An entertaining and deeply nostalgic dive into how female pop stars broke through the music industry in the 2000s and altered the cultural landscape forever, from the Ringer writer and co-host of the podcast Every Single Album

Low-rise jeans, butterfly clips, The Lizzie McGuire Movie, and Paris Hilton’s nights out. The early 2000s were a time of major moments in fashion, media, celebrity culture, and especially music. The aughts were a particularly fruitful time for female artists–still the only decade in the history of recorded music where women made up more than half the list of highest-grossing performers–and especially pop stars. Artists such as Britney Spears, Avril Lavigne, Taylor Swift, Rihanna, and Beyoncé were leading the charge—their success not only producing a new respect for female artists, but for pop stardom itself.

In Hit Girls, Nora Princiotti examines how these artists redefined the role of the pop star within the music industry and culture more broadly, and ultimately set the stage for the women who top the charts today. She unpacks the shifts in genre, technology, and celebrity culture that made this happen through the stories of the biggest names in aughties pop. Like how Britney opened the bubblegum floodgates at the start of the decade, inspiring both copycats like Christina Aguilera and Jessica Simpson and mall punk antagonists like Avril and Ashlee Simpson, all of whom contributed to a pop resurgence and a rethinking of what, musically, it meant to be a pop star. Or how innovations in technology led to the rise of EDM as Rihanna experimented with sound while Ke$ha and Katy Perry embraced the “party anthem.” Along the way, Princiotti explores how celebrity evolved alongside the shift in media from the tabloid days à la Lindsay Lohan to MySpace to Instagram and how Taylor ultimately created one of the largest, most dedicated fandoms the world has ever seen.

The ultimate love letter to pop music, Hit Girls celebrates the women who revolutionized the genre, inspired the next generation, and—in some cases—are burning brighter than ever.