For this year’s update of our ongoing Greatest Pop Star by Year project, Billboard will be counting down our editorial staff picks for the 10 Greatest Pop Stars of 2025 all the next two weeks. Last week, we revealed our Honorable Mentions artists for 2025 as well as our Rookie of the Year and Comeback of the Year artists. Now, we reach No. 5 on our list with a defining pop star of the decade who capitalized on her 2024 momentum with a similarly spectacular sophomore superstar season: Sabrina Carpenter.
Listen to our Greatest Pop Stars podcast discussion about Sabrina Carpenter’s year going back-to-back here, and find the rest of our updating top 10 list with all our corresponding essays and pods here.
As she’lll tell you herself, Sabrina Carpenter is a “Busy Woman” — and if there was any doubt remaining as to her superstar-level productivity, she squashed it in 2025. After dominating the headlines and charts with songs from her 2024 LP Short n’ Sweet (she was our No. 2 Greatest Pop Star of that year) it seemed like she had done everything fans could possibly want. But in 2025, she defied all expectations, nearly matching the dominance of her breakout year across the globe.
The year started off slowly by Sabrina’s (extremely high) standards. After concluding the U.S. leg of the Short n’ Sweet Tour in November of 2024, Carpenter took some much needed “down” time. Or so we thought: In reality, she was gearing up for two massive moments: the Grammy Awards and the announcement of Short n’ Sweet (Deluxe). The former came to fruition on Feb. 2, where Carpenter dazzled the audience with a show-stopping mashup of “Espresso” and “Please Please Please” before taking home two awards for best pop solo performance and best pop vocal album; and the announcement of the latter came “as a thank you for giving [this album] 2 Grammy’s” just two days later.
The sequel was released on Feb. 14, adding another five songs to the SNS universe: four more originals (“15 Minutes,” “Couldn’t Make It Any Harder,” “Busy Woman,” and “Bad Reviews”) plus a new version of Hot 100-topping hit “Please Please Please” featuring the legendary and fellow sassy blonde Dolly Parton. The tracks brimmed with Carpenter’s usual songwriting prowess and sauce, giving her more songs to perform on tour — and all four brand-new cuts debuted on the Billboard Hot 100, led by “Busy Woman” at No. 27. She capped off the month by expanding her tour with an additional U.S. leg and another live broadcast booking: SNL50: The Anniversary Special, where she and Paul Simon performed a duet of “Homeward Bound.”
March was Europe’s chance to get a “Taste” of SnS. The month kicked off with the Brit Awards, where Carpenter received the global success award and left both the British guard and Millie Bobby Brown hot and bothered with a mashup of “Espresso” and “Bed Chem.” Then, from March 3 to April 3, Carpenter toured Europe’s biggest and most iconic venues, including The O2 in London and Accor Arena in Paris, with opener and U.K. native Rachel Chinouriri. As she surprised and delighted fans with performances of her new songs, more “Juno” positions and surprise song covers of legends like ABBA and Madonna.
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Sabrina stepped offstage in Stockholm and took to other platforms: consoles and Louis Vuitton heels. The superstar (though not a gamer herself) became the face of Fortnite’s Season 8 Music Pass, giving fans the chance to soundtrack their gameplay experience with her songs and use her likeness in her signature heart-cutout corset as their player skin. Players embraced the comedy of shooting at each other and dancing together while dressed as pop’s princess — but was less glowingly received at the Met Gala, where she (semi-controversially) appeared in a pantless look curated by Louis Vuitton creative director and fellow musician Pharrell Williams.
Just when fans thought that the SnS era couldn’t get any sweeter, June came along and set the bar even higher: The Grammy winner headlined Primavera Sound on June 6 and — what felt like only “15 Minutes” later — started another rollout with the release of “Manchild” on June 8: just shy of four months after releasing SnS Deluxe. The twangy, eye-rolling anthem became Carpenter’s second Hot 100 No. 1 and first-ever No. 1 debut, supported by an ‘80s inspired music video that playfully depicted Carpenter hitchhiking through the wild west of hetero dating. Are these men “stupid/ Or is it slow?/ Maybe it’s useless,” the pint-sized pop star pondered in the surreal-skewing visual as she barreled down highways on rollerskates, splashed in a pool with a shark and both fired and dodged bullets, all while wearing Daisy Dukes and towering heels.
