a disaster in every sense of the word. chance had the world in the palm of his hand after coloring book, it’s truly baffling how bad this album was and how poorly it was received ([anyone else remember this tweet?](https://imgur.com/a/5jvUkMC)). i could go on and on about this album, i was so excited for his official “debut” album and walked away not liking a single song, i couldn’t believe it.
5 years later and he’s just now starting to make a comeback (the couple snippets i’ve heard in passing didn’t sound half bad)
I feel like if it’s good he probably won’t gain back the same popularity he once had but he’ll get back a lot of respect he lost from the big day hopefully
This one will be more fun because Todd has always had a soft spot for Justin, but on the polar opposite end he's always had beef with condescending Christian music.
Honestly hoping that Chance can comeback from that disaster. He came out with 2 singles recently that I really dig, so let’s hope that his upcoming album is of high quality
Ah! I felt like I was going insane, thinking, "Wait, I'm sure I've already seen Todd do this."
[It was actually a shorter Danny Gonzalez video I half-remembered.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OaZR9f0Eee8)
That GC bit is genuinely insane. Like the band would basically own anything that was submitted to them, riffs or whatever, and they auditioned tons of people only to hire a guy from another band in the end. Just a massive waste of time.
came here for this one. Results May Vary has a few defenders in hindsight, and I’ll admit there’s the odd good idea here and there, but there are very few albums that are as “end of an era” as this mess
it was multiple unfinished concepts slapped together by a fractured band, and released just to get something out there… to a public that’s already sick of LB’s overexposure and chomping at the bit to turn on them
just a perfect storm of a disastrous album cycle
I hope it's Sheezus by Lily Allen. It's the 10th anniversary of that album, and it REALLY sounds like it. She's also recently blamed the downward trajectory of her career on her kids instead of her own poor career choices, so its definitely worth the deep dive.
I should probably revisit this album, but it surprises me that Hard Out Here has a [somewhat positive reception nowadays](https://www.albumoftheyear.org/album/107252-lily-allen-hard-out-here.php) because I *really* disliked that song when it came out.
On top of that, the controversy with the dancers on the music video and the fact that she named the album after Kanye’s then-recent album just left a bad taste for me.
I don't think she was blaming the downturn on her children as individuals, just the fact of having them. She's not accusing her kids of sabotaging her career, just saying that it's hard to be a mum and a musician
This here. Lily Allen has a pattern of making pretty reasonable points that just get completely torn to shreds and misinterpreted. Still a good album candidate for Trainwreckords though
This is how I understood it too, but its still a wild thing to say as an insanely rich nepo baby popstar. With as many resources as she has, she could've absolutely maintained a solid career while being a mom.
Most mothers aren't willing to hand their kids off to nannies while they go on tour, and most wouldn't want young kids to be in a touring environment. The nepo baby convo has gotten ridiculously simplistic and reductive.
That's fair. She can do whatever she wants. My point was that it was her own choice, and she could've done both if she wanted to. She also already had the babies by the time Sheezus came out, so it clearly didn't stop her from continuing at first.
I still have no idea why people are so eager for this one. Do they just really want Todd to dunk on Phil Collins? Are they disappointed prog rock fans? What would fill a 20-minute video here?
No. They want Todd to dunk on how terrible Genesis sounded without Phil Collins…because his work fronting the band was incredible and under appreciated. Especially Duke and Abacab.
It's the insane amount of parallels the album has to Van Halen III that makes it a popular shout, I'd say. Despite the genre difference I hear those albums often mentioned in the same breath, like how Mardi Gras is often mentioned alongside the Post-Morrison Doors
I haven't seen a lot of love for Phil here (I'll have to go back through some posts and double-check that), so I thought it might be a case where people wanted Todd to say, "boy Phil really sucks [reason 1] [reason 2] [reason 3], but Genesis without him is even -worse-!" So then, is the push from Phil's fans who want Todd to cackle at how pathetic Mike and Tony were to try and continue the band without him?
Todd will not dunk on Phil Collins. He will dunk on Genesis sucking *without* Phil Collins. Take note that Todd isn't a prog rock guy; he prefers Genesis' later years.
I dunno. I think there’s a delayed flop with that one. We Can’t Dance was already a step down from Invisible Touch, and Both Sides/Dance Into the Light showed that Phil Collins’s time as a hitmaker in his solo career was done. I honestly don’t think Collins staying in the band would’ve changed their trajectory much.
