Hello r/popheads! Myself, u/vayyiqra and u/nt96 are SO excited to welcome you to Cyberpop AKA Accelerationist Pop, an idea first put forward by the wonderful u/kappyko, and that we are so thrilled to be able to co-host and so hopeful we can do this wonderful idea justice. Let’s dive in.

These four albums are seminal albums in edgier, more experimental yet still radio-friendly pop that came out of the mid-2010s. There is a throughline between the four albums of experimenting with more technologically advanced methods of producing music as well as gaining a cult following via the internet! That little series of tubes we can use to find cooking recipes and meet other fans of pop music and ruin elections from remote locations. Whatever floats your boat!

If you already know the drill because you're a regular rater and are ready to get started, feel free to get rolling with the rate. Below are links to submit, a Pastebin ballot, and playlists for both Spotify and Apple Music:

Submission Link

Pastebin Ballot

Spotify Playlist │ Apple Music Playlist | YouTube Playlist

Ten stacks, ten keys

Swimmin' pools, goin' real deep

L.A., A. G. (A. G.!)

Studio with the real beats

This is not a drill, do not adjust your sets. Your eyes do not deceive you - Pop 2 is finally being rated in full!!

The Charli mixtape that we have tried often to rate came at an interesting turning point in Charli’s career. She had released two studio albums and two mixtapes to varying critical acclaim and had toured with Katy Perry and this obscure indie producer with whom I’m not sure Popheads will be familiar - DAE know Jack Antonoff? She had also broken new, more experimental ground with an EP that was filled with bangers and soaked with SOPHIE production - Vroom Vroom. She soon announced a third studio album which was to have one foot in this experimental production, the other in her more radio-friendly pop roots. However, after the album was delayed, Charli instead doubled down on this left-field avant-garde pop gamble with two A.G. Cook-produced mixtapes - Number 1 Angel and Pop 2.

Pop 2 was recorded over the course of two months, a rapidity she would duplicate in 2020 with How I’m Feeling Now. A.G. and Charli treated these recording sessions as a fresh start, choosing to lean into experimental production and a strong usage of auto-tune for fresh, electronic soundscapes still rooted in pop sensibilities. The mixtape was treated with a communal attitude - Charli prioritized giving her collaborators enough space to feature prominently and have their moment. The finished product was a glossy over-the-top romp into electronic pop with pop tropes cranked up to 11, and was later considered a pioneering work into the genre we would come to know as hyperpop.

Critically, Pop 2 was soaked in praise, earning critical acclaim from outlets such as Pitchfork, NME and checks notes ... the Financial Times? Hm. It would also earn the #40 spot on Pitchfork’s 100 Best Albums Of The 2010s, which is an incredible feat but that list also did put Lemonade ten spots below 4, so ... take it with a grain of salt. To this day the mixtape continues to earn streams and sales for its rightful place as a forward-thinking classic.

Sit back and enjoy the seminal moment in Gay Rights! that is Pop 2.

1. Backseat (feat. Carly Rae Jepsen)

2. Out Of My Head (feat. Tove Lo and ALMA)

3. Lucky

4. Tears (feat. Caroline Polachek)

5. I Got It (feat. Brooke Candy, CupcakKe and Pablo Vittar

6. Femmebot (feat. Dorian Electra and Mykki Blanco)

7. Delicious (feat. Tommy Cash)

8. Unlock It (Lock It) feat. Kim Petras and Jay Park

9. Porsche (feat. MØ)

10. Track 10

Note: For the YouTube playlist, "laughing and not being normal" may have a region block, and also "Flesh Without Blood" and "Life in the Vivid Dream" are in the same video, so the tracklist is a bit out of order. Also note that some other songs in her official music videos on YouTube are different from the album, but we are rating the album versions. Feel free to ask us for help finding them if you need it!

Why you looking for a harmony? There is harmony in everything

It's a butterfly whose wings span the world

So fly away

If you're looking for a dream girl ... I'll never be your dream girl

Ooh, angel baby, there is nothing I'd rather do ... than rate this album, the fourth by Canadian synthpop artist Grimes, and the one that cemented her place in the pop music canon. Grimes needs little introduction, since much like another artist in this rate, she is known for her music as well as her (let's call it) colourful personality and outrageous internet presence. Put another way: is she a musical genius? An outspoken feminist? A capitalist sellout? A harmless geek? An annoying (or amusing) troll? Maybe all of the above? It depends on your own point of view. "Chaotic" and "polarizing" are other words coming to mind that describe her. But remember - we're not rating her as a person, we're rating her music. So let's talk about that.

