Lady Gaga

Underneath the meat dress and the Grammys egg was a pianist since age four who had written songs for other stars before her debut album. Lady Gaga's The Fame and The Fame Monster fused electro-pop, glam and Europop, and 'Just Dance', 'Poker Face' and 'Bad Romance' were inescapable.

She kept switching lanes: jazz standards with Tony Bennett on Cheek to Cheek, stripped-down Americana on Joanne, and A Star Is Born, whose 'Shallow' won an Oscar.

Chromatica returned to the dancefloor, and Mayhem and the Bruno Mars duet 'Die with a Smile' put her back at pop's centre, before a free show on Copacabana beach drew a crowd of over two million.