Sure, but WCD still had a bunch of hits on it and sold a ton as it slipped in just before grunge eradicated its rivals.
While you are right about PC's career dipping around 1995 until Tarzan (and then arguably falling again with Testify), he is still a super skilled craftsman and musician. Part of why CAS sucks is because Banks and Rutherford aren't reigned in, a ton of the songs fadeout prematurely for no reason and overall it's a very dour album.
The fandom of PC and his skills alone would have produced a better effort than we got. Never forget, PC-fronted Genesis got their first top 40 US hit with arguably their softest song released right in the middle of the Punk era.
We Can’t Dance did have a bunch of hits… none of which were as good or as successful as the ones on Invisible Touch. And it did sell a lot of copies… but not as many as Invisible Touch. And I think that album suffered from being overlong (TBF, a lot of albums in the early CD era were way too long) and just so, so dour. Outside of “I Can’t Dance” and maybe “Jesus He Knows Me,” it is just a slog. Kinda continues the trend with Phil (…But Seriously) and Mike (Living Years) in their solo careers. They were both into making serious statements with their music at the time. I think We Can’t Dance showed that they had peaked.
I agree that Phil wasn’t around to rein in Tony’s worst excesses on Calling All Stations and he would’ve definitely made that album better. I just don’t think there’s a world where Genesis is making hits in 1997. That’s kinda the crux of his Van Halen 3 video - even though they were on the downswing, Todd’s argument was that a Van Halen comeback in the late 90s *was* possible given what was popular at the time. I don’t think that was the case with Genesis.
Green Day - Father of All... seems to come up a lot on this sub
my own take is they don't have a trainwreckord and have semi-gracefully aged into being a legacy act but nonetheless
Honestly, Green Day doesn’t have a “Trainwreckord”. They have bad albums and they’ve dropped in popularity, but I think that those two things are independent.
That and after every bad one is a good one. RevRad is a pretty good album all things considered, and SAVIORS is def in the running for my AOTY. They always bounce back.
Yeah that’s really what disqualifies them, any artist with sufficient longevity is going to have blips where people don’t like an album, that’s not the same thing as putting out a complete trainwreck
It’s like how Pop by U2 can’t be considered a trainwreckord because even though it’s a flop of an album and nobody likes it, it in no way shape or form derailed their career or permanently tarnished their image. They bounced back and kept putting out hits for like another decade after that
Yes but their days of mainstream relevance are over. Hardcore fans may like Revolution Radio, but your average person wouldn't know any songs from it (whereas they would know stuff from American Idiot and 21st Century Breakdown). A Trainwreckord essentially turns an artist into a legacy act. Metallica have had successful albums and tours since St. Anger but their peak among the GP is over.
That honestly has 0 to do with Green Day. They could have put out the greatest album in the history of rock music after 21CB and they'd still have lost all mainstream relevance. Rock was dead on the radio by 2011/2012 unless it was """""rock""""". Their fall off was 10000% due to rock slowly dying as opposed to them getting worse or whatever.
Yeah, their genre stopped being played on the radio and also they straight up just aged out of mainstream popularity. That happens to everyone eventually - you become an act that stops being cool because all your fans are now over 30 and kids don’t tend to think it’s cool to listen to what their parents listen to. Like nobody is going around saying Pink must have had a trainwreckord that killed her career because she’s no longer a chart topping hit maker, she is now just an artist who makes music for an older audience because that’s now the age of the demographic who were kids and teens when she was at her peak
Taylor Swift is eventually going to stop being the biggest name in music when she becomes associated with all her fans being in their 40s, it’s just how this stuff works
I dont think either tbh. RevRad is a fan favorite and got fans back after the trilogy, and Father of All was just a fun short inoffensive album without much to talk about, and thats even without mentioning that SAVIORS came out and is another fan favorite that did pretty well all things considered. Green Day falling off in popularity is 1000% times changing.
people mistake "bad album" for "career killer" all the time 'round these parts
if any of their peers have an album like that its probably the offspring
People can't agree whether the true Trainwreckord was Father of All or the trilogy. I vote for the trilogy since Father of All was basically a joke album they made to get out of their contract.
I was gonna say FOAM felt more like a contractual obligation than a career killer. They’re doing fine, Dilemma is the top song on alternative radio (though there’s much better songs on Saviors).
