We WISH you a merry Q4 we WISH you a merry Q4 we WISH you a merry Q4 AND A HAPPY Q1.
What's that sound? It's the Q4 siren, signalling that Q4 2015 is officially OPEN! Deck the halls! Jingle the bells! Look out on the feast of Adele!
As we know, Q4 exists to celebrate that time in the music calendar when all the best music is released, but many people have actually forgotten the season's true meaning.
It all dates back over two millennia, which is when a revered miracle worker by the name of Rihanna used to release albums. Of course, as this all happened many many years ago, everyone who was alive in that era is long since dead. Indeed, tales of Rihanna's miracles, handed down from generation to generation, are now regarded by many as no more than stories. Some people insist that Rihanna never did in fact exist, but was merely a composite entity created to support the Q4 belief system.
But here at Popjustice we still believe in Rihanna and we still believe in Q4.
Here's how we're hoping this one pans out.
OCTOBER 1: At 5pm UK time Lady Gaga announces that the first single from her new album will be out tomorrow.
OCTOBER 2: New Music Friday. The Gaga single's great. And bloody hell, there's a new Daft Punk album! Sam Smith hits Number One.
OCTOBER 3: Paloma Faith tweets a picture of an elk.
OCTOBER 4: Rihanna Instagrams a photo of herself on holiday.
OCTOBER 5: Avril Lavigne reveals the tracklisting for her Christmas album. It does not look at all promising.
OCTOBER 6: Justin Bieber's hair is incredible between the hours of 11am and 4pm.
OCTOBER 7: Madonna's next album leaks in full.
OCTOBER 8: Tamera Foster announces her debut single.
OCTOBER 9: New Music Friday! The Hurts album appears and some people quite enjoy it.
OCTOBER 10: Justin Timberlake announces a new album, to be streamed exclusively on MySpace's new streaming platform.
OCTOBER 11: Rihanna appears on the cover of a magazine. It was organised to promote her fragrance and she doesn't give an interview.
OCTOBER 12: Pete Allison plays Leona Lewis' 'One More Sleep' on Capital Yorkshire.
OCTOBER 13: Jessie J buys a new phone charger.
OCTOBER 14: With the 'Eyes Shut' impact date looming, Olly from Years & Years does an interview in which he's asked about his feelings on being a role model and using male pronouns in lyrics.
OCTOBER 15: 'Regulate' by Warren G and Nate Dogg gets to Number 8 on iTunes, because it's in an advert or something.
OCTOBER 16: New Music Friday! Demi Lovato's album is better than you'd have expected five years ago, but not as good as 'Cool For The Summer' might have led you to believe. Is that the single or album artwork above? We've lost track.
OCTOBER 17: The cover version Girls Aloud were going to put on their first Greatest Hits album before they did 'I Think We're Alone Now' at the last minute leaks online; everyone goes mental for a few hours before sadness sets in.
OCTOBER 18: News emerges of yet another person working on the Gwen Stefani album that will never come out.
OCTOBER 19: Mollie King announces that her debut single will be out on January 1.
OCTOBER 20: The Popjustice Twenty Quid Music Prize shortlist — celebrating the twelve best British pop singles of the last twelve months — is revealed. Despite proving once again that the rest of the world is storming ahead of Britain in terms of pop production, pop songwriting and pop performance, the shortlist contains twelve solid gold bangers.
OCTOBER 21: La Roux has a new single! It's out today.
OCTOBER 22: Rihanna appears on the cover of a magazine. There's an interview, in which she answers one question via WhatsApp, to confirm that the album is still not ready.
OCTOBER 23: New Music Friday! Olly Murs' new single is out today and it's really good. The song was passed on by Jason Derulo earlier in 2015. It sounds a bit like Kygo. Also released this week is a good but not mindblowing single by a band hoping to be featured in the BBC Sound Of 2016 poll.
OCTOBER 24: Taylor Swift covers a Ryan Adams album in the style of Taylor Swift.
OCTOBER 25: Everyone realises Phoebe Ryan is going to be the next Katy Perry and gets quite excited.
OCTOBER 26: Catfish & The Bottlemen continue to exist.
OCTOBER 27: Jess Glynne hits Number One in a new, special chart created just for Jess Glynne to have Number Ones in.
OCTOBER 28: The Ariana Grande single comes out two days earlier than anticipated, for some stupid reason relating to airplay.
