Funny / Todd In The Shadows 2021 Episodes

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Specials

The Top Ten Best Hit Songs of 2020

• When discussing WAP, he mentions that the song ranked shockingly high on several publications' top-ten lists, including NPR. Which leads to this little bit:
  ("All Things Considered" theme song plays)
  Todd: "I'm Ari Shapiro, and bring a bucket and a mop for this wet ass pussy."
  • When bringing up the original review, Todd acknowledges that it was branded "Not advertiser-friendly". He even expresses concern that even listing the song will get this video similarly flagged.
• Adding a "WAP"-style truck horn to Ariana Grande's "positions".
• Todd is clearly a little embarrassed adding "Beer Can't Fix" by Thomas Rhett — a breezy pop-country song about drinking — to the honorable mentions, especially after having laid into Luke Bryan's "One Margarita" in the last video.
  [Nervous chuckling] "Yeah! This year, this, um... well, no comment."

Olivia Rodrigo - "driver's license"

• Twice Todd mentions a "fantasy league for pop songs".
  • Todd would elaborate on Twitter and on the Song vs Song podcast that, yes, the "Pop Fantasy League" is a real thing that he actually takes part in.
• Making fun of the paradigm shift represented by "Old Town Road":
  Todd: Like "Yeah, that's right, you don't get it old man! Everything is different now! Betcha still enjoy music by listening to it! Dancing on camera for 30 seconds is the only way to interact with music now! Look at you making playlists like a dinosaur!"
• "I don't really watch the Disney Channel, because I'm a grown man, I don't want to be put on a list..."
  • And later...
    Todd: My next breakup will probably be soundtracked by 45-year-old divorced-dad music.
    Phil Collins: ♪ Take a look at me now... ♪
    Todd: Ah, Sing it, Phil.
• Todd describing Olivia Rodrigo's TV show:

  Todd: Snoozefest. At least Glee made you bleed from the eyes.

• Showing the kind of mood the song fits, Todd tells how he purchased the DVD of The Secret of NIMH to watch with his high school girlfriend, they broke up, and he still hasn't watched it. Cue "driver's license."
• The ending tag: Gladys Knight's "Licence to Kill".

Lil Nas X - "Montero (Call Me By Your Name)"

• Calling "Old Town Road" "a shitpost that got out of control".
• On the still-inevitable Satanic Panic caused by the music video:
  Todd: Y'all did notice that he killed Satan, right? What do you want him to do, not kill Satan? Geez!
• In the finishing of the video about his complicated feelings about the song and Lil Nas X's work in general:
  Todd: What I'm saying is couldn't you just be more normal? (Beat) Oh god that's a terrible thing to ask.
• Todd says that the guy Lil Nas X is singing about "seems like kind of a fuckboy."
• The ending tag: "Little Boy You're Going To Hell!"

Masked Wolf - "Astronaut in the Ocean"

• When Todd is going over his positives and negatives as a creator, his key negative is that he has awful taste in music. The song playing while Todd elaborates his point is "Closer" by The Chainsmokers, referencing the controversy among Todd's fans over putting "Closer" at #1 on his "Best of 2016" list.
  • He ends this list with him being slow as a critic; this song was an exception, as he liked it and pegged it as a possible hit after one listen, and started spotting the bafflingly bad lyrics (the main meat of the episode) after only three listens.
• Todd assumes that Masked Wolf chose that as his rap name when he was 10.
  Todd: And he was correct too because that's a super-cool name. Fuck yeah. Wolf wearing a mask. Awesome!
• After Masked Wolf raps "I believe in G-O-D, don't believe in T-H-O-T" there is a record scratch, indicating Todd's bewilderment. Todd then reaches down and puts the record away while he starts to analyse the line.
• The general confused and bewildered reactions from Todd to the song's increasingly obvious Word Salad Lyrics, leaving him stumped enough to try to explain the meaning of the lyrics to the listener without much success.
  Masked Wolf: ♫ Better know I don't blame, everything that I say; man, I seen you deflate, let me elevate, this ain't a prank, have you walking on a plank, la la la la la… ♫
  Todd: (Beat) What?

