WMG / Todd In The Shadows Trainwreckords

This is a special sub-page for all of the predictions for future Trainwreckords episodes.

This is a series where Todd looks at notable albums that are widely considered to have either killed a popular artist's career, caused the breakup of a popular band, or at the very least killed their relevancy in mainstream popular culture (in Todd's own words: "albums that flopped so hard, that they ended careers"), usually down to it being horrible, or being completely misguided in some way (e.g. a failed change in musical direction).

Please note that Todd does not qualify just any generic, unsuccessful album released at the end of a normal career arc, cases of artists simply running out of ideas (per the Turn It Upside Down episode, "I did that once for Hootie, I'm not doing that again"), or, by effect of the latter, typical Sophomore Slump albums (unless they're particularly outstanding cases beyond just running low on ideas and falling short of expectations). Rather, he is much likelier to lean towards albums with interesting stories attached to them, so long as the bands or artists in question failed to truly come back from them in terms of public relevancy. Also note that as Todd's audience is primarily American, he leans more towards covering artists that were well-known and successful in the US before the perceived Trainwreckord.

Deconfirmed albums have their own page.

#-A

• 2 Live Crew:
  • Banned in the U.S.A.: After the infamous obscenity lawsuit surrounding As Nasty as They Wanna Be, 2 Live Crew were suddenly thrust into the critical role of free speech advocates in hip hop. As a result, this follow-up was significantly more political than the party rap that dominated its predecessor. Instead of boosting their grassroots popularity, however, the album got mediocre reviews and curbed their rise to power. Audiences turned to Public Enemy and Ice Cube for politically charged rap instead, while pop rappers like MC Hammer and Vanilla Ice filled hip hop's party music niche. If covered, expect Todd to compare this album to Turn It Upside Down as their push for more credit erroded the public's interest in the group as he has stated in his review of "Baby Got Back" that no one listens to them anymore and that he considers the group "awful".
  • Sports Weekend (As Nasty As They Wanna Be Part II): With the underperformance of Banned in the U.S.A., 2 Live Crew made a 180 turn and took their raunchiness to the extreme. Despite renewed controversy, the record once again underperformed and was widely perceived as being obscene just for the sake of it. The group disbanded a year later, with later incarnations failing to make any mainstream impact.
• Look Hear? by 10cc: Though they were internationally huge in the '70s and even had two big crossover hits in America, they quickly fell out of touch with current trends by the time they released this. The album's production was plagued due to a car accident that severely handicapped Eric Stewart's hearing and vision, and when it finally came out, it got a horrible reception that the band would never recover from.
• 50 Cent:
  • Curtis: This album and particularly the messy promotion around the album's release (releasing it on the same day as Kanye West's Graduation, promising to retire if it sold less than Kanye's album, and then reneging when that exact thing happened) was the point where Fifty's reputation turned into that of a walking punchline within the rap community.
  • Animal Ambition: While appearances on the hit songs "Crack a Bottle" and "Down on Me" kept Curtis Jackson somewhat in the public eye after his peak, this embarrasing attempt at a comeback album cratered what little relevance he still had in the 2010s. His only splash on the Hot 100 since was as a guest on Pop Smoke's "The Woo".
• Love Among the Ruins by 10,000 Maniacs: After becoming critical darlings in the late 80's and scoring their biggest hit in 1993 with a live cover of Bruce Springsteen & Patti Smith's "Because the Night", the band were dealt a major blow by frontwoman Natalie Merchant's departure to focus on her solo career. Despite losing their most iconic member, they trucked on with former guest violinist Mary Ramsey as their new lead and founding guitarist John Lombardo returning to the fold, releasing this album after a long hiatus in an attempt to capitalize on the revival of interest in Merchant's old band in the wake of her solo success. While their cover of Roxy Music's "More Than This" was a hit, it was also their last; the album stiffed both critically and commercially, and the Maniacs never regained their former success or prominence despite Merchant-era songs remaining staples of adult alternative radio.
• Up by ABC: Previously a major force in the Second British Invasion, this Sophisti-Pop group's 1989 foray into House Music saw mixed reviews from critics and negative responses from fans. While leadoff single "One Better World" was a minor UK hit, the album became their first to not clear the Top 40 over there and was their first to not chart at all in the US. ABC eventually made a critical comeback in the 21st century, but they would never reclaim the success or relevance of their heyday in the 80's.
• Head over Heels by Paula Abdul: Though Abdul rivaled Madonna and Janet Jackson in fame and success throughout the late '80s and early '90s, she struggled to keep up with her contemporaries as pop music declined in popularity during the mid-1990s. In contrast to the numerous hits on her first two albums, Head over Heels only had one fairly modest hit in "My Love Is for Real", which hastily attempted to establish a more distinct identity for her by stylistically invoking her Jewish heritage (including guest vocals from Israeli pop superstar Ofra Haza), while the more conventional follow-up single, "Crazy Cool", missed the top 40 of the Hot 100. Since this record's underperformance, Abdul has yet to record another album and is nowadays remembered primarily as the nice judge from American Idol rather than a pop legend. Additionally, Todd compared Abdul's career arc to that of Katy Perry in the Witness Trainwreckords.
