I used to be a Demi Lovato stan. It was her second album, Here W Go Again that struck me. After her first stunt at rehab, she came back to the scene but appeared to have the intentions of really becoming more popular. She released Unbroken which was mixed but had a couple bops, including Give Your Heart A Break. She then invested money and got into the leftovers of Max Martin which gave her hits such as Confident and Cool for the Summer.

After that, she released an album most of her fans say to this day is her best - Tell Me You Love Me. It was different from a lot of the belting that we heard. Her voice was in control and not shouting on every song. She had multiple hits and fan favorites.

After she returned again to the pop scene, she came out with Dancing with the Devil...The Art of Letting Go. A great album but mixed with controversy with her spiraling back into drugs and alcohol, it ultimately distracted most people and gave her a negative lite to a ton of people...

She came back again, claiming she's going back to rock and gone are the days of pop - which a lot of fans and people watching from the outside said her voice was better suited for. But the album came and went. The fans ate it up but the so call outsiders didn't which ultimately left it a disappointment.

She tried to really sell that she was not turning back and rock was here to stay - releasing a variant of her greatest hits but with a rock twist. Unfortunately it didn't connect with most - even fans wondering who was this for? and if it was just an attempt to meet a contractual obligation.

Since then, she's talked about working on new music. In recent interviews, she has said that it's not rock - going back on her word that rock was here to stay. She's been taking her time to find the sound and has hinted that she is finally in her groove and writing songs about where she is at in her life right now, which is overall a positive shift with her engagement to singer Jutes.

With her peers seeing massive success, which has been what her entire career is, I'm wondering if the momentum to get back close to the top (in her standards) will be too tough. I'm curious to hear what pop stans think she should do.

TL;DR - Demi's career atm is pretty much dead but she plans to release music, potentially next year. What can she do to get back to a higher status?

Hello everyone and THANK YOU for nominating and voting for your faves in this year's awards! This was so much fun to make, as it is every year, and trust that your feedback has been HEARD. Several notes and adjustments for next year's awards will be sprinkled throughout the winners list below... but in the meantime, due to the overwhelming demand for movie & television categories...

Here is the link to nominate your favorite movies, TV shows and actors for 2024

This form will be open for a few weeks, and nominations will be announced in the new year.

Now onto the music results!

https://preview.redd.it/d7tvjez3er7e1.png?width=3290&format=png&auto=webp&s=7376c9f1a96061a0ebf591c54b794059f60cd71b

Lady Gaga Video Vanguard Award: Ariana Grande

She joins Lady Gaga, Beyoncé, Taylor Swift, Britney Spears, Björk & Kylie Minogue, who all won in previous years.

Moving forward, all nominees for the Lady Gaga Video Vanguard Award will only be eligible 10 years after their first notable music video.

For the main categories where we had 7 nominees, we'll list the ranked order:

Artist of the Year

Winner: Charli XCX

2nd — Chappell Roan
3rd — Sabrina Carpenter
4th — Kendrick Lamar
5th — Taylor Swift
6th — Ariana Grande
7th — Billie Eilish

Previous Winners:

• 2021: Olivia Rodrigo*
• 2022: Beyoncé
• 2023: Olivia Rodrigo

^(*there was no Artist of the Year award in 2021, but Olivia had received the most nominations by far across all categories that year)

Song of the Year

Winner: Chappell Roan - "Good Luck, Babe!"

2nd — Sabrina Carpenter - "Espresso"
3rd — Charli XCX feat. Lorde - "Girl, So Confusing"
4th — Kendrick Lamar - "Not Like Us"
5th — Ariana Grande - "We Can't Be Friends (Wait For Your Love)"
6th — Billie Eilish - "Birds of a Feather"
7th — Addison Rae - "Diet Pepsi"

Previous Winners:

• 2021: Billie Eilish - "Happier Than Ever"
• 2022: Beyoncé - "Alien Superstar"
• 2023: Carly Rae Jepsen - "Psychedelic Switch"

Album of the Year

Winner: Charli XCX - Brat

2nd — Beyoncé - Cowboy Carter
3rd — Sabrina Carpenter - Short n' Sweet
4th — Billie Eilish - Hit Me Hard and Soft
5th — Magdalena Bay - Imaginal Disk
6th — Ariana Grande - Eternal Sunshine
7th — Taylor Swift - The Tortured Poets Department

Previous Winners:

• 2021: Taylor Swift - Evermore
• 2022: Beyoncé - Renaissance
• 2023: Caroline Polachek - Desire I Want to Turn Into You

Best New Artist

Winner: Jade

2nd — Rosé
3rd — GloRilla
4th — Rachel Chinouriri
5th — The Last Dinner Party
6th — Benson Boone
7th — Normani

(it's worth noting that even with hundreds of ballots, 2nd, 3rd and 4th place were ONE point away each)

Previous Winners:

• 2021: Olivia Rodrigo
• 2022: Ethel Cain
• 2023: Ice Spice

Video of the Year

Winner: Sabrina Carpenter - "Taste"

2nd — Ariana Grande - "We Can't Be Friends (Wait For Your Love)"
3rd — Kendrick Lamar - "Not Like Us"
4th — Charli XCX - "360"
5th — Jade - "Angel of My Dreams"
6th — FKA twigs - "Eusexa"
7th — Lady Gaga - "Disease"

Previous Winners:

• 2017: Kendrick Lamar's "Humble"
• 2018: Ariana Grande's "God Is a Woman"
• 2019: FKA twigs's "Cellophane"
• 2020: Lady Gaga's "911"
• 2021: Lil Nas X's "Montero (Call Me By Your Name)"
• 2022: Carly Rae Jepsen & Rufus Wainwright's "The Loneliest Time"
• 2023: Troye Sivan's "One of Your Girls"

Album Categories

We're happy that locking AOTY and SOTY nominees to the main categories seems to have gotten a positive reception, so we'll continue to do this in the future!

Best Debut Album: Tyla - Tyla
runner up: Rachel Chinouriri - What A Devastating Turn Of Events

Best Sophomore Album: Remi Wolf - Big Ideas
runner up: Gracie Abrams - The Secret Of Us

Best Intermediate Album: Megan Thee Stallion - Megan
runner up: Clairo - Charm

Best Veteran Album: Kendrick Lamar - GNX
runner up: Halsey - The Great Impersonator

Other Categories

Favorite Band/Group: Magdalena Bay
runner up: FLO

Favorite Side Project: Charli XCX - Brat And It's Completely Different But Also Still Brat
runner up: Cynthia Erivo, Ariana Grande & Various Artists - Wicked: The Soundtrack

Favorite Collaboration: Charli XCX feat. Lorde - "Girl, So Confusing"
runner up: Lady Gaga & Bruno Mars - "Die With a Smile"

Favorite Billboard Hit: Sabrina Carpenter - "Taste"
runner up: Megan Thee Stallion - "Hiss"

Favorite Album Artwork: Charli XCX - Brat
runner up: Beyoncé - Cowboy Carter

Decade Throwback Album: Taylor Swift - 1989
previous winners: Lana Del Rey - Born to Die (2022), Lorde - Pure Heroine (2023)

Most awarded artists (since this started in 2021):

7 - Beyoncé

6 - Charli XCX, Taylor Swift

5 - Lil Nas X, Olivia Rodrigo

4 - Carly Rae Jepsen, Doja Cat

3 - Caroline Polachek, Silk Sonic

Some fun hand-picked responses from Popheads when asked if they had anything else to add:

• banging year
• i love tomatoes
• Grammys who? VMAs? Never heard of her. The Popheads Music Awards are the real deal
• It’s so confusing sometimes to be a girl
• YEAR OF ARIANA
• I know Olivia won’t win with 5 songs but I’m rooting for my bae
• :D
• keep me in my prayers that i experience the gayest and happiest year of my life next year
• Elphaba yell
• Grant & Ash robbed
• Beyonce robbed
• porter robinson was robbed
• tinashe was robbed
• Knocked Loose robbed
• "homosexual?" - terri joe, ??? year
• WE NEED SPRING BREAKERS REMIX FT CARLY RAE JEPSEN
• Marry me?
• charli= onika xcx=burger
• People have to quit sleeping on the Ari version of “Sympathy is a Knife” !!
• For such a shitty year, 2024 absolutely ate down in music!! All these choices were hard af to decide between!
• <3
• thank you for running this!
• this was great!!
• Thankyou so much for organizing this!!!
• ily popheads thanks for doing fun stuff <3

Talk about anything, music related or not. However, pop music gossip should be discussed in the Teatime & Trending Topics threads, linked below.

Please be respectful; normal rules still apply. Any comments found breaking the rules will be removed and you will be warned or banned.

Posts of Interest

• Teatime & Trending Topics - Pop music gossip
• Self Promo Sunday - Promote your own work here
• Popheads Charts - The most popular songs on Popheads each week, based on Last.fm data
• Main Pod Girl: The Popheads Podcast (Spotify link) - The official Popheads podcast, featuring a rotating cast of active users & artists
• Reintroducing... The Popheads Jukebox - A weekly round up of new music and classic where users can review and rate songs (similar to what Rate Your Music does)

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Rates and Other Activities

November:

• Rap Girl Vanguard Rate - Up and coming female rappers [Due Dec 7, Reveal Dec 13-15]
• '90s Eclectic Enchantresses - Tori Amos vs. Björk vs. Kylie Minogue [Due Dec 15, Reveal Dec 20-22]

December:

• '20s Festival Pop Rock - Alvvays vs. The Beths vs. Paramore vs. Wet Leg [Due Jan 12, Reveal Jan 17-19]
• '80s Arena Rock - Rock Icons of the 1980s [Due Jan 18, Reveal Jan 24-26]

Rate Wiki: https://www.reddit.com/r/popheads/wiki/index/rate-threads/

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Playlists

Check out our official Spotify playlists here, updated each week!