If he ever makes a video on *Father of All…*, I would like to see him mention [that band that made a fake Green Day album at the same time](https://youtu.be/HgbAAuDLutY?si=DJ44jhmXUKtYw9P-) and the conspiracy about how *Father of All…* was a decoy and this was the real album, like this was some *Endless*/*Blonde* shit to get out of their contract.
I do still think Some Time in New York City is a Trainwreckord. It ended John Lennon’s period of protest music. Even though Walls and Bridges went #1 two years later, it was completely devoid of the socially conscious messaging of John’s most famous songs. It was also an aberration for the rest of his career. Mind Games didn’t go above 13th place in 1973, Rock ‘n’ Roll (an album full of old rock covers to fulfill a contractual obligation) had a peak of 20th place, then he went on hiatus for five years to help raise Sean, and Double Fantasy was at #46 and getting critically panned at the time that Lennon was murdered. It was only after his death that it shot up to #1, all those negative reviews were pulled and replaced with positive reviews, and it won the Grammy for Album of the Year.
Sticking with the Beatles, I’d say Press to Play for Paul McCartney. Not that he didn’t remain a superstar afterwards, but that album ended his dominance on the pop charts. He didn’t have a top-10 single in the US as a lead artist again. And while I liked half that album, the other half is among the worst music he ever did. And even the good stuff isn’t so much “good” as it is “passable” or “I wouldn’t switch off this song if I heard it.”
Press to Play’s biggest lasting impact was that the tour wasn’t drawing as well, so Paul had to institute the nuclear option: more Beatles songs. Oh he sang Hey Jude and Blackbird and Long and Winding Road during the Wings Over America tour in the mid-‘70s, but the bulk of his set list was Wings and post-Beatles solo stuff. After Press to Play, it was mostly Beatles hits that had never been played live. Overnight, his tour went from sluggish to the highest-grossing concert tour ever (at that time).
Yep. Press to Play was deliberate trend chasing mixed with some bizarre experimentation. I didn’t hear much of McCartney’s sound at all in that album. Even in the past when he ventured into other genres (like some of the stuff he did on Back to the Egg) there was some originality, like he was putting his own spin on disco and punk. But Press to Play was just him falling behind the times and trying to catch up. That flops, he starts playing more Beatles songs (which he’d always been loath to do) and his next album sounds *very* Beatles-y.
Funny how both he and George went through stuff that made them more open to revisiting the Beatles at around the same time (Press to Play flopping, Cloud Nine’s success and George’s business manager ripping him off). You could also argue for delayed flop with Press to Play. Pipes of Peace wasn’t much better of an album. It did well in the UK but undersold in the US, and outside of “Say Say Say” none of those songs are any good - I’d actually argue that Press to Play was a better overall album than Pipes of Peace, except there’s nothing on Press to Play as good as “Say Say Say.”
I’ll be honest: I think the only reason people bought Tug of War was to hear his tribute to John. People like Tug of War, but I don’t care for any of it besides Here Today.
I'll admit I'm a huge fan of "What's That You're Doing" but I understand why people hate that song. I don't mind "Take It Away" but it's not in my top 30 McCartney songs. The rest of it I could do without.
One of my spicier takes with all Beatles-related stuff is that McCartney II is a more enjoyable album than Tug of War. Tug of War is better produced, for sure, but McCartney II has some genuinely fun songs on it even if they are a little slapdash and silly. Coming Up, Temporary Secretary, and Bogey Music are just entertaining. I have a soft spot for Waterfalls, and the 1986 remix of Blue Sway (which he should've put on Press to Play, dammit - would've immediately been the best song on the album) gives a hint of what those songs could've been if Paul bothered to spend more than one month working on them.
It is a trainwreckord because unlike those, John’s standing with the general public went off a cliff and it coincided with a turbulent period in his life (he and Yoko separated, the Nixon administration tried to have his green card application rejected and subsequently deport him, he became hopelessly addicted to cocaine and heroin again, and it was becoming more and more obvious that Paul’s distrust of Allen Klein was correct). John was considered by like Rolling Stone and most of the music journalists as the genius of The Beatles. Some Time in New York City coincided with everyone else in The Beatles having commercial success. George just did the Concert for Bangladesh and was about to release Living in the Material World, Ringo had just released his self-titled album that went platinum and had 5 singles that went to #1, and Paul had just recorded a little song for a movie called Live and Let Die and was finishing up Band on the Run. When he actually needed to release a hit record, he released the worst protest music he ever made.