• My Teenage Dream Ended by Farrah Abraham: A Teen Mom star tried to make an album with no prior experience, resulting in an album that was widely criticized for its production, its bizarre feel, and heavy use of Auto-Tune. The album's producer revealed that during recording, Abraham wasn't even singing to the music but to a click track, and had to be told how to turn her diary entries into melodic compositions. Oddly enough, it achieved cult status in avant-garde/outsider music circles and has been cited as a major influence on the deconstructed club and bubblegum bass/hyperpop music scenes. Abraham didn't really have any chance of success in the first place, but Todd might find the album's reception (and inexplicable vindication) interesting enough for a Trainwreckords episode. Also, his reaction to the music would probably be entertaining, whether he finds it interestingly bad or thinks it's just awful.
• Just Push Play by Aerosmith: Although the leadoff single "Jaded" was a top 10 hit, the album itself was strongly criticized for its rap metal tendencies and finished off their waning reputation after their controversial movie ballad "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing" a few years earlier. The album was their last to go platinum, their studio output would heavily slow down in its wake, and guitarist Joe Perry openly described it as how not to make an Aerosmith album.
• Bionic by Christina Aguilera: Todd called its lead single "a disaster" in the "Moves Like Jagger" review and would continue to emphasize this in his review of "Wrecking Ball" claiming that her attempts to shock during this album cycle were embarrassing. Since the album's failure, she's failed to see any solo chart success outside of a few guest features on other artists' hit songs. Todd later tweeted he was interested in making an episode out of the album as he felt that while its reputation amongst critics and Christina fans is positive, it absolutely was a career killer.
• Alice in Chains by Alice in Chains: While the album went double platinum, it wasn't as well received as their preceding album Dirt or EP Jar of Flies. Also, the band didn't tour to support the album due to frontman Layne Staley's heroin addiction. Alice in Chains (unofficially) disbanded in 1996, and Staley became a recluse and his health deteriorated, ultimately dying from a heroin overdose in 2002 (coincidentally on the 8th anniversary of Nirvana's fellow grunge frontman Kurt Cobain's death). Alice in Chains reformed in 2005 with a new lead singer, William DuVall, and have released three albums since reforming.
• Kids in the Street by The All-American Rejects: This Pop Punk band was one of the most popular rock acts of the mid-to-late 2000's thanks to multiple hit singles, but by the tail end of the decade, rock had all but vanished from the pop radio stations, where most of the band's airplay came from. Instead of going for a more pop-oriented sound like their peers, the band went towards an '80s inspired direction that pleased neither the band's traditional audience nor rock fans. As such, the album sold very poorly, and its singles completely missed the Hot 100. They have recorded very little material since then. Todd has talked multiple times about the decline of rock's mainstream presence around the late 2000's/early '10s (most prominently in the "Tonight Tonight" review), so he could possibly cover its downfall more extensively by featuring the album on Trainwreckords.
• Your Move by America: After quite a bit of commercial success in the '70s, the band had hit a bit of a slump going into the next decade after Dan Peek departed. The remaining duo of Gerry Beckley and Dewey Bunnell eventually made a 1982 top ten reappearance with Russ Ballard-penned "You Can Do Magic". America then worked with Ballard for the follow-up album, which was both a critical and commercial disappointment, not helped that the duo found it difficult to work with him in terms of session work and writing. While they still release new material now and then, they are mostly a touring act since the similar underperformance of Perspective.
• drukQs by Aphex Twin: While never a superstar, Aphex Twin was one of the most acclaimed and prolific musicians in the British electronic scene during the late '90s, amassing a sizable cult following on both sides of the Pond. While this album marked Richard D. James' biggest US success up to that point, it also proved to be his most divisive release, with many criticizing it as lacking innovation compared to his previous albums. James wouldn't release another album as Aphex Twin for thirteen years, and while the result, Syro, was an even bigger sales success that restored his critical goodwill, it failed to restore his mainstream standing amidst a radically changed EDM landscape.
• Everything Now by Arcade Fire: They were arguably the single most-acclaimed band of the indie rock movement during the first two decades of the 21st Century, with their debut LP Funeral ranking within Best Ever Albums' top 10 records of all time and their third studio album The Suburbs winning Album of the Year for 2010. Their stock in the music enthusiast world, however, took a nosedive upon the release of this extremely polarizing New Sound Album, which leaned heavily on electronic influences, in contrast to the dense, intricate, and symphonic nature of their first few records. While their follow-up album in 2022, WE, managed to get better reviews, it wasn't nearly as acclaimed or commercially successful as their albums during their heyday, not helped by sexual misconduct accusations against frontman Win Butler a few months later.
• The Seduction of Claude Debussy by Art of Noise: An attempted reunion project nearly a decade after their last album, this effort proved to instead be the '80s sample pop collective's final nail in the coffin. Its radically different lineup, shift to Drum and Bass, and odd concept (a Rock Opera biopic about composer Claude Debussy featuring guest vocals from both John Hurt and Rakim) divided fans and critics alike (though it would later be Vindicated by History). The group quickly disbanded in its wake, with member Paul Morely dismissing the album as weak and directionless. While they eventually reunited again and released a follow-up album in the 2010s, the latter was an archival release that was tucked away in a reissue of this album prior to 2022; they've recorded no new studio material since.
• The Declaration by Ashanti: Due to her parent label, The Inc., having fallen sharply from grace since her previous full studio album, not to mention her former constant collaborator Ja Rule being a total wash-up by this point, Ashanti was nothing but just another disposable R&B singer upon the release of this album. Its only top 40 hit, "The Way That I Love You", only reached #37 and was Overshadowed by Controversy when Ashanti and her label launched the infamous Gotcha-Gram website to promote its music video. She's had absolutely no chart success on her own ever since.