Aaron Lewis - "Am I the Only One"

• Todd starts singing "Wherever You Will Go" by the Calling in a Yarling voice over the opening chords.
• After getting to number 14 in the Billboard charts in its first week despite no radio play, the song fell off the chart and re-entered at number 93: It's not remarked upon by Todd, but YouTube commenters noted this seemed particularly humiliating because the chart he illustrates this with has it listed just above a song with the Intentionally Awkward Title of "Twerkulator".
  • It goes unannounced by Todd since it's unrelated to the song and its surprise success, but when Todd's illustrating that the song peaked at #14, it's sitting right above "Blinding Lights", which is somehow still in the top 20 in July of 2021 despite having come out in November of 2019!
• "Like, yeah, maybe he hates the entire left, but maybe there's some common ground. I'm part of the left, and just like every good card-carrying member of the left, I also hate the entire left. Seriously, I cannot stand a single fucking one of you."
• A Running Gag throughout the video is Todd's sheer disbelief that Aaron Lewis, the former frontman of Nu Metal band Staind, is trying to pass himself off as a real country bumpkin, with every highlighted attempt falling flat on its face.
• In a moment of fairness, Todd decides that he's going to give the lyrics a chance to speak to him before he starts criticising the song proper. He doesn't even get past the opening line before he starts breaking it down.
• When Lewis decries the removal of Confederate statues despite being, by his own admission, a Northern Redneck, Todd can only come to one conclusion, and presses a button that brings up the text "YOU'RE A RACIST".
  Todd: I've had that button the entire time, and I've never used it once. I was saving it for the right occasion, and there's never gonna be anything more clear cut than this.
• Todd pointing out the heavy amounts of Narm in Lewis trying to punctuate the song's lyrics with gratuitous swearing. Instead of coming off as a Precision F-Strike, Todd finds it closer to the Team America: World Police soundtrack, highlighted by him pulling up the film's "Freedom Isn't Free" scene.
• Todd eventually comes to the conclusion that the song's just Lewis griping about his kids disagreeing with his politics, humorously noting the irony of how the guy who used to sing about fighting with his dad is now picking fights with his own kids. The song's narrator, ostensibly Aaron himself, admitting this in a folksy way without much regret in his voice ("hell, I'll be damned / I think I'm turnin' into my old man") only makes this even weirder to Todd.
  [Chuckling warmly] "Look at me, I guess I'm just turnin' into my dad! ...My dad, who I screamed at for three straight albums. Like, that doesn't give you pause, AT ALL? Maybe you were right the first time, just sayin'."
• In discussing how conservatism in America has degraded, we get one of the harshest burns Todd's ever given:
  Todd: We went from confident, barrel-chested baritone Toby Keith, gonna "put a boot in bin Laden's ass," and now we just have this bitter, shrieking lump of dough who sounds like he's shitting pine cones, screaming profanities at his television. It's more true to life, I guess, but who would want to admit that that's who they actually are??
• The ending tag: Bruce Springsteen's "Glory Days"— ironic because "Am I the Only One" includes a gratuitous Springsteen Take That!, yet still fitting with his take on the song.

Walker Hayes - "Fancy Like"