Grimes is from British Columbia, Canada but her career began in Montréal, Québec, where she went to university.. As Canada's second-largest city, Montréal was also the centre of a prolific electronic and indie scene in the 2010s. She began as an underground artist, putting out two albums. After the spooky, gothic feel of her early music, which fell into the "witch house" microgenre, she broke through to the mainstream with her critically acclaimed third album Visions (2012), a heavily electronic, psychedelic and surreal take on dance-pop. A largely self-taught musician, she famously made the album in just a few weeks by herself in a darkened room.

What next? She then shocked everybody by moving to the United States and putting out a new album in 2015 of bright, upbeat and poppy songs that kept her electronic production but added new elements like guitars, violin, and much clearer vocals. Maybe the most surprising thing, however, was how much almost everyone loved it. Many critics named Art Angels one of the best albums of the year and it is now seen by many fans as her masterpiece. Years later, a rumour spread through the media that she disavowed the album and believes it to be "crap" - which she has debunked.

While Grimes' early music did not focus on lyrical meaning (her most famous song "Oblivion" being an exception), sometimes not having intelligible lyrics at all, Art Angels was also a shift toward writing about themes important to her. Unlike many pop artists, almost none of her songs are about love or romance, including none on Art Angels. Many songs, such as "California", allude to her experiences as a woman and musician, and the sexism she has felt in the music industry. Some songs talk about friendships, like a falling-out that is the topic of "Flesh Without Blood". One fan favourite, "Kill V. Maim" stems from a bizarre mental image she had of a vampire flying through space, played by Al Pacino (???). She brings up heavier subjects like self-harm (on "Pin") and sexual objectification ("Venus Fly"), the feeling of existential struggle on "Realiti", as well as more lighthearted ones like her love for the city of Montréal ("Artangels") and the wistful album closer "Butterfly".

As a side project to the album, Grimes travelled to Italy where most of the music videos for the album were shot, in collaboration with her friend and fellow artist HANA. These videos were compiled into a short film called the Acid Reign Chronicles. They can also be found separately on YouTube.

In sound the album is her most eclectic - there is a classical intro, acoustic pop with a country tinge, heavy electronic bangers, and an abrasive rap song (with Pan Wei-Ju) in Mandarin. Grimes' aesthetics are often a mix of beautiful and weird imagery, and that shows up in her music with her trademark "ethereal" sound and airy vocals being punctuated by sudden loud shrieking or distorted guitar. It's an eclectic pop album that, befitting of her love of sci-fi, sounded like the future when it came out. And in its best moments, it's transcendent, even angelic.

1. laughing and not being normal

2. California

3. SCREAM

4. Flesh Without Blood

5. Belly of the Beat

6. Kill V. Maim

7. Artangels

8. Easily

9. Pin

10. Realiti

11. World Princess part II

12. Venus Fly (feat. Janelle Monáe)

13. Life in the Vivid Dream

14. Butterfly

I just put the radio on

Heard a song, I can't stop thinking about it

Though it didn't last very long, it's in my head

Popheads continues its journey backwards in the discography of KKB with Bonito Generation, released in 2016. At this point in their careers, KKB were still fairly new on the scene - they had self-released their debut mixtape Intro Bonito to fairly quiet reception along with its compilation remix album Bonito Recycling. Both multi-instrumentalist Gus Lobban and vocalist Sarah Perry had released solo work and Sarah had featured on a few tracks here and there. For the most part, their careers were just blossoming - remember that Intro Bonito and Bonito Generation both came out pre-"Flamingo" memeification.

Arguably because of this early stage of their career, they were still working to solidify an identity for the project. They had initially planned to write a songwriter-driven album in collaboration with PC Music but eventually chose to move in a different direction. If I had a nickel for every time a potential banger of a PC Music co-produced album by one of this rate’s artists got scrapped, I’d have two nickels. Which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird that it happened twice.

