Best Episodes From Todd in the Shadows's Trainwreckords Series

This list is dedicated to the best episodes from Todd in the Shadows' popular series Trainwreckords, a series dedicated to popular bad albums that arguably ended the artist's career.

Vote for the ones that add the most interesting facts about the artist and the album, and the ones that also had the funniest jokes.

The Top Ten

Cyberpunk - Billy Idol

Billy Idol's 1993 effort where he goes full cyberpunk, mixing his notorious new wave and punk rock sound with a really weird combination of techno and political commentary based on cyberpunk novels he was reading around the time. Keep in mind this album came out one year after Rage Against the Machine's self-titled, which means that neither could Billy Idol be the political commentator of the decade, nor could he work with the mix of his old style and the cyberpunk aesthetic he aimed for.
Todd goes into detail about the background of why Billy chose the cyberpunk aesthetic and his background as an artist too.
American Life - Madonna

Madonna's attempt at going political and talking about what, at the time, was a really dark place for America after George W. Bush... or at least that's how the album was marketed.
Everything Madonna talks about in this album is from her personal life as an entertainer, and she lies about the "American Life" just to talk about her first-world problems. A few people had problems with this album counting as a Trainwreckord, since it did not entirely kill Madonna's career. She has been releasing more albums that have been mildly successful while scoring some hits now and then.
However, it is also Madonna's first album where she is no longer relevant or interesting, which marked the end of her provocateur reputation.
Kilroy Was Here - Styx

This is when Styx somehow stopped caring. I am a fan of both Styx and Queen, but I usually don't like Styx's ballads and Dennis DeYoung's voice, kind of like how Todd feels about them. I think that this is their sad attempt at doing a rock opera and trying to stay with the times, but failing.
Hopefully, the band got better after DeYoung left and are now putting out good new albums like the recent Crash of the Crown album. I think there's still hope for the band, despite all the criticism.

Styx attempted to make a rock opera, but it was really misguided. Most of it is just the same prog wankery Styx has been making throughout their career, with some hints of a cohesive story but failing miserably at it.
MTV Unplugged No. 2.0 - Lauryn Hill

Lauryn Hill's attempt to show her own credibility by making a sincere acoustic session that many consider her follow-up to The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill. Sadly, despite the sincerity, it's also a really awkward and depressive performance where Lauryn shows how weak her mental health was around this time.
Passage - Carpenters

It's the most recent out of the Trainwreckords series, and this is probably the Carpenters' attempt at doing experimental stuff with their easy-listening style. It came out in 1977, and it was only made to cash in on Star Wars and the duo's TV special.
One of the lead singles' titles sounds like a tongue twister. It's sad to see the Carpenters go downhill, as the late '70s weren't kind to them. All of this culminated in Karen's tragic death from anorexia. This review actually told me the details of Karen's death, thanks to him.
Cut the Crap - The Clash

The Clash's last album in their career is one of the most well-known bad albums of all time. Lead singer Joe Strummer promised it would be The Clash's comeback as a punk band, but instead, what we got was an awful mix between their punk side and cheap, dated 80s pop sounds, which makes Asia sound like Discharge in comparison.
This was Todd's most requested album to talk about in the show for a long time. I made a list of albums that he should review, and this was number one. It was technically removed from the top spot only because he had already covered it. In the video, Todd discusses The Clash's background, the new members brought in for this album, and the infamy of this project as a whole.
Funstyle - Liz Phair

Liz Phair's awful, abysmal attempt at "trolling" her own label by making one of the most awkward and unpleasing messes of an album I have ever heard. It has been called by many the worst thing Todd has reviewed for the section (yet). Many people were requesting her self-titled album since it had a lot of negative reviews plus killed Phair's career as an indie darling. However, since the album was actually her most successful to date, he decided to switch to this one. Kind of a logical decision the more I think about it.
Be Here Now - Oasis

Oasis's third studio album gave me quite some difficulty in deciding whether it qualified as an actual trainwreckord, but I can understand why it has earned that distinction. Personally, I would have considered "Standing On the Shoulder of Giants" as the actual trainwreckord.
Todd explains in detail the completely problematic and egocentric personality of the Gallagher brothers, along with the excessively loud and unappealing sound of the record, which caused Oasis to go from being rock gods to a tryhard couple of posers. Another aspect that intrigues me is how forgotten Oasis became after this album.
While I know they were never that big in America, there are people out there who unironically consider them one-hit wonders, despite "Champagne Supernova" arguably being bigger than "Wonderwall" back in the day.
Mardi Gras - Creedence Clearwater Revival

Probably the most Trainwreckord album from the entire list. It was poorly received by critics and fans. CCR was dealing with extreme bad blood during the recording sessions, and it was ultimately their last studio album as a band.
Despite the album being just pretty mediocre, most decisions were handled so poorly that there was no way CCR could have recovered from it. Todd talks about this in his video.
Two the Hard Way - Allman and Woman

Greg Allman and Cher's album is not a really memorable or interesting one, which is pretty much why it is so low. Most of the episode is just Todd talking about Greg and Cher being an awful-looking couple, which he is right about, but nothing really stands out about this segment.

