3 Y2K Pop Stars Who May Find Second Life With Gen Alpha
· Vice
In recent years, artists from the 2000s have found a second life with Gen Alpha. Born between 2010 and 2024, this generation is starting to come into its own. This new generation doesn’t care much about how dated songs are; they care more about accessibility, like using songs for TikTok. Given their open-minded taste, they have grown to absorb their parents’ music from the 2000s. Gen Z and Gen Alpha favor modern K-Pop, and it’s only a matter of time before they revive Y2K. When that time comes, these three Y2K artists may find a second life with Gen Alpha.
Hilary Duff
Ask any millennial, and they’ll tell you how big of a star Hilary Duff was in the early 2000s. Lizzie McGuire was one of television’s most-watched shows, becoming a huge hit for the Disney Channel. In 2003, she starred in the box-office hit film, The Lizzie McGuire Movie, which has become a cult classic over the years. In 2003, she penned the commercially successful album Metamorphosis. It generated the hit “Come Clean”, which was featured in her next film, A Cinderella Story. She continued this success with a self-titled album in 2004 and Dignity in 2007. The latter peaked at No. 3 on the Billboard 200.
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In 2025, Hilary Duff announced a comeback album and tour. She toured throughout 2026, selling out arenas across the US. She recently announced a tour extension, adding dates in Europe, Latin America, and more US dates. As millennials are scrambling for tickets, many are bringing their own daughters to these concerts. This will have a profound, lasting effect on the younger generation.
Avril Lavigne
Gen Alpha is currently being raised on 2000s emo. Combining this with their pop sensibilities could lead straight into a revival of Avril Lavigne. The way hits like “Complicated” (2002), “Sk8r Boi” (2002), and “Girlfriend” (2007) had a hold on millennials, the same could happen with Gen Alpha. It’s only a matter of time, really. In 2025, Avril Lavigne embarked on a tour with All Time Low and Simple Plan. She extended that tour well into June 2026. Once again, Millennial parents brought their young, impressionable Gen Alpha kids to these shows.
Backstreet Boys
Millennials can never forget the split between Backstreet Boys fans and NSYNC fans. In the late 90s and early 2000s, they were the epitome of boy bands. As boy bands such as BTS, Seventeen, and Stray Kids have a stronghold on Gen Alpha, they could easily gravitate toward these millennial boy bands. Just wait until they discover huge Y2K hits like “I Want It That Way”, “Everybody (Backstreet’s Back)”, and “As Long As You Love Me”. With how defining these groups were, millennial parents are surely introducing their children to the boy bands of their generation. Unlike NSYNC, the Backstreet Boys have never broken up. They’ve been together for 33 years, outliving their rivals NSYNC by 24 years.
Photo by Joseph Okpako/WireImage for ABA
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