• Alpha by Asia: Todd already mentioned in the "Video Killed the Radio Star" OHW that the Progressive Rock supergroup were a major act when their debut album dropped in 1982, but this follow-up a year later was plagued by a Troubled Production that mixed together Executive Meddling, Creative Differences, and technical problems all at once. The album critically and commercially underperformed, its mixing was criticized by the band themselves (who never regained their initial success in its wake), and it's generally regarded as the final nail in the coffin for first-wave prog. Todd used them as a byword for overproduction in the Cut the Crap episode of Trainwreckords, so expect him to have a lot to say about the album's poor mixing.
• Welcome the Night by The Ataris: Although this group might be a better fit for One Hit Wonderland, the story behind this album's failure is quite fascinating and probably a much more worthwhile point of focus than the band's only Hot 100 hit, a cover of Don Henley's "The Boys of Summer". Plagued by numerous lineup changes, constant delays, and lead singer Kris Roe's one-sided ambition, this follow-up to the band's commercial breakthrough So Long, Astoria was released in early 2007 to extremely little fanfare and failed to earn Roe his coveted indie cred. While the band is still together, Roe is the only remaining member from their peak years and they have not released another proper studio album since Welcome the Night tanked.
• Attila by Attila: This hard psychedelic rock album was the only record by Billy Joel's band before he went solo. It is notoriously considered one of the worst rock albums of all time, and its failure partially led to Joel's suicide attempt shortly afterwards.
• In My Defense by Iggy Azalea: After emerging one of the biggest new stars of 2014, her relevance was pretty much already done for by 2015, due a combination of Hype Backlash, controversy over her mimicry of Southern African Americans despite her white Australian heritage, and general abrasiveness on social media. After several failed singles, she finally released her sophomore album in 2019, which did nothing to revitalize her limping career. Todd tweeted that he's probably going to cover it eventually.

B

• B.o.B:
  • Underground Luxury: He started the 2010s decade as one of the biggest pop rappers in the world, but his sophomore album was only modestly successful, while this one was a complete and utter bomb. Nowadays, he's more famous for being the subject of ridicule within the rap community than for his previous successes, which became more prominent with...
  • Elements: A 2016 compilation of four mixtapes he had released over the preceding year. While Underground Luxury was technically his true career killer, this may make for a more interesting episode, as it was these songs, including the infamous "Flatline", that saw him evolve into a crazy conspiracy theorist and forever turned him into one of the biggest jokes in music.
  • Ether: It served as the culmination of the Elements series as was the only installment that was an official studio album. It was completely laughed off by the public, peaking at a dismal #179 on the Billboard 200. To gauge how sharply B.o.B's reputation collapsed in such a short time, Todd put two of his hits on his Top Ten Best Hit Songs of 2010, but by the "Girls Like You" Pop Song Review, he was sarcastically referencing B.o.B in the same breath as Soulja Boy and Silentó as a suggested replacement act for Maroon 5 at the 2019 Super Bowl. Todd already mentioned B.o.B's downfall in the Chamillionaire OHW and gawked at his flatliner beliefs in the "Treat You Better" Pop Song Review, so it's likely he'll have plenty of material for a B.o.B Trainwreckords episode on either one of these records.
• Good Stuff by The B-52s: Alongside fellow Athens, GA natives R.E.M., they were some of the first college rock bands to become mainstream superstars. While they managed to bounce back from guitarist Ricky Wilson's 1985 death of AIDS with the quadruple-platinum Cosmic Thing in 1989, the rise of grunge by this album's 1992 release rendered their campy style gauche. Attempts to adapt with a more political direction fell flat, with the album getting marginal reviews and only going gold. Aside from one more studio album, Funplex in 2008, the B-52s mostly eschewed the recording studio since the disappointing reception of this record and eventually announced plans to retire following a farewell tour in 2023, though they were still a successful live act before then.
• Street Action by Bachman-Turner Overdrive: Their first album after Randy Bachman left was their only album at that point to not get certified in either the US or Canada, and its reception was an all-time low.
• Backstreet Boys:
  • Black & Blue: While it sold several million copies, it's infamous for being a disappointing followup to the mega-smash Millennium. The songs here failed to leave a lasting impression with the public, with only the leadoff single "Shape of My Heart" even making it into the top 20. In hindsight, Black & Blue is widely regarded to be the beginning of the end for the entire teen pop craze of the late '90s and early 2000s. The Hype Backlash rapidly fermented as the public felt the genre had grown stagnant and was over saturating the market. A year later, when the movement was officially dead, the Backstreet Boys went on hiatus, until a minor comeback in 2005 with...
  • Never Gone: By the time the group reconvened for this comeback record, bubblegum pop had become so unpopular that they were forced to adopt a more mature pop rock style in order to stand a chance. While the leadoff single "Incomplete" was reasonably successful, the band's return to the charts did not last long, and they would ultimately fall into obscurity until one more, even smaller comeback in 2018. At the time, it was a constant punchline that they were no longer boys as their name advertised. If Todd covers this album, expect him to compare it to Take That's Beautiful World, which came out a year after Never Gone and applied the exact same type of makeover to another reunited boyband from the '90s, but to much, much more fruitful results.
