Pop Connoisseur, Gordistotle, Does His Due Divagence: The Only History of Divas You'll Ever Need

As a (self-proclaimed) pop connoisseur, there’s nothing that’s defined my music taste more than the divas. As a child, my mom would drive around with Gwen Stefani’s “Rich Girl” and Rihanna’s “Umbrella” on replay. From a young age, I knew: this was real music.

While the music of today (yes, everyone’s blinded by nostalgia and I’m sure history will be rewritten as it always is) is severely lacking a new crop of pop music goddesses, I believe it’s a young gay boy’s duty to trace the mood board and do his due divagence.

Editors note: can we coin this phrase?

My diva journey has led me to pledge allegiance to many a pop star, and in this article, I’ll be taking you through (my) memory lane, as well as giving you some of my favourite Primadonna’s deep cuts from my teenage years to now.

Before navigating the music scene, I was aimlessly listening to whatever came my way. My parents for some reason didn’t let me use YouTube, but I was allowed Vevo? Which… is… essentially the same thing? Anyway...

It let me get a taste of something that would soon define so much of my life. Middle school is where I started to make strides in defining my music taste— anyone remember PlayTube? That was my platform of choice.

Spotify hadn’t become commonplace in our lives (at least maybe not on my side of the pond) so we country girls had to make do with what we had. While I instantly gravitated towards the 2000s icons: Christina Aguilera, Fergie, and Gwen Stefani, one act in particular really stood out to me.

Beyoncé

I was head over heels for Beyoncé. This was right off her magnificent Self-Titled album, and I was hooked. I had no idea music could sound like this. I was obsessed, for the next two years

I. Was. Hooked.

Beyoncé, and in turn Destiny’s Child, showed me what it meant to REALLY stan.

I retroactively bought all her CDs (without owning a CD player, by this point I had Spotify, thankfully), watched all her concert movies, and spent my free time watching vocal compilations on YouTube.

Beyoncé is a performer and has the vocal chops to back it up. While she’s sort of lost me in recent years with her work since 2018’s ‘Everything is Love’, she brought it the fuck back in 2022 with ‘Renaissance’, and maybe a little less so with her latest effort ‘Cowboy Carter’. I had the pleasure of seeing Beyoncé for the first time last year while in Belgium during the Renaissance World Tour, and it was truly a full-circle moment from 14-year-old me to now.

Favourite Deep Cuts: Signs, Party, 6 Inch, and Heated

Mariah Carey

As mentioned earlier, I was really drawn to strong vocals as a teenager. While probably watching a WatchMojo video or something (had a looooot of free time as a teenager), I stumbled upon Mariah Carey. I knew loosely who she was, but she was before my time. I was young and arrogant at the time, why would I listen to old-ass music? However, one song really stuck for me, her 1995 CLASSIC Fantasy.

I’ll set the scene, it was 2015 and I was mowing lawns for the summer (not many ways to make money in a small town as a teenager). My playlist consisted of, I kid you not, the entire “If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late” album (literally zero fucking clue, but one of the tracks ironically foreshadows another diva later in the list), Fantasy, and One Sweet Day. I was gagging for Daydream ok!

So again, I traced the mood board and got to studying, I fell in love with Mariah’s lyricism and angelic vocals, being guided by the lovely MariahXLambily YouTube channel, which I just found out has completely vanished and am LITERALLY pouring a shot out for AS I type this.

Favourite Deep Cuts: Anytime You Need A Friend, The Roof, Boy (I Need You), and Thirsty.

BT and AT (Before Twitter and After Twitter)

My fanning out for Beyoncé and Mariah may have set the scene for my early adolescence, but once I really started taking Twitter a little too seriously, shit got real. While navigating my way through the digital sphere, I found myself drawn to a certain genre of music. KPop… which leads me to my next diva, a subversive pick…

Taeyeon

Those who know me know I love K-pop, yes, guilty as charged. They’re gorgeous women (I could not care less about the boys, soft spot for Shinee and EXO though) who can dance, sing, and give you a new single every financial quarter! Korea had cracked the code to society’s short attention spans long ago.

While this part of the list could really be used, to sum up my KPop worship experience as a whole. I’m dedicating it to Taeyeon, soloist and leader of arguably one of the best groups to ever do it, Girls’ Generation.

I had known about KPop for a while at this point, but thought it was something that only the weird kids listened to (sooooooo ironic in hindsight). I had dabbled in it during 2016 with Blackpink’s debut “Boombayah” and f(x)’ disbandment latest comeback “4 Walls”. However, 2017 was when I fully succumbed to the Hallyu Wave and my Spotify Wrapped was filled to the brim with Red Velvet, LOONA, and Girls’ Generation.

For better or worse, I’ve been unable to shake South Korea’s iron grip on my music taste to this day and am still sat every time a new group comes back with an infectious electropop track. Despite it all, I’ll always remember my roots and my diva devotion to Kim Taeyeon.

I’d be genuinely surprised if anyone reading this knows any Taeyeon songs, so,

here are some of my favourite tracks by her and Girls’ Generation: Genie, Mr. Mr., Why, and Weekend.

A COMPLETE History Lesson ON DIVAS

Despite what most people in my life think, I do listen to music OTHER than K-Pop!

Going into university I started to delve into the divas of the past, ones that inspired all the acts mentioned prior in this guide. Through tracing my way back, the queens hailing from the 80s: Madonna, Janet Jackson, and Kylie Minogue have become some of my go-to favourites since the turn of the decade.

Come on, during the Covid-19 lockdowns I had all the time in the world to do some cathartic research. Whaaaat? Class was online, this took precedence.

If I love all this music, why would I not want to seek the acts that inspired them?

I heavily encourage anyone who loves pop music to take some history lessons and do their due diligence. You wouldn’t have your favourite artist today if the greats didn’t define the lane they cruise down today!

Favourite Deep Cuts: Bedtime Story by Madonna, Your Disco Needs You by Kylie Minogue, and Better Days by Janet Jackson

The Future of the Diva

I won’t be naming any names for fear of my See You Next Tuesday tenure coming to an abrupt end, but no one is really bringing it these days in the diva category.

Excelling in performance, vocals, and visuals has become a lost art in recent times, but that doesn’t mean we can’t be optimistic for the future.

The starlets of today are very early into their careers, not everyone can debut and be an instant diva like Gaga, unfortunately. Alas, I’m sure label execs across the world are currently brewing the next batch of Stefani Germanottas to leave the baby gays gagging for decades to come.

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