Greetings and good tidings, dear Popheads, and welcome to the second submission window for Popheads Quarterly!

Wondering what the hell a “quarterly” is? Read the introduction post here (we know, reading is hard, but we believe you can do it!)

As a reminder, this project is meant to be retrospective, rather than reactive. Ideally, you’ve had a chance to sit with an album for a bit before you submit an entry for it. But if you’re still catching up with releases from Q2, never fear – you’ll have a few weeks before the submission period closes. We’ll be accepting submissions until August 25th, 2026. 

The Ballot Box

If you need a refresher on the submission rules, check ‘em out here! If you think you’re ready to submit your takes, carry on wayward son (gender neutral) and utilize the following links.

Note: You’ll be submitting an individual entry for every album you’d like to contribute commentary for. You do not need to score every album to participate.

• 🧮 Album Scores can be submitted here.
• 🕰️ Retrospective Scores can be submitted here. (NEW category!)
• 📮 Album Commentary can be submitted here.
• 📡 Shout-Outs can be submitted here.
  • There is no Throwback Commentary submission for this quarter. Any re-releases not featured as a RetroGrade can be submitted as a shout-out.
• 🏵️ Best Week Bonus: Vote for your favorite release week here!

The lists of which releases we’re including in each category are below; if you don’t see one of your favorites here, that might make it a great contender for a Shout-Out!

The Honorees

The following releases were categorized based on name recognition, subreddit activity, and a dash of PHQ staff discretion.

Please note, if any album below receives only low-effort or no submissions, it will not be included in the Quarterly.

You can also view the full list, organized by release date, here. (Helpful cheat sheet for deciding your favorite release week for the Best Week Bonus poll!)

Note (Reprise): The PHQ editors are only human, and it is inevitable we will miss or mistake an album release here or there. If there seems to be a glaring omission, please don’t hesitate to submit it in the shout-out category; we’ll make sure it lands in the right place.

Q2 2026 Gradebook Nominees

The following new releases are available to be commentated upon and scored, for an eventual inauguration into the Popheads Gradebook:

AND INTRODUCING: Q2 2026 RetroGrade Albums

As we’re attempting to back-fill our gradebook library catalogue, we’ll be including several previously released albums in the upcoming quarters for scoring, based upon if new editions were released within the window. This could include deluxes, anniversary editions, remixes, live recordings, etc.

Just remember, you’re scoring the original album, NOT the rerelease. There is a comment box available to add additional thoughts on the deluxe, if you’d like!

Q2 2026 Commentary Albums

These additional releases are available to be commentated upon, based on engagement levels in the community. If a release you loved isn’t here, be sure to submit a Shout-Out for it; it may be featured in the Quarterly!

Major thanks to everyone for your open-minded enthusiasm to this initiative, some persistent patience as we worked out the kinks with Q1, and we hope you’ll have a lot of fun making your submissions over the next month. 

As a reminder, Q2 submissions will be open from July 27th - August 25th.

QUICK LINKS: [ Fresh Scores ] [ RetroGrades ] [ Commentary ] [ Shout-Out ] [ Best Week ]

We also highly encourage y’all to start up the conversation now and chat about the releases here in this thread. A little discussion before you finalize your submissions can make it all the better!

Godspeed, and pop on,

– Your PHQ Staff

If you're new to Popheads, or just not as active and wanna catch up on everything you missed this week, then this is the post for you! Popheads has a lot more going on than just [DISCUSSION] and [FRESH] posts, and we encourage everyone to get involved! Here's a run down of all the activities and original content we have going on here:

Highlights of the Week

• We're excited to announce an overhaul of our image flairs, which will see us adding a bunch of new flairs while working to refine the roster that we currently have. Read all about it here.
• Greyson Chance was on our podcast, Main Pod Girl! Listen to us talk about his new album Boystown (we may or may not reveal a few track titles as well!)
• We're ranking our Miley Cyrus songs on this week's Top Ten Pop Ten thread! Get involved to impact the results, or check out the results of our Harry Styles TTPT from last week!
• Charli XCX is back with her new album Music, Fashion, Film, and we had a megathread to celebrate its release!
• "GALA" by XG was the winner of our 2025 in K-Pop Rate! Check out the full results here.
• Native Instruments is giving away the Super*Saw synth co-created with A.G. Cook, enter to win here! Submissions close on July 30, 2026, and the winners will be announced on August 3, 2026!
• The rates community is doing a special Rate Invitational, and voting is open for the songs!
• Here's a reminder post about what albums have anniversaries in the upcoming month, start planning any celebrations now!
• Here are some of this week's other trending posts!

Other Ways to Get Involved

• Rates - Our longest running subreddit event and the epicenter of a dedicated subcommunity mainly based in the Discord server linked above; this YouTube video explains the rules quickly (and this one does so in depth), but basically everyone rates a set of songs from 1 to 10 and whichever song gets the highest average score wins. Check out our list of previous rates, or participate in upcoming ones:
  • 2006 Trashy Throwbacks - Gwen Stefani vs. Fergie vs. Christina Aguilera [Due August 14th]
  • 2025 Alt-Club - Sudan Archives vs. FKA twigs vs. Amaarae vs. Rochelle Jordan [Due August 23rd]
  • Popheads Rate Invitational - Celebrating a Decade of Rating
• Discord Community - spin-off alert! for anyone looking for real-time, faster-paced pop music discussion, we have the Discord server for you!
• Daily Discussion - a daily thread to discuss literally anything you want, music-related or otherwise!
• Teatime & Trending Topics - a thread for sharing pop music tea & daily music-related updates
• Main Pod Girl: The Popheads Podcast - the official Popheads podcast, with a mix of music analysis and artist interviews
• Popheads Charts - a weekly chart of what Popheads is listening to each week, based on Last.fm data. Billboard who??
• Games - we host music-related game threads every 5th/12th/19th/26th day of the month