Want to catch a rising star in the music industry? Think of the new Luminate Index as a powerful telescope capable of tracking more than 500 of the biggest stars in a vast sky of talent.
One particular GRAMMY-winning singer (and newly minted Fortnite icon) has emerged as the fastest-growing artist of the whole group: Sabrina Carpenter.
When Luminate Index launched in October 2024, Carpenter received a strong score of 65 for Q3 2024, putting her in the top 26% of artists tracked. By Q1 2025, Carpenter’s score skyrocketed to 86, positioning her into/above the top 5%.
This jump has landed Carpenter among the top 20 highest-rated artists, rubbing shoulders with household names like The Weeknd and Alicia Keys.
Carpenter managed this feat by making material improvements across all five major dimensions the Index measures: streaming footprint, awareness, public perception, fan engagement rates and social media footprint.
This measurement synthesizes Luminate’s survey research data with our streaming and music consumption data to provide a holistic metric of the depth, breadth and affinity of artists’ fandoms among consumers.
The histogram below shows all the quarterly scores collected for every artist in the Index between Q3 2024 and Q1 2025. Around 200 artists had a score between 55 and 60 at least once between Q3 ’24 and Q1 ’25, for instance. Seeing this distribution across the entire Index contextualizes Carpenter’s growth during this period.
Note that there is a much higher concentration of artists within the lower range of the bell curve, particularly in the 40-60 area, than in the upper range. Scores above 60, and especially above 80, are reserved for the megastars and household names. It’s much easier to move one’s score from, for example, 44 to 65, than it is to move from 65 to 86 — though Carpenter did just that.
The radar chart below shows Sabrina’s performance on the five dimensions that feed into the index between Q3 ’24 and Q4 ’24, with her biggest increases coming from Awareness (28% in Q3 ’24 to 38% in Q4 ’24). There are two points on each of the five dimensions, with the light blue representing Carpenter’s score in Q3 ’24 and darker blue representing Carpenter’s score in Q1 ’25.
In a big year for pop music in general, Carpenter’s growth in 2024 stood out, as she started the year opening for Taylor Swift and ended it with her own world tour. Carpenter’s album Short n’ Sweet, featuring hits that were both TikTok-viral and inescapable on terrestrial radio, was obviously the main driver for her ascent.
Carpenter also reached wider audiences in myriad unexpected ways. In just Q4 2024 alone, she launched a collaboration with Dunkin’ (her hit song is called “Espresso,” after all), duetted with veteran pop superstar Christina Aguilera and released a Netflix holiday special.
It’s likely that Carpenter’s star will continue to rise this year. Last week, she became a playable character in Fortnite, extending her reach to a massive, young audience.
Check out the latest Luminate Index data for Q1 ’25 to see which artists are also due to move further up the bell curve. You can download the full report here.
Luminate also offers custom talent evaluations that leverage our expertise and proprietary data. Schedule a demo today.