• "Hot take, there's a lot of really good Country Music out there. Eat me."
• Todd admits that he listened to a lot of country music in 2020, and even picked a country song as his favorite on 2020's year-end... only problem is that the artist, Morgan Wallen, went on to undo all of his goodwill by getting caught using the N-word on camera. This launches into Todd giving him an angry "The Reason You Suck" Speech, capped off with Todd pouting and saying "I'm the real victim here."
  • The summary of Nashville on the verge of "tearing itself apart" is capped by Tyler Hubbard, one half of frequent Todd punching bag Florida Georgia Line, writing a song that called for unity ("Undivided") and singing it at Joe Biden's inauguration. Not only did the band's other half Brian Kelley make a point of not joining him on stage, but rumors immediately began to circulate that the two were going to break up over their political differences, which they dismissed. (They broke up the next year for reasons that they insisted were not related.)
• Todd describing his reaction to the song:
  Todd: Now pretty much everyone I know has just reacted in shock and horror. Like, friends I hadn't even talked to a while hit me up on Facebook like, "Hey, have you heard this horrible thing? It's so awful it'll turn your hair white." It would be easy for me to react like that, just be all aghast and make stupid faces, but I am reluctant to do that. Not because I particularly like this song, I do not, but because I feel like reacting in horror would be giving it what it wants.
• Todd lumping Walker Hayes alongside a group of people that can be best described as non-descript people with odd names:
  Todd: So with that in mind, let us examine the man behind the song. An artist named Walker Hayes, who is a person I made up just now. (Beat) I mean, you don't know. There's a billion of these guys, and I have not been paying attention long enough to tell them apart. Like they all have similar-sounding names: Walker Hayes, Brett Young, Lee Brice, Luke Evans, Bryson Tiller^note a Black rapper, Cobie Smulders... I dunno.
• His disgusted reaction to the line "She wanna dip me like them fries in her Frosty", complete with Todd telling the story of the first time he saw someone do just that, scored by a Scare Chord over pictures of fries in a Frosty.
  Todd: I've kind of wondered in hindsight if I was just being closed-minded, but then Walker Hayes compared it to his and his wife's junk, so now I'm never gonna try it.
• Calling Walker Hayes a "real-life version of the Wolfenstein guy" for his near-cubic jawline and thick neck.
• On Walker Hayes' road to stardom:
  Todd: He's actually a really inspiring story of persistence. He's been chasing this dream for a long time, he's been dropped by two labels. Only now after ten years of trying does he seem to have established himself. On the negative, that means he's also a 41-year-old man making music that sounds like this:
  Walker: ♫ Squeak-squeakin' in the truck bed, all the way home... ♫
• When ruminating on the song's unprecedented surge as a TikTok meme, Todd wonders if there's anyone else established in the country music scene who was able to make it big by successfully leveraging the platform. Since Lil Nas X was a complete outsider, Todd can only come up with one artist... Morgan Wallen, "may he rest in peace".
  • To better fit the subject, he tries styling the review as a TikTok explainer video, which involves rotating to portrait mode and adding captions and music (specifically the instrumentals of "Savage Love"). He almost immediately decides against it.
    Captions: I am blowing all my lines right now and you can't even tell.
• Todd proclaims that he's no snob when it comes to the simple things, gesturing to his "opulently decorated palace" as he does so, yet he still can't vibe with the song. He even, for the sake of research, went down to Applebee's and ordered a Bourbon Street steak, just so he could have a fresh perspective on whether it was tacky or not.
  Todd [O.S.]: [Flatly] Yup, that's a steak, all right.
  Todd: This is what your Patreon dollars are payin' for, by the way. [Salutes the viewers] I couldn't do this without ya, thank you so much.
• Todd brings up the apparent Double Standard between the disgust levelled at this song and the praise for Beyoncé's "Formation":
  Todd: Also, you guys ate it up when Beyoncé was rapping about Red Lobster cheddar biscuits! You remember that? Ohh, so we act like it's cringe for some dumb redneck to like casual dining, but it's okay when Beyoncé does it? ...Okay, I'm gonna answer my own rhetorical question here: yes, it is okay when Beyoncé does it.
• Todd complains that the song essentially does the opposite of what it is trying to do - instead of celebrating the simple pleasures in life, it makes them feel tacky and classless.
  Todd: It's embarrassing! If I was at an Applebee's and this song came on, I'd feel ashamed of myself! Like, goddamn! I'm just trying to enjoy some ribs at an affordable price, and then this song comes out like [stereotypical redneck voice] "Yep! That's what we fuckin' morons think is classy! We wallow in pig shit all day, and then on special occasions, we go to right where you're sittin' right now!" Gee, thanks, Walker Hayes! I wasn't self-conscious about my Southwest chicken bowl until you started singing!