In lieu of that, they worked on Bonito Generation from 2015 into 2016. The album was kicked off with five singles, three of which received music videos: Picture This, Lipslap, Break, Graduation and Trampoline. The album was released in October 2016 to critical acclaim, receiving an 81/100 on Metacritic, 4 out of 5 stars on AllMusic, and an 8 out of 10 from Anthony Fantano. Sonically, the album is mostly upbeat, filled to the brim with joyous electropop synths. It kept one foot in KKB’s debut mixtape’s J-pop, video game music (there’s straight-up a Mario Kart sample in this one) and 90s dance influences, while it experimented with synthpop and hyperpop stylings. Arguably, it eschewed its predecessor’s Japanese rap influence (the influence was still there, just less prominent than it was on IB) in favor of more melodic vocals.

Lyrically, the album explores themes of youthful identity through playful ordinary situations which serve as metaphor and simple observations of everyday life. Topics range from light-hearted ones like really enjoying a song (I’m gonna beat Popheads to the punch and say One Direction outsold to job hunting, to emotionally driven ones like experiencing the highs and lows of life and keeping in touch with ones parents in spite of physical distance. Throughout, they keep that sugary optimism and infectious joy that makes early KKB so delightful.

Welcome to Bonito Generation.

1. Waking Up

2. Heard a Song

3. Graduation

4. Fish Bowl

5. Big City

6. Break

7. Lipslap

8. Try Me

9. Paintbrush

10. Trampoline

11. Picture This

12. Hey Parents

If you're gonna be me, you need a manifesto

If you ain't got one, you better get one presto

Yeah you got money, we sell bootlegs only

When the shit counts, our numbers way plenty

We started at the bottom, but Drake gets all the credit

Paper route or life route, yeah we be ready

One of the most outspoken pop figures of the past 20 years, M.I.A. has never shied from the limelight, whether its through her bold artistic statements, her online antics or her unique fashion; she's dedicated her career to walking that fine line between controversy and adoration, giving a peace sign on one hand and the middle finger on the other with equal indifference.

Her real name is Mathangi "Maya" Arulpragasam. She was born in London to Tamil parents, they moved to Jeffna, northern Sri Lanka when she was 6 months old. At just 11, she and her family experienced heavy displacement caused by the Sri Lankan civil war, prompting her family to return to London, only this time as refugees. It was here that the war and its aftermath would have a lasting effect on MIA's artistry. Around 2000, she began as a visual artist, filmmaker and designer, and thanks to some encouragement from a little-known artist named Peaches, she started her recording career just two years later.

Her singles, "Galang" and "Sunshowers" were viral sensations thanks to social media sites like Myspace. Her debut, Arular was a critical and commercial success, making her one of the first pop stars to gain popularity through the internet. Her next album Kala, with her signature song, "Paper Planes" brought her to mainstream attention and cemented her as one of the 2000s preeminent global icons. Her next album, MAYA focused heavily on information politics, dividing critics with her bold lyricism and graphic imagery.

Which brings us to the album in focus: Matangi

Released in 2013, the title is derived from M.I.A.'s real name as well as the Hindu goddess herself. Matangi is a patron goddess of untouchables who governs speech, music and the arts. Her mudra is two raised middle fingers and her mantra is “Aim”, hers is the path of inner thought manifested in an artistic way but this energy can take any form, any of the 64 forms of artistry known as “Kala”.

Any of these ring a bell?

Using her trademark hodgepodge, globetrotting hip-hop soundscapes, M.I.A continues this and pushes Matangi towards greater heights and more aggressive territories. Her bhangra influences are very evident on songs like the title track, "Warriors" and Lights, all the while blending pop-adjacent, EDM and trap flavors on tracks like "Double Bubble Trouble" and "Exodus". Needless to say, Matangi is a wildly eclectic album at heart.

Lyrically, M.I.A. focuses less on politics and more on themes related to religion, specifically Hinduism. "Y.A.L.A" for instance, has references to karma. Its title also doubles as a reference to reincarnation (Y.A.L.A. stands for You Always Live Again) and a response to Y.O.L.O. by Drake, not the first time she's referenced him though (see the title track "MATANGI"). "Boom Skit" contains lyrics mentioning M.I.A.'s appearance at the Super Bowl XLVI halftime show, where she flipped the bird on live TV. And who can forget her female empowerment anthem, "Bad Girls"?

Matangi received rave reviews, with many calling it a return to form as well as one of her strongest efforts.