• Slay-Z by Azealia Banks: While it was critically successful, the rapper's 2016 mixtape follow up to her debut studio album Broke with Expensive Taste wasn't commercially successful and it didn't help that it came out during the time when Banks had caused controversy with her social media posts and beefing with notable artists like Zayn Malik by using homophobic and racist language to the point that she was suspended from Twitter. While she continues to release new material, most recently a holiday EP in 2018 and another mixtape a year later, neither album have had the same acclaim as Expensive Taste and her second studio album remains in Development Hell.
• Go Away White by Bauhaus: The Goth Rock pioneers' reunions in the late 90's and mid-2000's generated a good amount of buzz, especially when the band indicated that they planned to record a new album, their first since Burning from the Inside in 1983. However, Creative Differences emerged during production, leading the band to break up again immediately after this album's release. Critics praised it as an adept Swan Song album, but fan reception was lukewarm at best, and the album charted much lower than any of its predecessors, failing to crack the top 100 on either side of the Pond. The band did a few more reunion performances in 2019, but these never generated anything as substantial as the 2000's reunion.
• To the 5 Boroughs by Beastie Boys: Like American Life, this was one of the few albums by a major musical act with a focus on social commentary in response to 9/11 and the Iraq War. While the record fared well with critics, fans were much more lukewarm towards it, criticizing its relatively safe production and mediocre lyrics. Their subsequent two albums both failed to earn certifications from the RIAA, and they ultimately broke up in 2012 when Adam "MCA" Yauch succumbed to cancer.
• Living Eyes by The Bee Gees: With the decline of disco, the Bee Gees returned to their Soft Rock roots for this record. It flopped badly. They had a few more moderate hits throughout the rest of their career, but nothing on the same level as their disco heyday. Although "You Win Again" was a monster comeback hit for them in 1987 overseas, it flopped in America because they were still associated with disco at the time. Todd commented on Twitter in a response to a tweet from Sean Fay-Wolfe sugggesting the album that the Bee Gees were "100% killed by the disco backlash whether they were a disco band or not", suggesting this album could be a likely candidate.
• Hootie Mack by Bell Biv DeVoe: Their debut went 4x Platinum, but this only went Gold and is considered one of the primary factors that killed the New Jack Swing movement.
• True Love by Pat Benatar: While she'd been facing a gradual commercial decline since the mid '80s, this rock singer's time in the spotlight completely ended with this record, a radical Genre Shift to jump blues that was panned by critics and ended her hit-maker status once and for all.
• Count Three & Pray by Berlin: In 1986, this underground Synth-Pop favorite was on the verge of a mainstream breakthrough with their chart-topping contribution to the Top Gun soundtrack, "Take My Breath Away". However, the song sowed Creative Differences between frontwoman Terri Nunn and the rest of the band, who saw it as a Sell-Out. This tension reflected in this album, which was met with lukewarm reception from old and new fans alike. While "Take My Breath Away" was stuck onto the album to boost its chances, the other singles flopped, the record became their first to miss an RIAA certification since their debut, and the band dissolved just a year later. Though they reformed a decade after that, they never truly regained their critical or commercial success.
• The Beginning by The Black Eyed Peas: While it did score a few hit singles, it flopped badly compared to their three previous records, both commercially as well as critically. Todd has already touched on the events that led to their hiatus in his Worst Songs of 2011 video, but he hasn't discussed the record itself in depth aside from its leadoff single, "The Time (Dirty Bit)", which Todd considered their very worst song, a claim which he reaffirmed in 2020 on the Song vs. Song episode on the group. It took several years for the Peas to reconvene (minus Fergie) for the follow-up, which was released in 2018 to very little fanfare, although it became easily their biggest critical success since their pre-Sell-Out days. While they eventually managed to make a chart comeback with the top 40 hit, "RITMO (Bad Boys for Life)" (with J Balvin) in 2020 and has since had modest success as a reggaeton act, they've yet to reach the earth-conquering heights of their heyday. Todd poked fun at the title in his review of Crown Royal stating it was tempting fate meaning he has considered doing a full episode of this album.
• What The... by Black Flag: It was their first new album in nearly three decades, but with a very different lineup than their glory days, and its reception was so atrocious that it broke them immediately back up.
• Turn Blue by The Black Keys: Despite its Grammy nominations and positive critical reception, fans were alienated by this New Sound Album's darker tone compared to their earlier material. It failed to match the sales figures of Brothers and El Camino, and while its 2019 followup Let's Rock charted well, its reception wasn't much better.
• Black Sabbath:
  • Born Again: Similar to Van Halen III and ...Calling All Stations..., this critically panned album killed the band’s commercial relevance after they hired a third major frontman for the first and only time, this time Ian Gillan of Deep Purple. Expect a reference to This is Spın̈al Tap, since Sabbath had their own Stonehenge incident that may have inspired the one in that film (instead of being too small, their Stonehenge was too big to be stored anywhere).
  • Forbidden: It's notable for being produced by Body Count member Ernie C and even features a guest appearance by Ice-T. The album was such a failure, however, even by the band's then-diminished standards, that they wouldn't record another studio record for nearly two decades.
• Finally by Blackstreet: A popular R&B vocal group from the '90s, founded by New Jack Swing pioneer Teddy Riley and most famous for their #1 classic "No Diggity", Blackstreet is notable for their constant lineup changes throughout their existence, forcing them to refocus their chemistry with each release on top of keeping up with current trends. While they were lucky with Another Level (the album that contained "No Diggity"), Finally was met with extremely marginal reviews, and its second single "Girlfriend/Boyfriend" didn't even crack the top 40, putting an immediate end to their commercial relevance.