The Top Ten Worst Hit Songs of 2021

• For his entry on #10, "Beautiful Mistakes" by Maroon 5, he finally figures out why Maroon 5 still makes music: to help Todd fill out his worst list.
  Todd: Truly, the most noble reason to create art. (Beat, does Air Quotes for "art") So really, I owe Adam a debt of gratitude.
  • He then states that he hates Maroon 5 so much that, if they somehow made a good song, he'd get so angry that he'd put it at the top of the worst list anyways.
  • One of his criticisms of the song is that the basic premise is identical to their previous hit "One More Night" ^note Not to mention the 2nd verse of their early hit "This Love".
    Todd: If he was gonna repeat one of his songs, I wish it wouldn't have been his most irritating.
  • After noting that most of Maroon 5's songs that end up on the worst list tend to feature a verse from a rapper and that Todd never likes that verse, he then congratulates the band on a major achievement: getting Megan Thee Stallion to make the first verse that Todd didn't like.
    Todd: Good god, a Hashtag Rap... What year is it? Are we all gonna do the ice bucket challenge?
• For #9, "You Broke me First" by Tate McRae, he notes that, no matter what kind of music McRae wants to make, the label wants her to be the next Billie Eilish (to the point where her first single was co-written by Eilish).
  Todd: And by god, they're gonna take their hammers to this girl until she fits into a Billie Eilish-shaped hole.
  • One of his criticisms with the song is the titular line being the "climax" of the chorus:
    Todd: This really needed to end on a more cutting line than "Well, you started it!"
  • Soon after, he points out how the song wasn't based on anything that had happened to McRae, and wonders why it wasn't obvious to everyone.
    Todd: I read a bunch of articles that were like, "how did you write a breakup song without ever having your heart broken?" Well, by being not good at it, obviously!
  • He then calls this song the movie trailer cover version of itself... and then he plays the song over the trailer for Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, of all things.
• For #8, "Heat Waves" by Glass Animals, he mentions that the song gained a Colbert Bump through... interesting means:
  Todd: [Heat Waves] went viral on the internet through a convoluted process I don't really understand involving Real Person Slash Fic about internet celebrities and... boy, as an internet content creator myself, I got weird feelings about that.
  • He mocks the band's (likely) status as an indie One-Hit Wonder by saying that, in the MP3 era, the band would be mislabeled most of the time. Complete with him showing an MP3 file of the song with Tame Impala as the "artist".
  • He then states that his reason for eventually hating the song might just be because he misses guitars... in Alternative Rock, that is.
    Remember when rock music had guitars? Guitars made a big comeback in 2021, it's been great! We have grit and energy again- oh right, I forgot, rock can rock.
  • His main criticism of the song is that, instead of having substance, it just has "vibes".^note He later clarifies that the "vibes" come from the song mixing so many different genres together that it sounds like nothing.
    Todd: Just vibes. Vibes, vibes, vibes - I'm so sick of vibes.
  • Near the end, he states that the song has an "artificial aftertaste", and concludes the segment by comparing it to freeze-dried microwaved mashed potatoes:
    Todd: You know, it is food, but it still kinda-sorta tastes like plastic? That's what this is.
• For his intro to #7, "Way 2 Sexy" by Drake, he considered Drake and Kanye West's 2021 rivalry to be a "douche vs. turd matchup".
  • Before going into the song, he briefly mocks the music video:
    Todd (sarcastically): Hahaha, wow, Drake is ridiculous! Look at him dressed like an old fat guy, isn't this funny? Huh?
  • Todd mentions that Drake's popular nowadays solely because he's a meme, with Todd's phrasing being that "every meme makes [Drake] stronger".
  • To end the segment, he recalls how he figured out the winner of the Drake v. Kanye rivalry: he saw the two of them do a concert together, and while Kanye performed hit after hit, Drake only performed his new album (which Todd had already stated he dislikes).
    Guess I'm a Kanye stan again. Just gotta try and forget everything he's done in the past 5 years, up to and including this week. Not to worry though, Drake will be back with a hundred more new songs next year, and maybe this time one of them will be interesting.
• When introducing #6, he says that, while mixing everything together and sounding like nothing isn't good, it's still better than mixing the worst of every genre together and sounding like shit. Cue "Fancy Like".
