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Once upon a time (a month and a half after A Star Is Born was released), me, u/radiofan15, saw a ranking of Lady Gaga's discography from certain music news site being posted on r/Popheads, and that post got over 100 commentaries, all of them criticizing the placement of whatever song they came across... this gave me an idea: let r/Popheads do it! It was as simple, or so I though at the moment, as using Google Form to compile the results.
Of course not only it wasn't an unique idea, but also I wasn't aware how much I will screw up the results!
Without entering into details, so I wouldn't get exposed, I wasn't particularly happy with the resulting post and the way some of the elements of the particular ranking were handled... so I decided to give them another try. This time I was gonna choose the next logical pop girl after Gaga as my guinea pig: Katy Perry. Of course, just a couple of hours after having finalized everything and while making the final preparations for the Reddit post announcing the ranking, THIS happened and suddenly it wasn't a good idea to talk about Katy Perry for a while on r/Popheads.
Britney Spears then became my guinea pig because she's the Princess of Pop and everyone loves the Princess of Pop. Britney's ranking was a hit and so I decided, with the moderators' permission, to continue doing this rankings. As time passed by and my abilities compiling and doing these rankings, more people started to notice them and of course started requesting for their favorite artists to be ranked, which led me to turn these rankings into something of a second job for me. But I'm not complaining, it's always fun to see everyone disagreeing with how tasteless everyone else is and seeing the robberies that usually takes place.
Life, of course, got in the way and I had to stop doing these rankings for a while... my dramatic (my psychologist would disagree, calling it heavy instead) life basically made me retire from Reddit for a while and the development of this side activity died as soon as shit truly hit the fan...
But, a year later or so, NecroDolphinn and _SoulGlitch decided to revive the rankings and, so far, they have done an amazing job... but of course I never truly left and decided to help them behind the scenes with some advice here and there, data compilation and, of course, this beautiful but meaningless website in which you're reading this right now; and let's hope we can continue doing this for a really long time.
Is this an official r/Popheads activity? Yes and no... it all started as a one-off one-man operation but then it evolved into a weekly three-man operation that is sanctioned and supported by the moderators of r/Popheads but it's still 100% our own baby, this site included. Still, I'm grateful for allowing us to use their platform for this ranking.
What's the current schedule for the Rankings? A ranking gets posted every week and it's open for submissions for 1 to 2 weeks (depending on ranking's length), with submissions being closed at midnight EST the closing day (from two weeks after the ranking was originally posted); from there the results are posted the Sunday AFTER the ranking closes.
Which programs do you use for the rankings? Just Google Forms, Excel and Photoshop (for the banners and logos), other than that the process of number crunching and compiling the results are surprisingly basic.
Which artists can be ranked? Given how loose the definition of pop can be even in the sub, the general idea is that any pop or pop-adjacent artist can be ranked, regardless of era, genre or even language, as long as they have some crossover appeal with the users of the sub. This means that any artist that can rock, indie, hip-hop/R&B, country and electronic act can be considered for any given ranking. If you think that discussing a particular musical act is more appropriate on any other specialized subreddit (think r/hiphopheads, r/indieheads, r/music, etc.) then they might not be an appropriate artist to rank, regardless of their status, success and legacy (ex. Outkast is a wildly acclaimed hip-hop duo with multiple crossover hits, however, given how long they have been inactive and how much of their material is barely pop then they're not considered an appropriate act for a r/Popheads ranking).
What are the requisites for any artist to be ranked? The two basic requirements is that the performer must have a significant body of work and that they must not be close to start an era; the former basically means that any artist with less than three studio albums and/or 50 songs is not gonna be ranked anytime soon (ex. as much as you might like Sky Ferreira, you better site and wait because that ranking ain't happening anytime soon), the latter is there to prevent rankings to get outdated that quickly, as the modus operandi is to wait some weeks until after an album is released before ranking a performer (around 8-10 weeks for studio albums or mixtapes, a month for EPs). If a performer was recently featured on a loose release it's not really an impediment for ranking them.
Which material is generally ranked? Full-length bodies of work (studio albums, mixtapes, etc.) or shorter releases (EPs), loose singles, features (unless they were already ranked and they're considered small enough for consideration, like soundtrack deep cuts), soundtrack appearances, remixes with an added-on feature and any song that was officially released for legal public consumption regardless of the medium.
Which material is generally NOT ranked? Leaks (unless they have actually charted on an official chart, which has actually happened), standard remixes (with some minor exceptions, depending on a case-by-case basis), live versions, demos and pre-debut material (with some exceptions), foreign-language versions of songs (with some exceptions) and charity supergroup singles (except for those in which the ranked act was the lead act, ex. We Are The World and What More Can I Give, both by Michael Jackson); any other material not included here is included or excluded on a case-by-case basis.
What happens if an artist released material after their ranking took place? In such cases an "update" gets posted, asking participants to rank the newest material and adding the material (with a disclaimer) to the original ranking.
Why does some of the rankings includes multiple artists? In some special cases, a group includes one or several members with solo careers and I find more practical to just rank them all... so, it's basically laziness.
Why are some discographies lumped together? Due to the aforementioned "3 albums and/or 50 songs" rule, some artists can't be ranked... but there's a loophole for it, as acts that are attached to other acts (ex. solo acts that came from a particular group) can be ranked together as a way to spice things up... however, due to the aforementioned rule, their situation mostly depends from that artist's status:
Acts without an specific impact outside of the main ranked act's space are most likely to be lumped together (ex. RM, Suga and J-Hope from BTS).
Acts with an specific impact outside of the main ranked act's space but without the "3 albums and/or 50 songs" needed to separate them would be placed on a separate ranking on the specific page of the main ranked act. (ex. Fergie and will.i.am from the Black Eyed Peas).
If the act is just an extension from the main ranked act or vice versa both rankings are just lumped together (ex. the "band" Selena Gomez and the Scene and Selena Gomez as a solo act)