OCTOBER 29: Troye Sivan releases the final instalment of his 'Wild' video series. It's bleak, but in its own way optimistic.
OCTOBER 30: New Music Friday! Zayn Malik's debut single appears out of nowhere. It sounds a bit like The Weeknd. As per The Rules the promotion for this release involves: 1. Doing the cover of a 'high-end' style mag that sells nine copies but provides a .jpg that's useful for tweeting and sending to other people in the media. 2. Doing an interview with someone like Dan Wootton. 3. Making sure the first play is somewhere 'specialist'. 4. Tweeting a lot. ALSO in charts news, KDA feat Tinie Tempah and Katy B's 'Turn The Music Louder' is the new Number One.
OCTOBER 31: On the X Factor live show, 4th Power perform Little Mix's 'Black Magic' as part of Halloween week — a spectacle so amazing that they are instantly crowned the winners and all subsequent X Factor live shows are cancelled.
NOVEMBER 1: Sources close to The X Factor confirm that Louis Walsh is in talks to return to the show in 2016.
NOVEMBER 2: Rihanna appears on the cover of a magazine. There's no interview and no information about new music. Nor are there any photographs. The magazine's cover is simply the word 'Rihanna' in 12pt Arial.
NOVEMBER 3: Great news! George Ezra is doing the song on the 2015 John Lewis Christmas ad. It's a cover of Spandau Ballet's 'Through The Barricades'.
NOVEMBER 4: The Official Charts Company announce that in order to counterbalance the disadvantage pop acts experience in the streaming era, retweets will now count towards the singles chart.
NOVEMBER 5: Taylor Swift welcomes to the stage Pam St Clement.
NOVEMBER 6: New Music Friday! Pulp release an album and a new Aaliyah single appears. The Aaliyah single is eyewateringly amazing. Following the decision to include retweets in the chart, Little Mix are Number One, as well as Number 2–11.
NOVEMBER 7: The official Twitter account for The Voice tweets something about Boy George and Paloma Faith.
NOVEMBER 8: Keisha Buchanan informs fans that the Mutya Keisha Siobhan album will be out "soon".
NOVEMBER 9: Miley Cyrus' new single leaks. It was written with Charli XCX and produced by Diplo.
NOVEMBER 10: Nicola Roberts puts a new song on SoundCloud. She's keen to point out that it's not a single, just a rough idea she was working on earlier in the year that she thought people might like to hear.
NOVEMBER 11: DJ Mustard goes for a poo.
NOVEMBER 12: One Direction stage some huge sort of stunt involving multiple locations and a hashtag.
NOVEMBER 13: New Music Friday! This is the big one — brought forward this year as November 13 is the last New Music Friday before Adele storms in and ruins things for everyone. Justin Bieber drops an album which gets a great review on Complex. The One Direction album also pops up.
NOVEMBER 14: Carly Rae Jepsen's album soars to Number One on iTunes after the video for 'Your Type', ie the best song on the album, breaks VEVO records. The video is not controversial and does not feature a particularly innovative narrative — people are simply responding to the fact that the lighting's really good.
NOVEMBER 15: Pixie Lott turns on some Christmas lights.
NOVEMBER 16: Beyoncé releases an album. It's pretty good.
NOVEMBER 17: HANG ON EVERYONE, THE BEYONCÉ ALBUM'S NOT GOOD BECAUSE IT'S PROBLEMATIC IN SOME WAY OR OTHER.
NOVEMBER 18: Kanye West's album appears. One of the tracks features a sample from the Beyoncé album that was released two days ago.
NOVEMBER 19: Rita Ora posts a picture of herself looking nice on Apple Connect.
NOVEMBER 20: New Music Friday! Sia's 'This Is Acting' is released. It features songs rejected by Lea Michele, Atomic Kitten and Drenge. The Adele album also appears. PLUS At a secret London location, invited judges decide on the winner of the 2015 Popjustice Twenty Quid Music Prize. Someone is thrown out for attempting to fix it in the favour of Sam Smith, who is not even nominated.
NOVEMBER 21: The Aston Merrygold album exits the iTunes Top 100.
NOVEMBER 22: Katy Perry's Christmas thing appears online. It is surprisingly good.
NOVEMBER 23: The Vamps cover 'All I Want For Christmas Is You'.