  • While he says that there's nothing wrong about singing about every day being the same and that there's nothing wrong with having to go to Applebee's for a "fancy" date night, Todd points out that Walker Hayes sings it in such a way that he sounds like he's mocking people who do that.
    Todd: "We go to Applebee's, aren't we fucking rednecks?"... No? It's a normal thing to do!
  • He then says that Walker Hayes lowers himself in dignity so much that you'd think he was an Adam Sandler character, complete with the shameless Product Placement.
  • Todd mentions his earlier review of the song, and says that he was worried it made him look like a snob, leading to this:
    Todd: I mean, I am a snob, but I just try to hide it.
  • He then says that he thought this song was Cringe Comedy, but realized that he was just hoping to god that Walker Hayes wasn't writing a song that embarrassing sincerely - especially since, as he points out, the song sounds eerily similar to the Hokey Pokey of all things.
  • He concludes the segment (and mocks the Product Placement) by putting the Applebee's logo at the end of the song.
    Todd: Ugh, product placement... anyways, this video is brought to you by Curiosity Stream!
• In his intro to #5, "Peaches" by Justin Bieber, he laments how Justin Bieber almost destroyed his career with "Yummy," but somehow survived thanks to his manager... while initially talking about Bieber as something akin to a natural disaster.
  • He then describes the actual song as alright to listen to at first, but gradually becoming insufferable due to it having nothing of real substance except for the line "I got my peaches out in Georgia", which became more and more inane to him as time went on.
    Todd: What are you talking about? Do you- do you travel to Georgia for peaches? Do you import them? Also, who fucking cares?
  • He ends up talking about that one line for the rest of the segment, because he says that there's nothing else to the song except for the awkward adlibs (like him calling his wife a "badass bitch").
  • He then compares it to the '90s "Peaches", with him preferring that one because it was self-aware that it was a "pointless, inane novelty song."
• For #4, "Without You" by Kid LAROI, he says that Kid LAROI's voice is very expressive and embodies his character... in the same way that the Squeaky-Voiced Teen embodies a character.
  • His main criticisms is just how much of a Cliché Storm the song is, leaving it with not much of an identity.
    It's an acoustic guitar song, about how sensitive and sad he is, with one of the most overused titles in music, played with four very familiar chords in a very familiar order.
  • He also says that Kid LAROI's voice makes him "sound like a sulking asshole", and points out how the song's most infamous line ("can't make a wife out of a ho") is not doing him any favors in that regard.
    Todd: ...What the fuck are you talking about, kid? [...] You weren't going to marry her, you're what, like, 14? Did you buy a ring, or talk about having kids? Come on!
  • He then considers LAROI's "douchebag demeanor" and "random sexism" to be the best part of the song, solely because the rest of the song could have been written by anybody, and concludes it by calling LAROI a less charming Lewis Capaldi.
    Todd: LAROI has to wail like a poltergeist just to make this song interesting at all.
• For #3, he mentions how he respected Dan + Shay and wasn't actually that bothered by their music... that is, until they released "Glad You Exist" in 2021.
  Todd: This year, something in me snapped. Get these snivelling simps out of here for the love of Christ.
  • He then talks about the trend of "boyfriend-country" and how it's a fascinating look into the mind of your average basic white woman.
    Todd: A few of the newer singers would have been making bro-country 8 years ago, and they approached this whole new vibe like "Yeah! I want a full commitment and I'm gonna give you an ring and a house and a bunch of kids and all that someday, but also for the time being I'm a horny, good-looking young guy who wants to give you a lot of bomb-ass sex." [...] I mean, it's hard to argue with that, not my thing but, ladies, I get it.
  • He mocks the song's titular phrase of "glad you exist" for being... rather nondescript.
    Todd: "Glad you exist"? Wow, Dan and Shay, don't lay it on too thick! "I'm glad you exist". I'm glad toothpicks exist, they're a useful implement. Dan and Shay may as well name this song "Better than Nothing"!
  • While he already found the song to be bad, what cemented its spot on his list were the little "yeah-yeah-yeah"s in the song:
    Todd: This song is already limp enough, but those soft little "yeah yeah yeah"s make everything sound so dinky and insincere.
  • He ends the segment by saying that it sounds like "a Hallmark card they bought for your anniversary at the last second".