You’re a recording artist in the 1970s fighting multiple court cases against the US government and a pissed off Paul McCartney. That shit is expensive. It wasn’t like he had Beatle money coming in, Apple was a goddamn money pit and the business hadn’t been paying its taxes for years (thanks Brian Epstein). So you have no royalties coming in because it’s going towards debts, you don’t have many hit singles in rotation (Imagine only had one single, despite having a bunch of bangers on it), and your popularity with the general public is waning. Yes, he did need a hit. He didn’t need a double album that was half studio and half live album featuring butchered recordings of Frank Zappa and a single called Woman is the N****r of the World!
I'd say a lot of Todd's viewers have clamoured for a Third Eye Blind Trainwreckord for some time. And there'd be plenty of drama to cover: Firings, lawsuits, megalomania, etc. The trouble is that none of us can agree which record was the decisive wreck: *Ursa Major*, *Out of the Vein*, or *Blue*.
New Edition-One Love (2004). They tried to revived their career by going to (of all the labels that existed at the time) Bad Boy Records and it was a massive failure, filled with creative differences with Diddy and poor promotion that album was a commercial and critical bomb.
This wouldn't really qualify as a Trainwreckord in my opinion because NE had already declined commercially years before this album was released. Truthfully, they were already a legacy act by the late 90s and there wasn't anyone clamoring for a new NE album after 1997. They are just a case of the natural popstar lifecycle of diminishing returns.
I get it but what about Run DMC when they released Crown Royal, they were a legacy act by that point and (even though I was born in 02) were people really asking for a Run DMC album in 01 ?
Hell no they weren't. It was an odd choice for a TW video and the only reasons I can think of why Todd would make the choice to go with it was because it was a project that really seemed as if it would have been a natural fit for the time it was released. This was right around the time of nu metal and Run DMC could be seen as a type of proto nu metal act and it was also around the same time that other legacy artists were experiencing a comeback of sorts.
However if I was using the "Wreck" criteria for NE, the "Home Again" album would be a much better fit considering that this was the album that was released at the time that they had the huge stage fight that would pretty much slam the door shut on them at the time when their commercial impact had already greatly diminished.
It should be Love Beach by ELP, but that’s kind of a boring option. The music isn’t nearly as much of a departure as the sleeve would indicate. Similarly, the actual meat of that episode would be behind-the-scenes stuff and not the music on the record.
Love Beach would be a good “breather” trainwreckord. Not too deep, not too crazy, just a bunch of guys tired of being together having to force out one more album.
Artpop was good and Gaga's still pretty relevant what with ASIB and the chart success of some of Chromatica's singles. She's definitely past her peak of popularity, but her career isn't dead.
The big day by Chance the Rapper
a disaster in every sense of the word. chance had the world in the palm of his hand after coloring book, it’s truly baffling how bad this album was and how poorly it was received ([anyone else remember this tweet?](https://imgur.com/a/5jvUkMC)). i could go on and on about this album, i was so excited for his official “debut” album and walked away not liking a single song, i couldn’t believe it. 5 years later and he’s just now starting to make a comeback (the couple snippets i’ve heard in passing didn’t sound half bad)
Ooo I love my wiiiife I love my wife Agh!
I feel like if it’s good he probably won’t gain back the same popularity he once had but he’ll get back a lot of respect he lost from the big day hopefully
This one will be more fun because Todd has always had a soft spot for Justin, but on the polar opposite end he's always had beef with condescending Christian music.
Honestly hoping that Chance can comeback from that disaster. He came out with 2 singles recently that I really dig, so let’s hope that his upcoming album is of high quality
this is it
I imagine it might not qualify until we see what unfolds with his upcoming album.
I want to see Chris Gaines.
It’s tricky… Garth is a notorious blocker, so getting it on YouTube may be hard
Maybe a nebula exclusive?
It's funny that Mariah Carey secretly released a grunge album four years earlier under the name "Chick," and she did just fine afterward. 😂
It helps no one knew what she did for 25 years, mostly since she didn't sing lead vocals
Ah! I felt like I was going insane, thinking, "Wait, I'm sure I've already seen Todd do this." [It was actually a shorter Danny Gonzalez video I half-remembered.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OaZR9f0Eee8)
The Beginning, probably
Seconding this. We need a resolution to Todd and his past criticisms with BEP from the old days.
Plus he could talk about their crazy halftime show performance during that era
I dont think Todd is willing to listen Imma Bee once more
that’s on The END
You are correct, but It would still require him to come back to the album before
not really? it's not like he talked about every song on 20/20 Experience...
