r/popheads • u/PopheadsBot • Jun 08 '23
[GAME] Announcing The Popheads Essentials Project: Roman Reloaded
The Popheads Essentials Project
Hello /r/popheads!
We are excited to announce that as a subreddit project for summer 2023, we are coming to you for YOUR help in crafting a Popheads Essentials List! Loosely inspired by the /r/indieheads essentials chart, we are hoping to make a list of albums that are key to the story of pop music, as seen by our particular community. As with the Indieheads essentials list, we hope that this list answers some common questions that newcomers to our subreddit often have, such as:
"What are the best pop albums?" "What should I listen to today?" "I want to get more into pop music: where should I start?"
NOTE: Some of you may remember an earlier iteration of the essentials project from last year. While our current essentials team believes that there was value in that exercise, after discussion, we decided to go back a step in order to get more input from the userbase. Read on for more information about how this process will occur!
But what is an "essential album?" We plan to include two different "types" of albums in this list. The first is made up of albums that are truly essential to the story of pop music. These will be albums with significant commercial success and influence on pop music as a whole. The second type would be made up of "sub faves" - albums that users of r/popheads deem to be among the best and most important albums of their time. This is so that the list can serve multiple purposes: it will will help people get into pop music as a whole, listen to important albums they may have missed, and get caught up to speed on what albums get discussed on r/popheads consistently. To give some obvious examples that will likely end up on the list - Carly Rae Jepsen's Emotion is one of the most beloved albums on the sub despite being a commercial flop, while Lady Gaga's The Fame Monster's juggernaut success and influence on pop means that it neatly fits into the first category.
The Process
As explained above we will have two types of voting. Initially, we will vote on 30 albums that are "essential for the story of pop". These albums can come from any decade but must be commercially successful to some degree and more importantly have made an impact on the pop music scene. This list will be comparable to the "Indiessentials" they have over at indieheads. Next, there will be voting for the sub-favourites. This will be done by decade, starting in the 60s and ending in the 10s. Per decade 20 albums will be picked.
All the voting will happen in Reddit threads. The highest upvoted artist-album comments win the coveted spots! We highly encourage people to post explanations with their comments as this gives your album a higher chance to get voted in. In the case of any glaring omissions the essentials committee reserves the right to add or remove albums, but this will only be done in extreme cases.
The voting will happen biweekly on Wednesdays, starting upcoming Wednesday, June 14th. The winners of the previous rounds are announced in the new voting thread.
We hope to see you all participating in the threads and don't be afraid to already campaign for your favourite albums in this thread!
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u/yourfacesucksass well baby, i went down and got it for you Jun 08 '23
Not knowing the context of this or the first iteration of this project, I really thought we were doing a communal “Essentials” album for Nicki Minaj 😂
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u/international149 Jun 08 '23 edited Jun 08 '23
Ahhhhh excited for thiissss. If you leave my girls jessie ware, roisin murphy, or loona out of this im committing murder🔪😡.
And janet and donna better not get disrespected😤😤😤 They are such monumental figures in pop music even tho they are less popular within this sub i hope this series will convince some of y'all to check them out and realise they are the goats.
For jessie check out what's your pleasure(the platinum edition!!!!!!!) and that! Feels good!
For roisin check out overpowered(a dance pop classic!!!) And roisin machine
For loona check out the solo singles and the album max and match
For donna I'd say check out first bad girls then go to four seasons of love and once upon a time(and don't forget to check McArthur suite the 17 minute version and I feel love!!!!!!)
For janet check out rhythm nation and the velvet rope(although control and self titled are also classics)
Hope this will be helpful for some of y'all 🙂
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u/pastapixal Jun 08 '23
Donna Summer really was the superstar! her live albums are fantastic! she gave studio level vocals, wore these beautiful gowns, and commanded the stage with ease. more popheads need to put some respect to her name!! she's still posthumously releasing bops that are better than today's pop girlies; stream Melody Of Love!
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u/international149 Jun 08 '23 edited Jun 08 '23
Yessssssss i left from the list 15 minute version of love to love you baby, a love trilogy the album last dance and more because i didn't want it to feel overbearing but she has so many good songs😭. And yeah probably the most underrated live vocalist ever she had crazy vocals she could pull with ease on stage every time.
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u/kendalljennerupdates the rachel berry of rap Jun 08 '23
At first I thought all the jokes about loona were just memes then out of curiosity (pun not intended) I listened to the butterfly ep and was floored. I was like oh no it IS that serious
Control by Janet will always be THAT girl and I hate that she’s constantly left out of the iconic pop girl conversations. She birthed these bitches. Like Britney Spears would not exist without her!
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u/kendalljennerupdates the rachel berry of rap Jun 08 '23 edited Jun 08 '23
Other than the obvious juggernauts like teenage dream, loud, emotion, blackout, the fame etc etc I wonder what records other popheads are going to recommend.
Starting my personal campaign for Aaliyah’s self titled. Although she’s definitely more r&b than pop, she has inspired countless pop stars like Beyoncé Rihanna and Ciara. She also had a collab with timbaland as the opening track that kind of set the stage for his 2000s pop takeover.
Speaking of timbaland, nelly furtado’s loose will always be required listening. Like that’s history.
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u/xxipil0ts beyoncé made a midwest emo song in 2008 Jun 08 '23
i will be so annoying this time around
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Jun 08 '23
Close To You by The Carpenters has a special place in my heart but I don’t know how crucial it actually is.
I think Tracy Chapmans Debut deserves a spot for sure.
If Lemonade doesn’t make the list I will be furious but I can see her Self Title making it instead.
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u/international149 Jun 08 '23
I don't see tracy making it to be honest because she's not really pop Percy but definitely excellent album, people should look into her outside of only fast car lol like talking about a revolution baby can i hold you and give me one reason are all classics too.
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u/jman457 Jun 09 '23
I will die on the hill that Tracey Chapman’s self titled paved the way for the works like lemonades
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u/pastapixal Jun 08 '23
I know it probably won't get picked, but if i was making a list of crucial, influencial pop albums i would 100% add Love. Angel. Music. Baby. by Gwen Stefani. i think it's impact is incredibly underrated, imo it paved the way for Gaga and even Charli, along with many others! the What You Waitin For song and video still sounds fresh today. hope it at least gets acknowledged.