What’s The Deal With This Pop Life? A Pop Genius State of the Union

Gather round, little monsters, it's time for auntie epaulettes to tell you a story about this little forum that we all know and love.

Back in May, @babuc got on the Pop Forum and told us it was time to #getpopgeniuspoppinagain. If you look back at that naive baby deer of an OP, Babu came in with some ambitious schemes for some thread series and more committed engagement from the community. While the grand pop renaissance that Babu envisioned didn't spring up overnight like we all might have hoped, the difference between then and now—in terms of overall pop activity on the site—is like night and day.

When I first got here in April, pop was barely even hitting my radar. Adele's "Hello" was still charting high on our internal pop chart from week to week like there was nothing interesting going on. Incredible crossover memes like Beyonce came in with a bang and out with a whimper, despite heroic efforts put in by some of our best users (s/o @Theonlydjorkaeff @TheScrivener @sereinik @Drew_Harvie @roy068).

This month, we had three pop singles from three different artists charting at the top of the overall charts (Chainsmokers, Sia, Lady Gaga, I think it was? Thanks for the assist, Kendrick!) at the same time. And though Beyonce is still showing up a heck of a lot (long live the queen, have we done a secondary cleanup on Lemonade yet?), overall, the pop charts fluctuate weekly in a way that follows what's actually popping out in the real world.

A lot of this is down to the tireless efforts of our pop scholars (ty Babu, @darkdoomhoney @sereinik @Aenex @KillerSnowTiger @KIRSSES @TeuntjeVDW @LanaDelReyquaza @VinylZombie_MCR @Lala88 @nicole13 etc etc ETC), who put in the time to make song pages look shiny. But there's also been a sea change in the way that pop is being handled on the site.

1. Pop singles have become regular features on Songs of The Week (s/o @Empath), meaning they get attention from the wider editorial community. This hasn't hurt Pop genius, rather it's helped it! Pop has benefitted immeasurably from the @music forum, and will continue to co-exist in what I can hope will be an ever-happier symbiosis. Remember to tag @pop-genius early and often when you run across relevant threads around the site.

2. The Q&A feature came out! Honestly, this has been a boon to the Pop tag, and many thanks to @darkdoomhoney for shepherdessing us into this new age. When I first got here, a big question that was out in the ether was how to annotate pop in a way that added knowledge to what are often very straightforward songs. Now we have our answer! Mining for big-picture context and collating interviews—a staple of every pop star's act—adds a ton to every new song that hits the charts. Check out all the amazing interview snippets that have made their way onto "Perfect Illusion"'s page, both in the Q&A and in the annotations. Looks shiny, friends!!

3. Warm Fresh blood! In the last few months we've gotten a new influx of pop and pop-adjacent editors (@religion @seaeffess @NicholasGwynne @IAMIVAN) and moderators (@VinylZombie_MCR @cordyleome @butterscotch-pie). We also have @BrianAnothonyHernandez on in Artist Relations! He's been moving mountains getting Genius on the radar of our fave pop acts, and more verified content equals more and stronger engagement. This new thing with Shawn Mendes is pretty sweet, right? (s/o @genius-social-media). All these new faces make me positively giddy about the future of the pop tag. :DD

So what can we do to keep the momentum going?

1. More threads for news and music releases. This can be either here OR in @music, let's keep things easy breezy, but the idea is to get a coordinated effort to get even more eyes on pop music that is taking off. Follow Babu's lead to see how easy and fun these threads can be to create.

2. Top 40 and meme-level pop is doing great, as we can see! So it's time to start branching out and really repping for indie pop and all of Pop Genius' various subgenres. Start a thread about your faves or that encourages others to share theirs. Genius users are on the pulse of all things musically awesome, so let's pool our knowledge and give new users a place to come introduce themselves and their pop passions.

3. Staff support. Hopefully you've all seen the Supporting User Projects and Building New Communities thread in the music forum because it's real! Pop Genius hasn't had a dedicated staff member since @dalmo, and while I could never fill his shoes, I'm here, the community staffers are here, and we're invested in Pop.

To this end, I'm going to launch a really low-key weekly thread, What's Poppin', that let's y'all know what pages have recently joined the top 50 songs on our Genius Pop Chart. For example, this week we have two new singles out that are charting: James Arthur's "Say You Won't Let Go" and Celine Dion's P!nk-penned "Recovering." This will be a great place to dig into smaller acts that wouldn't quite merit their own thread. Anybody/everybody should pitch in and make threads for meme acts when they can.

So guys, what do you think? Have you felt this uptick of activity from your end? Did I miss someone who deserves a shoutout? What else can we do to invigorate pop as much as it deserves? By your powers combined, etc etc. (Oooh, reply with which pop stars you'd cast as wind, water, earth, fire, and heart.)

As always, teamwork makes the dream (pop) work.

@genius-editorial-board @music

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