The Newcomers

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Lulu - Lou Reed & Metallica
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This Unruly Mess I've Made - Macklemore & Ryan Lewis

The Contenders

Zingalamaduni - Arrested Development

Arrested Development's second studio album, after the success of their debut, watching them fall so hard is interesting. This is mainly due to the name of the album and the rise of gangsta rap.
Todd goes into more detail in the episode about why the album flopped so hard.
Summer in Paradise - The Beach Boys

Arguably the worst album that Todd has covered and also the most unpopular. Mike Love was in charge of the direction the Beach Boys would take afterward, and instead of using that to show some credibility, he used it as a cheap cash grab.
The review shows some interesting points about this period of the Beach Boys, although most of the episode feels like just an excuse for Todd to hate on Mike Love, which can get extremely old within minutes.
Mission Earth - Edgar Winter
The Funky Headhunter - MC Hammer

MC Hammer's whole transition into a gangsta rapper is a similar move that Taylor Swift made with Reputation, but with funnier results.
Todd talks about Hammer's persona and how he was the very first celebrity he knew about, and the whole plot twist that was him turning from a rap caricature into a genuine gangster wannabe. This basically marked Hammer as one of the most dissed rappers of that era for being a sellout and corny.
Fairweather Johnson - Hootie & the Blowfish

Hootie and the Blowfish's second studio album and one that made them completely forgotten after the gigantic Cracked Rear View. Despite that, it is just another sophomore slump case. The episode itself is not really that memorable, and the album is not really that interesting either.
Crash - The Human League
Turn It Upside Down - Spin Doctors
Van Halen III - Van Halen

The first and last album in Van Halen's career with Gary Cherone, and what is worldwide known as their worst album.
Todd goes into detail about why the album flopped, the toxic relationships most members of the band had with their respective singers, and why Cherone doesn't really fit with the band. I hate to call out Cherone since he has proven to be a decent singer, but yeah, he is pretty much the very first thing that is wrong with this album. That and the fact that no one had a real idea of what to do with it.
St. Anger - Metallica

Todd's most recent episode at the time of making this list and one that has been highly requested since he came up with the idea. St. Anger has been described in Todd's own words as the most successful bad album of all time (it went to #1 in more than 30 countries). Despite Metallica being arguably the biggest survivors from the Trainwreckords show, St. Anger is still an album that haunts them to this day.
A detail I must mention related to Todd's video is that he discusses more of the dysfunction that the band had between this album and the well-known documentary Some Kind of Monster, which shows the therapy sessions and problems Metallica had during the production of St. Anger.
Witness - Katy Perry
Paula - Robin Thicke

Robin Thicke's awful attempt at trying to recover the love of his ex-wife, Paula Patton. The quality of the album itself is not that bad, but Thicke's sad attempt at making a confessional album about how much he missed his wife is extremely awkward to look at. The fact that this was made after Blurred Lines makes it way harder to take him seriously.
0304 - Jewel

The very first episode of the show and probably the most hilarious and interesting side of what a trainwreckord is. Jewel was well known for being a folk darling and a poet, pretty much Gen X's own version of Joni Mitchell. She had shown some signs of going in a poppier direction, but with this album, she turns into a whole pop diva in the same style Britney Spears was doing around the time.
Despite the album having some decent reviews, Jewel never had the same success afterward. To give you an idea of how big she was, both songs You Were Meant For Me and Foolish Games were the respective #2 biggest songs of 1997. That's how gigantic she was. They were pretty much released as one single, so the charts counted them as one song.
Lost and Found - Will Smith

Yep, way before the infamous slapping incident at the Oscars this year, Will Smith made a forgettable rap album in 2005. It's what you'd expect. It features him copying other well-respected rappers from the 2000s, like 50 Cent or Eminem, and scrubbing it clean to present the "family-friendly" image that he had in the '90s and 2000s, which led to Eminem dissing Smith's style of rap music.
The album spawned its own one-hit wonder hit, "Switch," which is actually pretty decent, in my opinion, and it's the only tolerable song on the album.
Bad Reputation - Kid Rock

Similar to Katy Perry's Witness, this is another case of a once-decent artist ruined by political views. Kid Rock was literally past his prime when making this album, and he comes off as a cranky Trump-supporting conservative here. The lead singles, "Don't Tell Me How To Live" and "We the People," are both unintentionally hilarious due to the sheer hypocrisy of it all, as well as Kid Rock's bad rapping, before the album starts to become boring to listen to afterwards.
The shocking thing about this is that it is the most recent Trainwreckord Todd has covered. It came out around 2022 and was relentlessly trashed when it released. This shows that once-popular artists desperate for airplay ultimately end up being rejected, and in Kid Rock's case, it was his own undoing.
American Dream - Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young