• Neighborhoods by blink-182: While the self-titled album was fairly divisive with fans, it was still a massive commercial success. Neighborhoods, on the other hand, not only had to deal with Troubled Production between members, but was released at a time when rock music was no longer top-dog for the mainstream. This resulted in the album underselling, singles falling from the charts quickly, and leading to Tom DeLonge's departure during the resulting tour. While California fared better commercially, it was still pretty inferior to the group's heyday, and caused yet another divide between the fans.
• Hymns by Bloc Party: When your first album is considered to be one of the best indie albums of the 2000s, it's no surprise it'll be a Tough Act to Follow, and Bloc Party faced this with pretty much every other album they released afterwards having a Broken Base. However, Hymns—an introspective synthpop/electro-rock album that fully abandoned the post-punk-influenced sound that made them famous, and their first album following the departure of their drummer and bassist, who were key elements of their sound—failed to please anybody, with critics and especially fans agreeing it was a major misstep. Even though the follow-up was released in 2022, time will tell if that record could signify a recovery for them.
• The Hunter by Blondie: While their adept blend of New Wave Music and disco brought them to superstardom and allowed them to endure the Disco Sucks movement with ease, Creative Differences within the band would put them on hiatus at the height of their fame. After frontwoman Debbie Harry's solo debut floundered, the band was hastily reformed and rushed out this release to appease Chrysalis Records. The end result was a vague, muddied Concept Album about "hunting" that bombed both critically and commercially, ultimately contributing to their breakup shortly after. While they reformed again in 1997 and saw success internationally (which Todd acknowledged in his video for "Give It to You"), they never reached their old heights in the US again.
• Hefty Fine by the Bloodhound Gang: Released five years after their breakthrough album, by which point their brand of fratboy comedy rock become passe in the mainstream, not only did its (otherwise well-reviewed) singles not chart in the United States, it was poorly reviewed enough to become the second-lowest rated album of all time on Metacritic.
• Imaginos by Blue Öyster Cult: While the band's career had been on the downturn for years, this nearly incomprehensible Concept Album (made even less comprehensible by a butchered track listing) that was falsely advertised as a reunion of the band's original lineup (few of whom performed on more than one or two tracks) while actually being a Vanity Project of the band's ex-Manager and former drummer was the result of an intense Troubled Production and would be the final time one of the band's albums charted in any country until 2020's The Symbol Remains barely scraped onto the bottom of the Billboard 200. The other two parts of the trilogy wouldn't see the light of day until Lead Drummer Albert Bouchard revisited the project in late 2020 to no fanfare outside of die-hard BOC fans.
• Think Tank by Blur: After being one of the defining British rock bands of the 90's, this 2003 effort suffered from a massively Troubled Production — the most notable issue being guitarist Graham Coxon leaving the band due to drug issues. As such, the rest of the band was fairly miserable during its making, and after the album's tour was done, they called it quits. They have reunited (with Coxon) for occasional live tours and two (admittedly well received) albums in 2015 and 2023, but the glory years were long past them at that point. The album itself was a success critically and commercially — though not to the extent of their 90's output — but is the most divisive album in their catalogue, with many considering to essentially be a Damon Albarn solo album in disguise (especially since it sounds quite a lot like Albarn's other big musical project at the time). While the quality and commercial performance of the album don't strictly put it into Trainwreckords territory, the story behind the album means it may be covered for similar reasons to Two the Hard Way and Kilroy Was Here, depending on whether or not Todd will cover them on One Hit Wonderland instead as he stated reconsidering his stance on it in 2024 after an incredibly tepid audience response to their Coachella set that year.
• My Secret Passion: The Arias by Michael Bolton: Coming to terms with the changing tides of pop music in the late 90s, Bolton attempted to reinvent himself as an opera singer in a misguided attempt to appeal to his aging adult contemporary audience. While he already made two highly successful cover albums, this one alienated both not only his fans but also Classical Music fans for his alleged inauthenticity. The album was a complete flop, becoming his first album to not crack the Billboard 200 or gain a certification by the RIAA since his output from the early 80s. While he would achieve a minor comeback in the 2010s through a parody of himself in The Lonely Island's "Jack Sparrow", which he came to fully embrace, Bolton would never reach the same level of commercial success he maintained during the 90s.
• Boston:
  • Walk On: In addition to lukewarm reviews, the rise of grunge ensured it didn't stand a chance at matching the success of their previous three records, and nothing they put out afterwards did much.
  • Corporate America: This 2002 comeback album attempted to harken back to their debut album's sound while adding new elements, to little avail. It was criticized by fans and critics for its rushed songs, uninspiring riffs and melodies, and very anvilicious lyrics. The band wouldn't release another album for a decade, and much like the Beach Boys' Summer in Paradise it has never been reissued since its release.^note Likely due to its reputation, also likely due to its distributor, Artemis Records, being absorbed by V2 Records a few years later.
• Boyz II Men:
  • Evolution: Coming off the band's mega-hit-making streak in the early-mid-'90s only rivaled by Mariah Carey, this album immediately shot to the top of the Billboard 200 with a #1 leadoff single, "4 Seasons of Loneliness". However, sales figures rapidly dropped, and except for "A Song for Mama" (which was fueled by its appearance in Soul Food), none of the other singles went anywhere, with even "4 Seasons" having significantly less staying power than their previous chart-toppers. Reviews were also lukewarm, resulting in the album selling only a small fraction of its two predecessors. It ultimately proved the final time the group ever achieved commercial relevance, as younger and raunchier R&B acts quickly supplanted them.
