Forbes Magazine’s Hottest New Music Stars

#1: SOULJA BOY

17-year-old rapper Soulja Boy has cranked his way all the way to the top of Forbes Magazine’s Hottest New Music Stars 2008 list. He shares the list with the likes of Sean Kingston (#2), J. Holiday (#4), Flo Rida (#5), Jordin Sparks (#7), and more. The list was populated by artists who had big hits in 2007. How were they determined, you ask? Check out the info below:

To compile a list of the hottest new stars of music, we examined several measures of popularity and success. To start off, we looked at the top searches and downloads on peer-to-peer networks during the past 12 months as measured by BigChampagne, as well as press mentions as measured by Factiva.

Then we looked at U.S. digital track downloads and album sales in 2007 and the first two months of 2008, as measured by Nielsen SoundScan. Finally, we took a look at “mastertone” ringtone sales during the same period, as measured by Nielsen RingScan (mastertones are ringtones that play a snippet of the actual recording of your favorite song). [ VIA FORBES » ]

#2: SEAN KINGSTON
#3: COLBIE CAILLAT
#4: J. HOLIDAY
#5: FLO RIDA
#6: PLIES
#7: JORDIN SPARKS
#8: HUEY
#9: HURRICANE CHRIS
#10: ONE REPUBLIC

Too bad a good 40 - 50% of this list probably won’t even be around in 2013!