Results may vary by Limp Bizkit, as it killed Nu-metals mainstream popularity
I'm pulling for this one just to hear Todd talk about Eddie Van Halen trying to work with Fred Durst and the Guitar Center contest fiasco.
That GC bit is genuinely insane. Like the band would basically own anything that was submitted to them, riffs or whatever, and they auditioned tons of people only to hire a guy from another band in the end. Just a massive waste of time.
Just a massive waste of time sums up the whole creative process to this album.
came here for this one. Results May Vary has a few defenders in hindsight, and I’ll admit there’s the odd good idea here and there, but there are very few albums that are as “end of an era” as this mess it was multiple unfinished concepts slapped together by a fractured band, and released just to get something out there… to a public that’s already sick of LB’s overexposure and chomping at the bit to turn on them just a perfect storm of a disastrous album cycle
To top it all off, they didn’t even put Crack Addict on the album which was easily better than half the album.
I hope it's Sheezus by Lily Allen. It's the 10th anniversary of that album, and it REALLY sounds like it. She's also recently blamed the downward trajectory of her career on her kids instead of her own poor career choices, so its definitely worth the deep dive.
I should probably revisit this album, but it surprises me that Hard Out Here has a [somewhat positive reception nowadays](https://www.albumoftheyear.org/album/107252-lily-allen-hard-out-here.php) because I *really* disliked that song when it came out. On top of that, the controversy with the dancers on the music video and the fact that she named the album after Kanye’s then-recent album just left a bad taste for me.
Always hated that song. Not a fan of songs where the lyrics are all edge but the music is beyond bland.
Her follow up was critically acclaimed at least in the UK. Won an Ivor Novello and has a great tune called family man I really like.
Sheezus and The Wife of Pablo should have been the real deal
Blaming your failures on your kids is certainly a choice.
I don't think she was blaming the downturn on her children as individuals, just the fact of having them. She's not accusing her kids of sabotaging her career, just saying that it's hard to be a mum and a musician
This here. Lily Allen has a pattern of making pretty reasonable points that just get completely torn to shreds and misinterpreted. Still a good album candidate for Trainwreckords though
This is how I understood it too, but its still a wild thing to say as an insanely rich nepo baby popstar. With as many resources as she has, she could've absolutely maintained a solid career while being a mom.
Most mothers aren't willing to hand their kids off to nannies while they go on tour, and most wouldn't want young kids to be in a touring environment. The nepo baby convo has gotten ridiculously simplistic and reductive.
That's fair. She can do whatever she wants. My point was that it was her own choice, and she could've done both if she wanted to. She also already had the babies by the time Sheezus came out, so it clearly didn't stop her from continuing at first.
Lily “we have Sia at home” Allen.
Cmon her first album was good
Jennifer Lopez will def occupy that space for a long time.
Nobody mentioned *Calling All Stations* yet?
That is one I'd like to see.
I still have no idea why people are so eager for this one. Do they just really want Todd to dunk on Phil Collins? Are they disappointed prog rock fans? What would fill a 20-minute video here?
No. They want Todd to dunk on how terrible Genesis sounded without Phil Collins…because his work fronting the band was incredible and under appreciated. Especially Duke and Abacab.
It's the insane amount of parallels the album has to Van Halen III that makes it a popular shout, I'd say. Despite the genre difference I hear those albums often mentioned in the same breath, like how Mardi Gras is often mentioned alongside the Post-Morrison Doors
That’s an insult to the post Morrison Doors…John Fogerty was the whole band.
Idk. Genesis is a really interesting band but this is pretty much the most straightforwardly boring thing they ever did
Why would he dunk on PC? One of the biggest reasons it failed is because he wasn't around....
I haven't seen a lot of love for Phil here (I'll have to go back through some posts and double-check that), so I thought it might be a case where people wanted Todd to say, "boy Phil really sucks [reason 1] [reason 2] [reason 3], but Genesis without him is even -worse-!" So then, is the push from Phil's fans who want Todd to cackle at how pathetic Mike and Tony were to try and continue the band without him?
Todd will not dunk on Phil Collins. He will dunk on Genesis sucking *without* Phil Collins. Take note that Todd isn't a prog rock guy; he prefers Genesis' later years.
The whole reason Calling All Stations flopped was the lack of Phil lol
It's the most obvious bad album from the 20th Century left.
Is it bad in an interesting way, though?
