances at major international music festivals.

When she released her stand-alone single "Good Luck, Babe!" without an album, it quickly went multi-platinum, appearing on five different U.S. Billboard Charts and receiving three Grammy nominations. She would win Best New Artist at the 2025 award ceremony.

Answer: Taylor Swift

The first single from Taylor's eleventh album, "The Tortured Poets Department", "Fortnight" appeared as a low-tempo duet between Swift and featured artist Post Malone. Kicking off a new album cycle in the midst of her colossal 'Eras Tour', the track was immensely popular, almost instantly breaking streaming records online with an appropriately moody music video, filmed in black-and-white, to reflect the album's melancholy aesthetic. "Fortnight" would be nominated for three Grammy Awards at the 2025 ceremony though Swift failed to take home any awards at the event.

Answer: Charli XCX

2024, as many claimed, was the year of 'Brat Summer', an unofficial event characterized by the release of Charli XCX's sixth studio album, "Brat", which combined her on-the-pulse pop music with the aesthetic of UK rave tracks. What resulted was a critically-renowned and vulnerable album of club bangers and pop delights that Charli one-upped with bonus songs and a full remix album featuring some of pop's hottest artists (including Ariana Grande and Lorde).

The track in question, "Guess", was a part of the deluxe edition ("Brat and it's the same but there's three more songs so it's not") and featured Billie Eilish. It would hit number one on both the UK Singles Chart and the Billboard Hot Dance/Electronic Songs Chart in the U.S.

Answer: Billie Eilish

After continual hits from her album debut in 2019, Eilish's third full album, "Hit Me Hard and Soft", released in 2024, bringing with it the popular track "Birds of a Feather", the highest-charting of the four singles from the disc. Reaching number two on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100, it actually topped four other Billboard charts in the States and took three Grammy nominations at the 2025 event. Over the course of 2024, it was Spotify's most-streamed track.

It's no surprise; the song's surprising sentimentality marks a noted shift from Eilish's early works, something that was extremely noticeable when she released "What Was I Made For?" for the "Barbie" soundtrack a year earlier.

Answer: Lady Gaga

Though Lady Gaga's efforts in entertainment pushed her into more film and television work in the early 2020s (after "Chromatica" released), she returned to the studio to record "Mayhem", her sixth official full album release, which showed up in full in early 2025. Though the album kicked off with the debut single "Disease", it was "Abracadabra" that further cemented Gaga's return to form for this album cycle, bringing back the abstract tour de force music video (complete with dance choreography) and classic dance-pop stylings she perfected back in the "Fame Monster" and "Born This Way" eras.

Answer: Sabrina Carpenter

Originally a Disney Channel performer, Sabrina Carpenter pushed through multiple album releases before striking it huge with "Short n' Sweet" in 2024, remaking her image into that of a pin-up girl and playing into a short, sweet, and sexy brand that helped propel her to household name status. "Espresso" is perhaps the breakout hit (and the one with the lyric in the question); it managed to go multi-platinum internationally, becoming one of the world's most-streamed tracks of 2024 (second only to "Birds of a Feather").

The track alone won two Grammy Awards while "Short n' Sweet' took Best Pop Vocal Album.

Answer: Olivia Rodrigo

Olivia Rodrigo's debut album, "Sour", allowed her to excel in the pop/pop-rock space during the COVID-19 pandemic in a way that most artists couldn't broach, and with that she pushed out her sophomore album, "Guts", in late 2023, leading with the dramatic single "Vampire".

The song marked another number one track on both the UK Singles Chart and the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 Chart for Rodrigo, netting three Grammy Award nominations. She would follow it up with the uptempo pop-rock number, "Bad Idea Right?"

Answer: Ariana Grande

The lead single from Grande's seventh album, "Eternal Sunshine", was "Yes, And?, and this is the first line from that song, an upbeat pop offering that released at the very start of 2024 in promotion of the album. Regarded by many as Grande's "Vogue" moment (as the track seems to be heavily influenced by its melody), it gave Grande yet another number one track on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 Chart. Grande would get around the music world a lot in 2024, appearing in "Wicked: Part One" (and its soundtrack), collaborating with Charli XCX on her remix album, and finding even more fans with her reimagined cover of Brandy & Monica's classic R&B track "The Boy Is Mine".

Answer: Dua Lipa

After massive success, especially over the COVID-19 pandemic, with the release of her second album, "Future Nostalgia", UK artist Dua Lip released "Radical Optimism" in the summer of 2024 with upbeat pop-dance tracks like "Houdini", "Training Season", and "Illusion", a lyric of which is the basis of this question. Though the '80s-inspired songs of "Future Nostalgia" helped create a tried-and-tested sensibility to those songs, "Radical Optimism" went hard into joyful Europop as an aesthetic. The album hit number one on the UK Albums Chart and number two on the U.S. Billboard 200.

Answer: Miley Cyrus

Though it released at the start of 2023, Miley Cyrus' "Flowers" managed to transcend the year's radio hits, becoming one of the most-streamed songs online and revitalizing Cyrus' radio career with the launch of her "Endless Summer Vacation" album. A pop-funk track with an earworm chorus, "Flowers" led Cyrus to her first Grammy Awards (it won Record of the Year in addition to Best Pop Solo Performance). On top of this, it hit number one in more than a dozen countries, going multi-Platinum with ease.