It was named among the best albums of 2013 by several publications, including NME (12th), Pitchfork (46th), Time (10th), and Complex (32th). For The Barnes & Noble Review, Robert Christgau ranked Matangi 33rd on his year-end best albums list. In 2019, NME placed the album at number 92 on their list of the best albums of the 2010s decade.

1. Karmageddon

2. MATANGI

3. Only 1 U

4. Warriors

5. Come Walk With Me

6. aTENTion

7. Exodus

8. Bad Girls

9. Boom Skit

10. Double Bubble Trouble

11. Y.A.L.A. Strobe Warning

12. Bring The Noize

13. Lights

14. Know It Ain’t Right

15. Sexodus (feat. The Weeknd)

In addition to the above, we are including as a bonus rate two songs from each artist that either they were featured on or songs they made themselves near each artists’ respective eras.

1. Charli XCX - boys

2. Charli XCX - After The Afterparty

3. Grimes - Entropy feat. Bleachers

4. Grimes - RealiTi (Demo) (not on streaming)

5. Kero Kero Bonito - Forever Summer Holiday

6. Kero Kero Bonito - Chicken

7. M.I.A. - Like This

8. M.I.A. - Gold

You cannot give any of these Bonus Rate songs a 0 or an 11 - only scores from a 1 to a 10 will be accepted. The bonus rate is optional, but we encourage you to have fun and participate if you can!

I have co-hosted two rates, this one and 2010s Ultimate. In the Ultimate write-up, I put a personal note that is unfortunately once again relevant. I have pasted it below with some updates:

Not to be too personal in a rate that includes a song called Party At A Rich Dude’s House that features Brooke Candy, but I also want to add a personal plea to please get the vaccine and booster if you have not yet and are eligible to. My partner works in an ER where we live, and he has watched a lot of otherwise healthy people with much more life in them go to their graves too early. Besides the folks who have passed too soon due to COVID-19, the mental anguish dealt to both grieving families and frontline health care workers alike is truly unmeasurable. With Nicki M.I.A’s recent hm ... let's say her recent “choices” on what she wants to tweet to her millions thousands of followers, I wanted to add that if you have any hesitation or misgivings about the vaccine, my inbox is open. I am not an expert, but I will try my hardest to sift through the information we have to answer your questions and reiterate that getting the vaccine is best for you and best for us all.

( - /u/seanderlust)

—

• You must listen to and score every song in the main rate. Ballots with missing scores will not be accepted.

• Your scores must be on a scale from 1 to 10 and can include one decimal place but no more. So 7.3 is fine, but 7.31 is not.

• You may give one song in the whole rate a score of 11 and one other a score of 0, so if you want to award these scores, save them for your favourite and least favourite songs in the rate, respectively. You must leave a comment on the songs you give an 11 or a 0, and they must be songs from the main rate, not the bonus.

• We encourage you to leave comments of your general thoughts or reasoning behind your scores on any songs you wish. If you choose to do so however, they must be in this format, simply leaving one space after your score:

Exodus: 10 Exodus more like SEXod– *looks further down the tracklist* oh damnit.

Any other formats will get your ballot rejected. WRONG EXAMPLES:

Lucky: You will NEVER be Britney!!!! (5) (WRONG!)

Lock It (Unlock It): 7: Me trying to find my car in a crowded parking lot (WRONG!)

• If you'd like to leave a comment on any of the albums as a whole they must be formatted like this, leaving colon then a space after the album title.

Album: Pop 2: I didn’t watch the original Pop so I really didn’t understand the plot of this one.

• Your ballot must be formatted exactly like the template in the message link, so make sure you use it, or the template in the backup pastebin, for your scores to be accepted.

• Your scores are not confidential. They will be revealed, along with any comments, with your username attached.

• DO NOT SABOTAGE the rate by giving outrageously low/high scores for the sole purpose of skewing the results, we reserve the right to exclude any ballot we suspect of this. If you're worried your scores could be mistakenly perceived as such, all you need to do is leave comments explaining the reasoning behind them. We acknowledge that this rate especially runs the risk of this, given the aforementioned bad behavior of those involved with some of the albums; if you’re tempted, as rate hosts we get where you’re coming from but please refrain from doing this.

• If you want to change any of your scores or comments after you've already submitted your ballot, feel free to message me before the submission deadline to sort it.

If there's a problem with it, here's the backup pastebin.

• Spotify

• Apple Music

• Youtube

Enjoy!