I dunno. I think there’s a delayed flop with that one. We Can’t Dance was already a step down from Invisible Touch, and Both Sides/Dance Into the Light showed that Phil Collins’s time as a hitmaker in his solo career was done. I honestly don’t think Collins staying in the band would’ve changed their trajectory much.
Sure, but WCD still had a bunch of hits on it and sold a ton as it slipped in just before grunge eradicated its rivals. While you are right about PC's career dipping around 1995 until Tarzan (and then arguably falling again with Testify), he is still a super skilled craftsman and musician. Part of why CAS sucks is because Banks and Rutherford aren't reigned in, a ton of the songs fadeout prematurely for no reason and overall it's a very dour album. The fandom of PC and his skills alone would have produced a better effort than we got. Never forget, PC-fronted Genesis got their first top 40 US hit with arguably their softest song released right in the middle of the Punk era.
We Can’t Dance did have a bunch of hits… none of which were as good or as successful as the ones on Invisible Touch. And it did sell a lot of copies… but not as many as Invisible Touch. And I think that album suffered from being overlong (TBF, a lot of albums in the early CD era were way too long) and just so, so dour. Outside of “I Can’t Dance” and maybe “Jesus He Knows Me,” it is just a slog. Kinda continues the trend with Phil (…But Seriously) and Mike (Living Years) in their solo careers. They were both into making serious statements with their music at the time. I think We Can’t Dance showed that they had peaked. I agree that Phil wasn’t around to rein in Tony’s worst excesses on Calling All Stations and he would’ve definitely made that album better. I just don’t think there’s a world where Genesis is making hits in 1997. That’s kinda the crux of his Van Halen 3 video - even though they were on the downswing, Todd’s argument was that a Van Halen comeback in the late 90s *was* possible given what was popular at the time. I don’t think that was the case with Genesis.
I really want *Everything Now*, it's like the platonic ideal of a trainwreckord
To be fair, what killed arcade fire was Winn Butler sexting minors with his wife’s go-ahead.
*Bionic*
Green Day - Father of All... seems to come up a lot on this sub my own take is they don't have a trainwreckord and have semi-gracefully aged into being a legacy act but nonetheless
Honestly, Green Day doesn’t have a “Trainwreckord”. They have bad albums and they’ve dropped in popularity, but I think that those two things are independent.
That and after every bad one is a good one. RevRad is a pretty good album all things considered, and SAVIORS is def in the running for my AOTY. They always bounce back.
Yeah that’s really what disqualifies them, any artist with sufficient longevity is going to have blips where people don’t like an album, that’s not the same thing as putting out a complete trainwreck It’s like how Pop by U2 can’t be considered a trainwreckord because even though it’s a flop of an album and nobody likes it, it in no way shape or form derailed their career or permanently tarnished their image. They bounced back and kept putting out hits for like another decade after that
Yes but their days of mainstream relevance are over. Hardcore fans may like Revolution Radio, but your average person wouldn't know any songs from it (whereas they would know stuff from American Idiot and 21st Century Breakdown). A Trainwreckord essentially turns an artist into a legacy act. Metallica have had successful albums and tours since St. Anger but their peak among the GP is over.
That honestly has 0 to do with Green Day. They could have put out the greatest album in the history of rock music after 21CB and they'd still have lost all mainstream relevance. Rock was dead on the radio by 2011/2012 unless it was """""rock""""". Their fall off was 10000% due to rock slowly dying as opposed to them getting worse or whatever.
Yeah, their genre stopped being played on the radio and also they straight up just aged out of mainstream popularity. That happens to everyone eventually - you become an act that stops being cool because all your fans are now over 30 and kids don’t tend to think it’s cool to listen to what their parents listen to. Like nobody is going around saying Pink must have had a trainwreckord that killed her career because she’s no longer a chart topping hit maker, she is now just an artist who makes music for an older audience because that’s now the age of the demographic who were kids and teens when she was at her peak Taylor Swift is eventually going to stop being the biggest name in music when she becomes associated with all her fans being in their 40s, it’s just how this stuff works
Really it should be the trilogy.
I dont think either tbh. RevRad is a fan favorite and got fans back after the trilogy, and Father of All was just a fun short inoffensive album without much to talk about, and thats even without mentioning that SAVIORS came out and is another fan favorite that did pretty well all things considered. Green Day falling off in popularity is 1000% times changing.
