The greatest pop star of the 21st century surpasses Taylor Swift

Over the past few months, Billboard magazine's selection of the 25 greatest pop stars of the 21st century has attracted great attention.

According to Justjared, a controversy erupted on social media last week when Billboard announced Taylor Swift as the runner-up. That essentially confirmed that Beyonce would be chosen as the number one.

On December 3, Billboard officially confirmed that Beyonce is the greatest pop star of the 21st century as chosen by this magazine.

Explaining why Beyonce beat Taylor, Billboard writer Andrew Unterberger wrote: “While Taylor Swift is the biggest pop star of the century by the numbers — from album sales to streaming to touring dominance — our editorial team decided to choose Beyonce based on her influence, growth and impact over the past 25 years.”

Billboard argues that few artists in this period can match Beyonce in any of the basic categories that matter to a pop star — commercial success, performance ability, critical acclaim and praise, industry influence, iconic cultural moments.

“Even Taylor Swift, the only artist to truly challenge Beyonce, is the clear statistical leader in many major categories… However, Taylor Swift simply hasn't been around long enough to match Beyonce's massive career spanning a quarter-century of dominance,” Billboard wrote.

Beyonce's achievements listed by this magazine include: 12 songs ranked No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, 32 songs ranked No. 1 on the Hot 100, 10 albums ranked No. 1 on the Billboard 200, artist with the most Grammy awards in history with 32 awards, won 30 MTV Video Music Awards and won 27 Billboard Music Awards.

Previously, Beyonce was chosen by Billboard as the best pop star of 2003 and 2014.