• Popheads Weekly Radar - A quick bite of 5-10 new songs from this week, curated by the mods
• The Popheads Stream - Rotating playlist of new and newly discovered releases from the past several weeks

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If you use last.fm, you can create a collage here or here to display what you have listened to this week! Make sure you upload your collage to imgur, or it will change over time.

You guys might not like me for this but I do not think Megan and Latto are good. When it comes to the both of them their flow and beats sound the exact same on every song and album. It really is not that good to be honest. When I check on Megan's last songs like on Act II it wasn't giving anything for me.

When it comes to Latto on her new album some improvements , but at the same time sounded the same and nothing new. I like the both of them , but I do not see anything fun in their new music. What do y'all think

We all know there are songs where an artist provides a significant amount of vocals and still doesn’t receive credit. Examples of this are Beyoncé on Coldplay’s Hymn for the Weekend or Lana Del Rey on The Weeknd's Party Monster. But what about the opposite case?

The other day, I was listening to Apologize by OneRepublic and realized there are two versions of the song: one solo and another with Timbaland credited, where all he does is sing “Aye, aye, aye” repeatedly in the background. Are there other songs where a featured artist contributed minimally but was still credited?

Following her incredible debut album SAWAYAMA in 2020, it seemed Rina had the capability to go all the way. Sadly the response to Hold the Girl (2022) was lukewarm at best, despite some great songs like Frankenstein and Imaginging.

Ever since I feel we've been hearing less and less about Rina. I've heard there's problems with her record label and her fanbase was (to put it mildly) not excited about her Paris Hilton collab.

It saddens me, because I think Rina really has that experimental pop girl essence. She plays with many genres, deals with refreshing topics in her lyrics and she's a fantastic live performer.

I'm just confused how she managed to fall off / never take off after such a strong start?

There are a lot of different parts to my question, so I’d be happy to take book recommendations that go into this in full detail, but I’m wondering how pop music is typically made.

For example, I get the sense, whether this is true or not, that most pop artists are not writing their own songs, whereas in rap and rock, I get the opposite sense — that most artists do write their own songs, or at least are heavily involved in writing them. But pop music has always seemed more ‘manufactured’ in the sense of being created by people other than the pop artists themselves.

Similarly, I get the feeling that in rap, the artist is typically deciding who they want to work with on a given song, whereas in pop I have the impression that the studios are more in control of that process. I have no idea how true this is, it’s just an impression I have without any specific examples to back it up.

So how is pop music typically made? Is it common for pop artists to write their own songs (or play a big role in the lyrics), or is it more common for someone else to write it for them? Do they get full freedom to choose the producers and artists they work with? When I hear that an album represents a new era, was that a studio decision or something driven by the wishes of the pop artist?

I understand the answers to these questions are probably very different for someone like Taylor Swift, so I guess I’m more interested in how it works generally for your average pop singer.

TLDR: have this idea in my head that pop artists are on a roster of talent and that the studio is basically creating music for them and then assigning it to a specific artist based on how it fits with their image and talent. Am I way off base? Is there any truth to that?

There’s no judgment here. I ask this as someone who loves pop music and has been listening to it since the 80s. I’ve just never learned how it’s usually made, or why I have the sense that it’s more studio-driven than other types of music.

What marketing / business techniques in the music industry have bothered you the most?

For me, it is 360 stages in stadiums - I went to one of these shows and I felt cheated - the artist was facing me only 1/4th of the time, the pillars holding the screens at the top were blocking the view for the rest of the show and on top of that, the artist was not even shown on the screens. 50% of the time, they were showing some random meaningless projections - livid! It just seems to me like a greedy and lazy decision by the artist - instead of doing multiple proper crowd-facing shows, they want to fill the capacity and get on with it asap even if it means a worse experience for the fans - disappointing!

I am also annoyed with overpriced "limited" vinyls costing 200-300 dollars. Like really? So out of touch... anyways.

I'm curious to hear what annoys you (if anything)?

Recently I've been really into Tori Amos, Emilie Autumn's enchant album and I'm slowly getting into Fiona Apple. All of the aforementioned have been described online as both Baroque and Chamber Pop. (As well as dream Pop but I think that's a bit more distinctive) What are the key differences between these genres ? Is there a music map or something to help me understand the different variations of Pop?

Was thinking about this earlier today. We often hear about artists who leave a positive impact or influence the scene in a positive way. Usually reflected by the musical or cultural trends they set, artists they paved the way for, etc. My question is, which artists come to mind as having a negative influence, whether directly or indirectly?