As if debuting one of the top 10 songs of the summer wasn’t enough, Carpenter followed its release with an official album announcement in June, sharing that Man’s Best Friend would be released in two months’ time. Fans were thrilled by the prospect of new material, skeptics wondered if it was happening too quickly, and everyone on the internet had an opinion… but not about the music. Instead, the conversation evolved into discourse, inspiring thinkpieces from everyone from Facebook moms to the ladies of The View. Can a woman be considered a feminist if she releases an album where she’s posing on all fours and pawing at a man? Was the photo empowering? Degrading? Ultimately, Carpenter compromised a little bit, giving fans a safer alternate cover option, but the original artwork already did its job of igniting controversy ahead of the release.
The conversation turned into pure excitement as MBF arrived in August. Fans were spoiled with 12 tracks of retro-inspired, plushy pop — and as the rollout suggested, the tracks painted a greater picture of Carpenter’s arduous dating experience, brought to life with production and writing support from acclaimed collaborators Jack Antonoff, John Ryan and Amy Allen. The tracklist followed lead single and opener “Manchild” with the second single of the era: “Tears,” a disco-era throwback with a Rocky Horror-inspired video that showcased the star’s acting chops alongside Academy Award-nominated actor Colman Domingo.
Despite some initially mixed reactions, the court of public opinion ultimately decided that MBF was a big win — and the numbers said the same. Carpenter’s seventh studio album debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 with 366,000 equivalent units earned in its first week. All 12 tracks concurrently landed in the top 40 of the Hot 100 (“Tears” being the highest at No. 3). And even if the songs were not as omnipresent as SNS hits like “Espresso,” Carpenter was still seemingly popping up everywhere in the year’s final third to support the album: charming Nardwuar at Record Safari in Los Angeles; calling for trans rights onstage at the VMAs with a performance of “Tears”; performing double duty as host and performer on SNL; and day drinking with Seth Meyers, to name a few.
And while Carpenter was starring in a generational media blitz, she was preparing to take the stage again for the aforementioned U.S. tour leg and final stretch of the Short n’ Sweet Tour. She powered through 17 dates across 6 cities, all completely sold out, including five consecutive nights at Madison Square Garden in New York and six shows at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles with support from a slate of rising stars who all benefitted from the tour boost: Ravyn Lenae, Amber Mark and now-Grammy-nominated Olivia Dean. More celebrities were arrested to introduce “Juno” and fans were treated to songs from MBF as official set list additions and surprise songs. The by-then-14-month-and-72-show long tour officially wrapped on November 23 – an experience which, in an Instagram post, Carpenter shared was “everything [she] dreamt of making [since] she was young.”
But if there is one thing we have learned about Sabrina Carpenter, it’s that “Goodbye” doesn’t necessarily mean ‘goodbye.’ Fans already have a plethora of things to look forward to: the superstar has already been announced as a Coachella headliner; a Grammy Awards performer and 6x nominee; star of the Disney+ reboot of “The Muppet Show”; and co-chair of the Met Gala. And, to close out the year, Santa Sabrina signed off with the official release of “Such a Funny Way,” on December 24th, previously only available as a MBF bonus track, scoring one final Hot 100 hit on the year for her troubles. What more could fans ask for? We don’t know — but if 2024 and 2025 are any indication of how Carpenter continues to maneuver, we know that her fans will continue to be fed.
Listen to our Sabrina Carpenter Greatest Pop Stars of 2025 podcast discussion here, check back for our No. 4 artist Tuesday, and stay tuned all next week as we roll out the top five of our list — leading to the announcement of our No. 1 Greatest Pop Star of 2025 on Friday, Jan. 30!