  • Nathan Michael Shawn Wanya: This was the first album where the group attempted to write their own material with lesser known producers as opposed to the Babyface or Jam & Lewis-penned megahits of their heyday. The result was a disjointed mess that was trying too hard to keep up with the more younger boybands of the time instead of establishing any distinct identity, and only served to firmly end their relevance. Todd may elect to cover this album instead based on his comments in the Generation Swine episode that he prefers covering albums where an act is "already in decline and are desperately trying to stop the skid".
• Everything Comes and Goes by Michelle Branch: Similar to the Jessica Simpson case, this EP was a Genre Shift towards country music that failed to take off and effectively ended the career of this former early 2000s star. It didn't help matters that it was a shining example of the massive web of record label struggles and personal issues that prevented Branch from releasing any new albums for 14 years: it was intended to be a full album, but it was released as an EP instead due to numerous pushbacks (let's put it this way: the EP was released 16 months after its lead single was issued).
• Title TK by The Breeders: While reception of The Breeders' third album was generally positive, front-woman Kim Deal was such a nightmare to work with behind the scenes due to her almost Stanley Kubrick level of perfectionism. Consequently, the production of Title TK went way behind schedule and over budget. Since the album had no real hits, it likely further ensured that no major record company or any musician would ever want to work with Deal again.
• In the Life of Chris Gaines by Garth Brooks: A bizarrely leftfield turn from the Country Music icon, this album was envisioned as the soundtrack to a mockumentary biopic in which Brooks would've played fictitious Australian pop superstar Chris Gaines. Brooks made public appearances in-character and attempted to present Gaines as a real person, including commissioning and appearing in a Behind the Music episode about the character. The effort only garnered mockery from the public and Sell-Out accusations from fans, and though it was a commercial success, it undersold by Brooks' standards. This plus the negative reactions kept the film from getting off the ground and directly caused Brooks' temporary retirement. The infamy of it is so great even today that it's almost inevitable that Todd will cover it, especially given his fondness for country music.
• Bobby Brown:
  • Bobby: While it was a big success at the time, its reputation has taken a major hit ever since. Releasing concurrently with his marriage to Whitney Houston and shortly before the collapse of New Jack Swing, its double-platinum sales were a huge drop from the 7x platinum Don't Be Cruel. "Get Away" was Bobby's last solo single to enter or even approach the Top 40, and "Humpin' Around" is the only track even close to matching the long-term popularity of his 80's material. Todd hinted in the Adina Howard OHW that he dislikes that song, so he could easily invoke it to explain why Bobby's career collapsed in the aftermath of this album's release.
  • Forever: After Bobby, a series of scandals (primarily stemming from his drug problems and dysfunctional marriage with Houston) had reduced Bobby's reputation to a punchline. In his final moment of relevance, he put out another solo record, which was marred by Troubled Production and several aborted collaborations. Unlike his two previous records, which successfully leaned into his controversial image, Forever was completely unremarkable, got no push from his label, and firmly ended what little tolerance the public still had for him, ensuring once and for all that he'd never make a comeback like Houston ultimately did.
• The Red Shoes by Kate Bush: While the backlash to it dissipated with time, the album's attempt a more live-friendly sound was derided as overly commercial and outdated compared to contemporary artists that Bush had directly inspired. The Red Shoes was her highest-charting album in the US, but its popularity fell off soon after, its planned supporting tour never materialized, and its disappointing reception led to her taking a 12-year hiatus, after which she was no longer a trendsetter. Bush herself was also displeased by the album's digital recording and would re-record and remix several of its songs for her 2011 album Director's Cut. While never a superstar in America during her peak (in fact, her only Top 10 hit in America came after usage in Stranger Things), her stateside cult fandom is probably big enough for Todd to cover this.
• Back on My B.S. by Busta Rhymes: It got a horrendous reception from the public and didn't even get certified. He had a few more guest spots on other people's hits after this got released, but he never got his own career back on track after this came out.
• The Byrds:
  • Dr. Byrds & Mr. Hyde: They had been pioneers of the counterculture music scene in America (particularly Jangle Pop), but severe internal tensions, multiple lineup changes, and an alienating Genre Shift towards country-rock with their previous album, Sweetheart of the Rodeo (albeit one that would later be Vindicated by History), left them in a state of disjunction by the time they recorded this, which awkwardly straddled the fence between both the psychedelia and country-rock styles they had previously flirted with. Despite achieving some success in the UK, the record bombed hard in America and marked the end of their artistic golden age.
  • Byrdmaniax: Ballad of Easy Rider and (Untitled) had instigated a minor comeback for the band, and this album was put together to capitalize on that. However, a rushed production mixed with exhaustive touring gave the Byrds little time to refine their material, leading producer Terry Melcher to try covering up the results with string, horn, and gospel choir overdubs behind the band's backs. The album was derided upon release as disjointed and halted the Byrds' comeback in its tracks. Later albums continued to be poorly received, later reunions failed to generate new material or interest, and to this day Byrdmaniax is widely considered the Byrds' nadir.