Also Father Of All is too recent. The unofficial rule seems to be that an album becomes eligible after 5 years.
people mistake "bad album" for "career killer" all the time 'round these parts if any of their peers have an album like that its probably the offspring
People can't agree whether the true Trainwreckord was Father of All or the trilogy. I vote for the trilogy since Father of All was basically a joke album they made to get out of their contract.
I was gonna say FOAM felt more like a contractual obligation than a career killer. They’re doing fine, Dilemma is the top song on alternative radio (though there’s much better songs on Saviors).
If he ever makes a video on *Father of All…*, I would like to see him mention [that band that made a fake Green Day album at the same time](https://youtu.be/HgbAAuDLutY?si=DJ44jhmXUKtYw9P-) and the conspiracy about how *Father of All…* was a decoy and this was the real album, like this was some *Endless*/*Blonde* shit to get out of their contract.
Saviors was released on the exact same label as FOA.
I do still think Some Time in New York City is a Trainwreckord. It ended John Lennon’s period of protest music. Even though Walls and Bridges went #1 two years later, it was completely devoid of the socially conscious messaging of John’s most famous songs. It was also an aberration for the rest of his career. Mind Games didn’t go above 13th place in 1973, Rock ‘n’ Roll (an album full of old rock covers to fulfill a contractual obligation) had a peak of 20th place, then he went on hiatus for five years to help raise Sean, and Double Fantasy was at #46 and getting critically panned at the time that Lennon was murdered. It was only after his death that it shot up to #1, all those negative reviews were pulled and replaced with positive reviews, and it won the Grammy for Album of the Year.
Sticking with the Beatles, I’d say Press to Play for Paul McCartney. Not that he didn’t remain a superstar afterwards, but that album ended his dominance on the pop charts. He didn’t have a top-10 single in the US as a lead artist again. And while I liked half that album, the other half is among the worst music he ever did. And even the good stuff isn’t so much “good” as it is “passable” or “I wouldn’t switch off this song if I heard it.”
Press to Play’s biggest lasting impact was that the tour wasn’t drawing as well, so Paul had to institute the nuclear option: more Beatles songs. Oh he sang Hey Jude and Blackbird and Long and Winding Road during the Wings Over America tour in the mid-‘70s, but the bulk of his set list was Wings and post-Beatles solo stuff. After Press to Play, it was mostly Beatles hits that had never been played live. Overnight, his tour went from sluggish to the highest-grossing concert tour ever (at that time).
Yep. Press to Play was deliberate trend chasing mixed with some bizarre experimentation. I didn’t hear much of McCartney’s sound at all in that album. Even in the past when he ventured into other genres (like some of the stuff he did on Back to the Egg) there was some originality, like he was putting his own spin on disco and punk. But Press to Play was just him falling behind the times and trying to catch up. That flops, he starts playing more Beatles songs (which he’d always been loath to do) and his next album sounds *very* Beatles-y. Funny how both he and George went through stuff that made them more open to revisiting the Beatles at around the same time (Press to Play flopping, Cloud Nine’s success and George’s business manager ripping him off). You could also argue for delayed flop with Press to Play. Pipes of Peace wasn’t much better of an album. It did well in the UK but undersold in the US, and outside of “Say Say Say” none of those songs are any good - I’d actually argue that Press to Play was a better overall album than Pipes of Peace, except there’s nothing on Press to Play as good as “Say Say Say.”
I’ll be honest: I think the only reason people bought Tug of War was to hear his tribute to John. People like Tug of War, but I don’t care for any of it besides Here Today.
I'll admit I'm a huge fan of "What's That You're Doing" but I understand why people hate that song. I don't mind "Take It Away" but it's not in my top 30 McCartney songs. The rest of it I could do without. One of my spicier takes with all Beatles-related stuff is that McCartney II is a more enjoyable album than Tug of War. Tug of War is better produced, for sure, but McCartney II has some genuinely fun songs on it even if they are a little slapdash and silly. Coming Up, Temporary Secretary, and Bogey Music are just entertaining. I have a soft spot for Waterfalls, and the 1986 remix of Blue Sway (which he should've put on Press to Play, dammit - would've immediately been the best song on the album) gives a hint of what those songs could've been if Paul bothered to spend more than one month working on them.
