What Made Bad Bunny Our Editorial Staff’s Pick for the Greatest Pop Star of 2025?
This podcast episode is part of the Billboard editorial staff’s Greatest Pop Stars of 2025 list. Find our accompanying Bad Bunny essay here, and all the rest of our essays and podcasts related to the list here.
Though he started the year on slightly uneasy pop star footing — following a couple years where he wasn’t quite as omnipresent as he was in 2022, his first year finishing at No. 1 on our Greatest Pop Star rankings — it didn’t even take a week into Bad Bunny‘s 2025 for him to return to his highest heights. He dropped Debí Tirar Más Fotos on Jan. 5, which kicked off another massive year for Bad Bunny, with hit singles, dazzling music videos, one of the biggest event residencies of the decade (and a much-anticipated-though-not-U.S.-visiting world tour to follow), TV and movie appearances, and a culture-shaking invitation to pop culture’s biggest stage to follow in 2026.
This final Greatest Pop Stars of 2025 episode of the Greatest Pop Stars podcast looks at how Bad Bunny ended up at No. 1 on our list for the second time — thanks to a year where he excelled in every form of pop stardom for nearly the entire calendar year, while reflecting and changing the culture in real time. Today, Billboard‘s Isabela Raygoza joins host Andrew Unterberger to relive Bad Bunny’s incredible year, where he became more ubiquitous than ever, while never missing an opportunity to further exemplify pop star greatness. (You can also find Isabela’s essay on Bad Bunny’s year here.)
Along the way, we attempt to answer all the more pressing questions around Bad Bunny’s 2025: Is there a more uncompromising artist in pop right now? Why did Debí Tirar Más Fotos grow in its second week while most big albums plummet? Why did he only give us one full chorus of “DtMF”? Is he trying to tell us something with all the album’s fake endings? Is he better at acting menacing or goofy? Does he have a chance at winning album of the year at the Grammys? And perhaps most importantly: Is there something more inherently meaningful to Bad Bunny’s pop stardom in a year like 2025 than for most of the other pop stars on this list?
Check it out above, along with a YouTube playlist of some of the greatest moments of Bad Bunny’s 2025 — all of which are discussed on the pod — and subscribe to the Greatest Pop Stars podcast on Apple Music or Spotify (or wherever you get your podcasts) for complete podcast coverage of this year’s Greatest Pop Stars of 2025 list!
And as we say in every one of these GPS podcast posts — if you have the time and money to spare, please consider donating to any of these causes in the fight for trans rights:
Gender-Affirming Care Fundraising on GoFundMe
Also, please consider giving your local congresspeople a call in support of trans rights, with contact information you can find on 5Calls.org.