C

• Anything Goes! by C+C Music Factory: They were one of the biggest pop acts of the early '90s and their debut album went 5x Platinum. However, a lawsuit and lineup overhaul resulted in this sophomore record being doomed from the start. It failed to even make the top 100 of the Billboard 200 and had only one song that just peaked at #40. After this, their brand was little more than a memory.
• Jesse & The 8th Street Kidz by Jesse Camp: The debut, and ultimately only, album by MTV VJ Jesse Camp, was intended to launch Camp as a musician after his one-year contract with the channel after winning the "Wanna Be a VJ?" contest was over. Camp was extremely popular with MTV audiences due to his down-to-earth street punk persona, but the album was met largely with indifference, by even MTV itself. The album's glam-punk sound was out-of-step with the pop punk and nu metal music that was popular in 1999, and it was a commercial disappointment, selling less than 3,000 copies in its first week. The album's failure is considered to have ended Camp's 15 minutes of fame.
• Door to Door by The Cars: A popular New Wave band throughout the '80s, they had just come off the blockbuster success of their New Sound Album Heartbeat City and the multi-platinum sales of their 1985 Greatest Hits album that reinvigorated interest in their older material. Thus, their 1987 follow-up Door to Door was an attempt to return to their roots, but critically and commercially underperformed, and a difficult tour resulted in the band breaking up after frontman Ric Ocasek suffered from a nervous breakdown. The Cars would only put out one more album 24 years later without bassist Benjamin Orr (who had died in 2000) before Ocasek's death in 2019 ended the band for good. Todd tweeted in 2022 that he has considered it for the show.
• Everything Is Love by The Carters: A collaborative album between musical power couple Beyoncé and Jay-Z, this record got solid critical reviews upon its surprise release in 2018, but fans found it largely underwhelming, causing it to drop off the charts extremely quickly. While both artists (especially Beyoncé) are still too influential in the music world for this to count as a true career-killer, it could still qualify for Trainwreckords for similar reasons as Two the Hard Way, and Todd referred to it as a "dramatic failure" in his Worst of 2018 video.
• The Big Day by Chance the Rapper: Though decently regarded by critics, his 2019 debut album was trashed by most of his fans and listeners and stiffed commercially. It received a rare 0/10 by Anthony Fantano, spawned one of the biggest rap memes of the year, and seriously hurt Chance's credibility, leading him to cancel the planned supporting tour. While initially indifferent towards the album, Todd listed Chance 4th on his top 5 artists whose stock fell the most in 2019, so he's clearly impressed by its disastrous performance.
• Schizophrenic by JC Chasez: Even though JC Chasez was *NSYNC's co-lead, his attempted solo career was stymied in contrast to the tremendous solo success Justin Timberlake experienced as a pop megastar. JC's solo album Schizophrenic was originally intended as a side project while *NSYNC was on hiatus and awaiting Timberlake's return to the group. While Justin's debut album Justified was a top priority for Jive Records in 2002, Schizophrenic suffered from numerous delays and lack of label support. In 2019, music producer Alex Greggs spoke at length about Jive's sabotage of Schizophrenic. After Schizophrenic flopped, Jive wrangled JC into making a sophomore album (tentatively titled Story of Kate) featuring production from Timberlake as well as Timbaland, but ultimately shelved it in 2007. Chasez subsequently left Jive, and though he has not released any further solo records, he remains active in the industry as a songwriter and producer. In 2019, he joined his *NSYNC bandmates for a one-night performance during Ariana Grande's Coachella set.
• Living Proof by Cher: After a long career with several high points and low points, this follow-up to her smash 1998 album Believe was not only a gigantic commercial failure compared to its predecessor, but was also never followed by a proper Career Resurrection like her older flop albums.
• Chicago:
  • Chicago X or Chicago XIII: Even though Chicago had plenty more hits after these two records (to Todd's dismay), Todd could probably make an exception to the show's rules in this case since he considers this, Chicago X especially, to be the point when the band permanently declined in quality and became one of his least favorite bands of all time.
  • Twenty 1: Although easy listening was still very much mainstream in 1991, this record only produced one minor top 40 hit and did not get a certification from the RIAA. Unlike their 1980 flop Chicago XIV, Twenty 1 was never followed by a true Career Resurrection. While Chicago's commercial downfall isn't particularly noteworthy compared to other major bands throughout history, covering either of these three albums above would give Todd the chance to elaborate upon his hatred of the band on a grander scale and explore why it took this to end them and not one of their previous records.
• Taking the Long Way by The Chicks (then the Dixie Chicks): Released a few years after the controversy surrounding their comments against George W. Bush, this record failed to earn back most of their old fans despite critical and commercial success, with country radio still shunning them. They wouldn't release new music until a a guest appearance on Taylor Swift's Lover in 2019, and while their eventual follow-up album in 2020 also earned wide acclaim (including praise from Todd himself), it failed to match its predecessor's sales and still didn't free them from the lingering controversy.
• Pilgrim by Eric Clapton: Despite strong sales, the negative reception to this album marked the end of his late-career comeback. He remained popular in the adult market afterwards, but nowhere near the heights of "Tears in Heaven", "Layla", or "Change the World", and he would eventually become Overshadowed by Controversy amongst younger audiences due to multiple racist, xenophobic and anti-vax comments to the point where Todd listed him #4 on his list of artists whose stock dropped the most in 2021.
• The Color Before the Sun by Coheed and Cambria: The point where they abandoned their "Amory Wars" concept. Considered to be the point where the band devolved into self-parody.
