Mariah Carey, Taylor Swift, Katy Perry, And Britney Spears Prove 2016 Was An Awful Year For Female Pop Superstars

The past 10 years or so have seen women climb to the top of the charts and dominate the music industry. However, 2016 proved that no matter how much progress female pop stars have made, they are not immune from any backlash. Let’s take a look at some female pop stars who flopped in 2016.

Mariah Carey

Just over 10 years ago, Mariah made one of pop music’s biggest comebacks with her megahit album The Emancipation of Mimi. However, Mariah Carey went back to being perceived as a one-woman joke this decade. 2016 was particularly brutal for Mariah Carey, even when compared to other female pop stars who failed.

Many people thought that Carey cheapened herself by agreeing to do a reality television show, Mariah’s World. But what happened on New Year’s Eve may be the worst moment ever for a female pop star. The New York Times has the news.

“Mariah Carey suffered through a performance train wreck in Times Square on New Year’s Eve as malfunctions left her at a loss vocally during her hit song ‘Emotions,’ struggling to reach notes and to sync the lyrics and music.”

As the article added, when “We Belong Together” started, things turned even worse.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UkTy_vSPkWc

Taylor Swift

Taylor Swift was once America’s sweetheart, but those days are long gone. Many feel that the backlash against the former hottest female superstar is undeserved. It’s questionable whether Kanye West really “exposed” her as a liar earlier in 2016 when he videotaped a conversation in which he let Taylor Swift know her name would be featured in his song “Famous.”

But the real gauge to Swift’s popularity came at the end of the 2016 with the release of her new single “I Don’t Want To Live Forever” from the soundtrack of the film Fifty Shades Darker. Though it’s not a Swift solo single (it’s a Zayn Malik collaboration), the fact that it debuted at No. 7 and then fell to No. 18 is seen as a very serious concern for those who are still investing in the 1989 superstar.

Katy Perry

An Inquisitr opinion piece ranked Katy Perry’s “Rise” as one of the best songs of 2016. But “Rise” is more known for its fall on the charts than it is for being a hit single. A new Katy Perry single usually debuts at No. 1 and becomes a pop culture milestone. “Rise” debuted at No. 11 and it was all downwards from there.

Cole Delbyck from the Huffington Post, who usually has nothing but positive things to say about Katy Perry, slammed the video for the song. “Please Wake Us Up When Katy Perry’s ‘Rise’ Video Is Over,” screamed his headline.

Perhaps 2016 was just a bad year for Katy Perry, and she’ll release a major hit album in 2017.

Britney Spears

Many think Spears is already a legend, but in 2016, Britney failed to recapture what originally made her a superstar when she released her album Glory. As the Inquisitr reported in August of 2016, her critically acclaimed single “Make Me” became chart kryptonite. The music video failed to excite pop music fans the way Britney’s previous ones did.

The biggest 2016 earthquake (and not in a good way) happened for Spears when she released her album Glory, which became the biggest flop of her entire career despite some good reviews. Forbes described the disappointment.

“The pop star revealed that Glory was on its way just a few weeks before it actually dropped, and from the get-go, everything seemed promising. Now, just a few weeks later, the future doesn’t look so bright, and this era doesn’t seem to have gone the way many were hoping.”

Well, the good news for Spears is that Mariah Carey’s New Year’s Eve performance has made people forget about Spears’ disastrous performance of “Gimme More” back at the MTV VMAs back in 2007, which was previously known as the biggest performance disaster in recent television history.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udDlSRgyxMc

What do you think was the biggest female pop superstar disaster in 2016? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section.

[Featured Image by Eugene Gologursky/Getty Images]