NOVEMBER 24: 'All My Love' by Becky Hill and Watermat hits Number One on iTunes when the British public suddenly realise that they have been fools to sleep on this amazing pop banger.
NOVEMBER 25: Fetty Wap throws out all his wire coathangers and treats himself to some new wooden ones, which are kinder to the shoulders of his garments.
NOVEMBER 26: NEW NICKI MINAJ SINGLE. It's called 'What's Good'.
NOVEMBER 27: New Music Friday! Kylie's Christmas album appears, and is entertaining but also a bit depressing. In chart news, a perfunctory and 100% unnecessary house version of De'Lacy's 'Hideaway' hits Number One.
NOVEMBER 28: Load of Ciara stuff leaks.
NOVEMBER 29: Rixton put a picture of a lemon on Instagram. It's really funny because of an in-joke involving their tour manager!! Seriously guys this is a great LOL situation!!!
NOVEMBER 30: Galantis release a Christmas song.
DECEMBER 1: As a Christmas surprise, Pitbull & J.Lo release their cover of Black Lace's 'Superman'.
DECEMBER 4: New Music Friday! Rihanna finally drops '#R8'.
DECEMBER 5: Rihanna drops '#R9'.
DECEMBER 6: Rihanna drops '#R10'.
DECEMBER 7: Rihanna drops '#R11'.
DECEMBER 8: Rihanna drops '#R12'.
DECEMBER 9: Rihanna drops '#R13'.
DECEMBER 10: Rihanna drops '#R14'.
DECEMBER 11: New Music Friday! Band Aid 31 release a tropical house version of 'Do They Know It's Christmas?'. Vocalists include Gregory Porter, Sam Smith and KSI. It's shit.
DECEMBER 12: Taylor Swift's '1989' tour finally draws to a close. Due to an iCal mistake Taylor ran out of celebrities one night early, meaning that for the tour's grand finale she is forced to bring out a real friend. Please welcome to the stage, Taylor's intellectual property lawyer!
DECEMBER 13: International Beyoncé Day. On the anniversary of Beyoncé dropping 'Beyoncé' out of almost nowhere (please refer to this article for the full beyoncé classifcation system), the planet's biggest pop entities are now legally obliged to pull together whatever they've been working on over the previous two years and chuck the whole lot on iTunes.
DECEMBER 14: Rihanna drops '#R15'.
DECEMBER 15: Paul Hollywood releases a Christmas single as a Tidal exclusive.
DECEMBER 16: Flo Rida eats a mince pie.
DECEMBER 17: Have the BBC Music Awards happened by now? If not then let's say they're tonight. Jess Glynne performs with a gospel choir and Disclosure do something 'unique' with the BBC Philharmonic.
DECEMBER 18: New Music Friday! Sadly all new music is cancelled this week because people are too busy listening to Noonie Bao's 'Pyramids', which apropos of nothing the planet has collectively decided is incredible.
DECEMBER 19: Ella Henderson appears on the Strictly final, performing her latest single which is a collaboration with some DJ or other because apparently that's all she's good for now.
DECEMBER 20: Time for Selena Gomez to get her hair cut!
DECEMBER 21: Lana Del Rey goes upstairs to get something but by the time she gets there she's forgotten what she was looking for, so she goes downstairs again.
DECEMBER 22: Little Mix post a Christmas message to their fans. 'Love Me Like You' is issued in a sleighbells-abetted version.
DECEMBER 23: Taylor Swift welcomes to the fridge, her close friend… THE TURKEY SHE ORDERED AT THE START OF THE MONTH!!!
DECEMBER 24: Charli XCX chucks her entire shelved punk album on SoundCloud as a present to her fans.
DECEMBER 25: New Music Friday! Some wanker puts out a song as the result of a Facebook campaign. It limps to 36 on iTunes before disappearing from view because the moment for those campaign-driven single releases has passed. On Christmas Top Of The Pops, the sole performer is Jess Glynne.
DECEMBER 26: Ella Eyre has an argument with her mum about putting wrappers back in the Quality Street tin.
DECEMBER 27: Charlie Simpson joins McBusted.
DECEMBER 28: Someone dies and it's very sad.
DECEMBER 29: Robyn announces that her next EP, a collaboration with Max Martin, will be out in February.
DECEMBER 30: Rihanna launches her own magazine but refuses to give it an interview.
DECEMBER 31: Q4 draws to a close with the news that Abba will reform for Glastonbury 2016.