• For #2, he mentions that he could feel the controversy coming for that entry, and calls Måneskin's song "Beggin'" one of the most polarizing songs of the year... before revealing that he actually liked that song, and that the entry was from another Eurovision winner - that is, "Arcade" by Duncan Laurence (from 2019).
  • When discussing that Americans typically don't expect sordid ballads like "Arcade" from Eurovision, Todd mentions Jaja Ding Dong among the kind of songs they do expect. But he also admits that "You'll get your 'Vampire Man Boat' every year".
  • He noted that the song's metaphor of the arcade being a losing game was miffed up... pretty badly. He felt like there was something lost in translation—and the metaphor only gets more muddled when Laurence mentions a rollercoaster.^note It should be noted that European countries like the Netherlands and the United Kingdom do have gambling games included in arcades alongside the typical kiddie games (with some of them containing nothing but gambling games), but "arcade" doesn't usually bring gambling to mind in the first place, so Todd's point still stands.
    Todd: I worry that something got lost in his translation here because it sounds like what he was actually thinking of is a casino, which would be the logical venue because gambling is actually where you can lose something of importance and get your heart broken... and your legs broken. But there are no stakes at an arcade. There's no real sense of loss when you lose at pinball. There's no kids crying at the Pac-Man machines. [...] It's like a video arcade, but... sad!
  • Todd also mocks the "screaming agony of the song", along with the (again) questionable metaphor.
    Todd: [to the tune of the song] ♫ All I know, all I kno-o-ow, I didn't get the high score in skee-ee-ee-ball! ♫'
  • Todd ends the segment by noting the irony of Laurence winning Eurovision with a song about a losing game, before saying:
    Todd: He loses on the only competition that counts: this list. Netherlands, nul points! (blows raspberry)
• He puts Ed Sheeran's "Bad Habits" as a dishonorable mention, not because of anything the song did wrong, but because of its awful music video.
  Todd: Did you think that outfit looks good, Ed? What does this part mean, Ed? Why can't you just be happy being the plain-faced folk-singer that you are?
• The only thing he has to say about Sabrina Carpenter's "Skin":
  Todd: This is probably the saddest response song since It's EveryNight Sis.
• Among the songs Todd includes in the Honorable Mentions section is "abcdefu" from Gayle, which only avoided being on the list because it released in the last week of the year.
  Todd: If this song sticks around, maybe by next year I'll hate enough to put it on the list proper.
  • This ends up becoming a piece of Foreshadowing that lasts a year when he not only uses it for his "Worst of 2022" bumper song but also ended up at No. 4.
• The #1 song is, perhaps unsurprisingly, Aaron Lewis' "Am I the Only One":
  • On the fantasy that is the bulk of his chosen genre (which Aaron doesn't seem to understand):
    Todd: Country music is mostly fiction. Johnny Cash never shot a man in Reno, Merle Haggard isn't an Okie from Muskogie, Garth never showed up in boots to a black-tie affair, and Carrie Underwood never smashed her boyfriend's car.
  • Revisiting the previously somewhat ambiguous "another statue coming down" line, and the since-released music video's explicit shot of a Confederate statue^note The video, perhaps trying to obfuscate the meaning, uses footage of the Statue of Liberty as well, but it couldn't be more clear what Lewis is actually referencing.:
    Todd: ...[W]hich again, he's not even Southern. I'm allowed to have opinions on this, not you, you clam-chowder-eating Masshole! You don't even go here!
  • When rating the relative merits of the song, to elaborate that he'd hate it whether or not he agreed with it:
    Todd: Does it sound like shit? God, yes, Aaron Lewis sounds like a cow giving birth.
    • Some extra comedy comes from Todd using the "clean" version of the song for this part, which trades the more powerful and angry "if you don't like it, there's the fuckin' door" for the almost childish "there's the frickin' door", which is used as the stinger at the end of the video.
  • Todd reflects on how Lewis claims he can't listen to Springsteen anymore because of his grievances against the man (noting that even Kid Rock's ridiculous "anti-millenial" song, "Don't Tell Me How to Live", still gave the Boss his due), and what a sad life it must be to spend every day angry and unable to enjoy "Born to Run" — while listening to yourself sing about screaming at your TV.
  • Describing Van Morrison and Eric Clapton's anti-lockdown/vaccine anthem "This Has Gotta Stop" as "so laid back it was almost cute".

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