Pop princess

Pop princess is a term often used for a successful solo female pop singer who is usually a teenager when she first achieves success. She often sings and dances in her concerts and music videos, and will usually venture into movies. A pop princess is usually heavily merchandised and has everything from T-shirts to dolls. Her music style may range from catchy teenybopper beat, bubblegum pop or teen pop, to ballads and even R&B- and Rock-influenced tracks in recent years.

Perhaps the earliest example of a pop princess is Lesley Gore, who had a string of hits in the 1960s, including the #1 hit "It's My Party". However, in comparison to her later counterparts, Gore's success was short-lived and did not manage to survive in the 1970s, a decade generally disassociated with pop music.

It would not be until twenty years after Gore's success that the term of pop princess would return to prominence in the form of Madonna, Tiffany and Debbie Gibson, among others, in the mid-1980s. In addition to music, most of these performers also acted, giving birth to the 'media mogul', or multi-occupational ways of current pop princesses. Much like Gore, most of these acts did not have widespread career success after their initial decade of popularity, failing to continue their fame in an era of a rap and grunge music: the 1990s. However, there were exceptions to this; Madonna, Janet Jackson, and Kylie Minogue continue to have wide mainstream success, and both are still highly prominent in music and pop culture. Paula Abdul, another performer of the era, was also able to see a career resurgence after becoming a judge on the popular show American Idol.

As mentioned above, the '90s were, for the most part, a decade dominated by a rap and grunge sound. However, just before the dawn of the millennium, a new group of pop princesses emerged onto the music scene, including Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Jessica Simpson and Mandy Moore among many others. Arguably for the first time, pop princesses dominated the music scene, and before long, just about everything else; this era of performers is notorious for having branched into just about every source of marketing, including dolls, video games, advertisements, clothes, accessories, fragrances and more.

After the resurgence of pop in the late 1990s to early 2000s, this brand of music once again took a back seat to a rap and hip-hop dominance. However, many of these entertainers are still just as famous to this day, and a new 'brand' of pop princesses has even arisen beginning in the mid-2000s, including Kelly Clarkson, Ashlee Simpson, Hilary Duff and Lindsay Lohan. The Disney Channel has recently produced a batch of female songstresses, including Duff, Raven-Symone, The Cheetah Girls,Ashley Tisdale and Miley Cyrus (Hannah Montana). Continuing in a recent trend in music, these performers have a more 'rock'-oriented sound. Now, famous females are trying to become the next pop princess. Paris Hilton, Nicole Richie, and many others are all recording pop albums.