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 said artist's career. Vote for the ones that add the most interesting facts about the artist and the album, and the ones who also had the funniest jokes.
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.
It's funny. I know a user who thinks this is one of Madonna's best albums and deserves a lot better.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The Newcomers
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
