As the end of the year approaches, it’s time to 1 on all of the best and worst moments of pop culture.
Fortunately, many of the best moments were thanks to incredible, unexpected collaborations in music, movies, media, fashion and more.
These five iconic collabs made the biggest splashes of 2023:
Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift
This duo is all anyone has talked about since they first made headlines in September.
Kelce, the tight end for the Kansas City Chiefs, revealed his interest in the pop star in July after attending the “Eras Tour” and expressing his disappointment that he wasn’t able to give her a friendship bracelet, a Swift concert staple, with his number on it.
After a couple of months of rumors, Swift was seen in September attending a Chiefs game beside Kelce’s family, uniting dedicated Chiefs fans and Swifties. Since then, Swift has continued to attend Chiefs games. Many fans even started tuning in to the games just to spot her on the jumbotron.
It’s safe to say that this was a collaboration that no one was expecting but with attention from the NFL bringing in new-found Chiefs fans and angry football fanatics, it’s an influential one.
“Barbenheimer”
Two influential movies of 2023, “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer,” happened to be released on the same day, July 21.
Given the sharp contrast and the excited buzz between the two, many movie-goers took to the internet to laugh at the irony of “Oppenheimer,” a film about the dark origins of the father of the atomic bomb, and “Barbie,” a movie about women empowerment, pink and Barbie dolls, being released on the same day.
This coincidence resulted in 2023’s best (and only) unintentional collaboration: “Barbenheimer.” With excitement high for both films, many people chose to embrace the simultaneous release through back-to-back movie marathons, also known as “Barbenheimer,” with direct encouragement from both movies to do so.
“Sarah’s Place” by Zach Bryan (feat. Noah Kahan)
After rapidly rising to fame, Zach Bryan and Noah Kahan have dominated their genre of folky, mellow music with clever lyrics and catchy choruses.
The release of “Sarah’s Place” on Bryan’s EP “Boys Of Faith” in September showed how powerful the two can be when they joined forces.
With lyrics as heartbreaking as ever and the combination of their distinct voices, both of their dedicated fan bases are still playing this song on repeat.
Ice Spice & Nicki Minaj
In April, Ice Spice, an upcoming artist at the time, released a remix of her song “Princess Diana,” as well as a music video with industry legend Nicki Minaj, launching it into the charts as the first equal-billed No. 1 collaboration by two women in Billboard’s Hot Rap Songs history.
However, the pair didn’t stop with that one song, they released “Barbie World,” a single featured on the “Barbie” movie soundtrack, that dropped in June. The song features a sample from the iconic Aqua song “Barbie Girl,” and gave fans an iconic remix of it, along with a peak at Minaj’s love for Barbie’s style.
Beyoncé and Balmain
In celebration of her 2022 album, “RENAISSANCE,” Beyoncé joined forces with Balmain’s creative director Olivier Rousteing in March to create a haute couture collection of 16 looks, inspired by all 16 of the album’s tracks, Renaissance Couture.
The collection has a wide range of materials and eclectic designs that make up the first “wearable album.”
Beyoncé featured her collection by wearing a look inspired by her song “I’M THAT GIRL” on the cover of Vogue France. The look was described as “a gown and Balmain vintage hat ensemble set in thermoformed black velvet, set with crystals.”
Beyoncé also showed off some of these looks at both the Grammy’s and the BRITS.