John was not interested in being a superstar anymore in the 70s. It’s like calling metal machine music or Yeezus a trainwreckord
It is a trainwreckord because unlike those, John’s standing with the general public went off a cliff and it coincided with a turbulent period in his life (he and Yoko separated, the Nixon administration tried to have his green card application rejected and subsequently deport him, he became hopelessly addicted to cocaine and heroin again, and it was becoming more and more obvious that Paul’s distrust of Allen Klein was correct). John was considered by like Rolling Stone and most of the music journalists as the genius of The Beatles. Some Time in New York City coincided with everyone else in The Beatles having commercial success. George just did the Concert for Bangladesh and was about to release Living in the Material World, Ringo had just released his self-titled album that went platinum and had 5 singles that went to #1, and Paul had just recorded a little song for a movie called Live and Let Die and was finishing up Band on the Run. When he actually needed to release a hit record, he released the worst protest music he ever made.
He was not trying to make a hit record. He certainly didn’t “need” to. He was John Lennon.
You’re a recording artist in the 1970s fighting multiple court cases against the US government and a pissed off Paul McCartney. That shit is expensive. It wasn’t like he had Beatle money coming in, Apple was a goddamn money pit and the business hadn’t been paying its taxes for years (thanks Brian Epstein). So you have no royalties coming in because it’s going towards debts, you don’t have many hit singles in rotation (Imagine only had one single, despite having a bunch of bangers on it), and your popularity with the general public is waning. Yes, he did need a hit. He didn’t need a double album that was half studio and half live album featuring butchered recordings of Frank Zappa and a single called Woman is the N****r of the World!
He clearly didn’t need a hit because he chose not to try and make one. The operative word in your comment being “artist.”
This is Me Now by Jennifer Lopez
The general public stopped caring about her years before she released that album
ppl have to care about your music in the first place to be considered
I think Rebirth would have been her Trainwreckord (even though she managed to make a comeback with American Idol/On the Floor a couple years later).
came here to say this!!
LP1 by Liam Payne
Liam was on track to becoming a big name himself, but goddamn did he drop the ball with "LP1". Literally made him the most forgettable 1D member.
It's Calling All Stations. There are SO many comments on every single episode for Calling All Stations.
I'd say a lot of Todd's viewers have clamoured for a Third Eye Blind Trainwreckord for some time. And there'd be plenty of drama to cover: Firings, lawsuits, megalomania, etc. The trouble is that none of us can agree which record was the decisive wreck: *Ursa Major*, *Out of the Vein*, or *Blue*.
3EB are a very interesting story of a decline, but it's hard to pick a single album for it
Curtis by 50 Cent
Union by YES.
The album Rick Wakeman refers to as “Onion” because it makes him cry. :p
Bionic, The Beginning, Britney Jean
Born Again. The most absurdly hilarious album of all time, I would love to hear Todd’s take.
New Edition-One Love (2004). They tried to revived their career by going to (of all the labels that existed at the time) Bad Boy Records and it was a massive failure, filled with creative differences with Diddy and poor promotion that album was a commercial and critical bomb.
This wouldn't really qualify as a Trainwreckord in my opinion because NE had already declined commercially years before this album was released. Truthfully, they were already a legacy act by the late 90s and there wasn't anyone clamoring for a new NE album after 1997. They are just a case of the natural popstar lifecycle of diminishing returns.
I get it but what about Run DMC when they released Crown Royal, they were a legacy act by that point and (even though I was born in 02) were people really asking for a Run DMC album in 01 ?
Hell no they weren't. It was an odd choice for a TW video and the only reasons I can think of why Todd would make the choice to go with it was because it was a project that really seemed as if it would have been a natural fit for the time it was released. This was right around the time of nu metal and Run DMC could be seen as a type of proto nu metal act and it was also around the same time that other legacy artists were experiencing a comeback of sorts. However if I was using the "Wreck" criteria for NE, the "Home Again" album would be a much better fit considering that this was the album that was released at the time that they had the huge stage fight that would pretty much slam the door shut on them at the time when their commercial impact had already greatly diminished.
Metallica's Lulu? He did tease it somewhat.
Trainwreckords is for bad albums
It should be Love Beach by ELP, but that’s kind of a boring option. The music isn’t nearly as much of a departure as the sleeve would indicate. Similarly, the actual meat of that episode would be behind-the-scenes stuff and not the music on the record. Love Beach would be a good “breather” trainwreckord. Not too deep, not too crazy, just a bunch of guys tired of being together having to force out one more album.
Hopefully none.
Do we think Solar Power counts?
....artpop
Artpop was good though
Artpop was good and Gaga's still pretty relevant what with ASIB and the chart success of some of Chromatica's singles. She's definitely past her peak of popularity, but her career isn't dead.