Variety500 list of showbiz leaders includes Taylor Swift, Harry Styles, Elton John and Ariana Grande

Variety has put together its annual list of the 500 biggest names in showbiz — "leaders, movers and shakers," as the publication puts it — over the past year, and some of music's top stars have made the cut.

One of the categories on the Variety500 list, released ahead of the publication's annual Entertainment Summit on Jan. 8, is Talent and includes Taylor Swift, Harry Styles, Ariana Grande, Selena Gomez, Elton John, Rihanna and Beyoncé.

Variety explains why each star has made the list, although in many cases it's pretty obvious. After all, Taylor, Ari, Selena, Beyoncé and Elton all had pretty busy, headline-dominating years. Even Rihanna announced fashion deals and performed live, albeit at a private party for the wedding of a billionaire's son.

That leaves Harry as the one outlier. Variety says, "He kept a lower profile in entertainment in 2024 after two extremely busy years." In fact, according to Variety, the two most notable things he was connected to in 2024 were the tragic death of Liam Payne and the fact that he was part of the celebrity lookalike contest trend.

The rest of the 500 names are in TV, film, gaming, production, digital media, marketing, podcasting and other entertainment-related disciplines.