• Hard Times for Lovers by Judy Collins: Following in the footsteps of fellow pop-folk singer Olivia Newton-John, Judy Collins attempted to up her career by leaning into a sexier image. However, unlike Newton-John, who adopted a harder, raunchier sound to accompany her new persona, Collins made no such change in musical direction, causing her partially exposed nude body on the sleeve for this album to instead come off as a publicity gimmick. Combined with poor reviews, the record flopped badly and Collins' time in the spotlight reached a definitive end.
• Phil Collins: Todd mentioned in the sponsor tag for the "Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes)" OHW that he was researching Collins via his autobiography, which may indicate any one of these albums being on the table:
  • Both Sides and/or Dance into the Light: Released after Phil Collins' last album with Genesis, both records were significant drops in critical and commercial approval for him compared to his '80s output. While his discography since No Jacket Required was already critically polarizing due to being perceived as Sell-Out music (not helped by chart overexposure as both a solo act and the frontman of Genesis), all of them produced several hit singles that affirmed him as one of the biggest stars in music. Both Sides, by contrast, only yielded two minor hits that were promptly forgotten, while Dance into the Light had only one charting song that just missed the top 40, on top of receiving some of the worst reviews in his career.
  • Testify: Collins' first album after the success of the fondly remembered Tarzan soundtrack, it released just as the backlash against him was hitting a tipping point. Flopping just as badly as Dance into the Light critically and commercially, it found Collins unable to ride the film's popularity back to the front of the adult pop market, signaling the end of his relevance for good. He did return to Disney to sing and compose the soundtracks for Brother Bear and Tarzan II, but neither caught on like his work for the first Tarzan movie. His only studio album after this was a Cover Album that flew under the radar, and while his reputation improved considerably since then, his health issues in the 21st century have made the chances of a true comeback slim.
• Time and Chance by Color Me Badd: Like New Kids on the Block, they were quickly thrown into oblivion due to the radical zeitgeist shift between their heyday and the release of this album. Though they were gradually becoming more mature, their previous image as a cheesy bubblegum band prevented them from ever being major hitmakers again.
• Sean Combs:
  • Forever: Although Puffy's first record was able to coast off the grieving period of The Notorious B.I.G., as well as numerous guest verses from his signed artists, by 1999, Bad Boy Records was rapidly sinking from Hype Backlash, the departures of Mase and The Lox, and the rise of more artistically credible New York rappers such as Lauryn Hill and DMX. Unlike No Way Out, Puffy's sophomore record was more of a true solo album, which meant the focus shifted towards easily the least popular aspect of Puffy's music... which was Puffy himself. Although it produced one single that nearly topped the Hot 100, it was nonetheless savaged by the public, and, his claim to the title "The New King of Hip Hop" was most certainly buried deep in the past by then.
  • The Saga Continues...: Spearheaded by a flop I'm Back, Bitch single and Puffy changing his official moniker to his alternative nickname, this record served as a true sequel to No Way Out. Unfortunately, Bad Boy's heavyweights were all long gone by 2001, so the "Bad Boy Family" here was made up of lesser-known (and less acclaimed) names. While even Forever went Platinum and spawned a #2 hit upon release, this record dropped off the radar quickly and only went Gold, pretty much ensuring the permanent demise of Bad Boy as a supreme empire in the hip hop world. While "Bad Boy for Life" enjoyed a bit of Revival by Commercialization through its use in the Bad Boys for Life trailer, the album itself hasn't fared better with time, and while Diddy would score a couple more hits after this album, both solo and with Dirty Money, any attempt at recapturing his former late '90s glory days was diminished by a string of sexual misconduct and abuse accusations and lawsuits from late 2023 onwards.
• Universal Mind Control by Common: A radical change of pace from Common's usual brand of conscious hip hop, this album was intended as an homage to early '80s electro-hip hop and featured lyrics mostly about sex and partying. Its fatal misstep, however, was that it was produced by the Neptunes, who were synonymous with pop radio at the time. Because of this, the record came off as a big Sell-Out rather than a renaissance of any sort. Critics and fans alike thrashed the album, and while Common has continued to make music, he's been more famous for his acting work in later years.
• My Soul by Coolio: He was one of the biggest rappers of the mid-90s, scoring several hit songs, one of which was the biggest hit of 1995. His career started to take a downward turn after the infamous feud with "Weird Al" Yankovic over the "Amish Paradise" parody, but what really cemented the end of his career was the huge flop of this album, which made almost no impact on the Billboard 200 despite the success of its leadoff single "C U When U Get There" and resulted in his label dropping him.
• To the Faithful Departed by The Cranberries: They're very similar to Hootie & the Blowfish in that they were one of the definitive alternative rock bands of the mid-'90s but then suddenly disappeared from public consciousness shortly after the lukewarm reception to their 1996 record. Although this album had three pretty decent hits, none are anywhere near as iconic as previous singles "Dreams", "Linger", or "Zombie", while the record itself is generally written off as a failed follow-up more than anything else. The album was also criticized for its anvilicious, politically driven lyrics that came across as narmy, especially regarding the song "I Just Shot John Lennon". The band continued making records until frontwoman Dolores O'Riordan's death in 2018, but never regained the success they had in the mid-'90s.
• Weathered by Creed: Although the album was successful commercially, the band broke up due to tension between frontman Scott Stapp and the other band members, namely because Stapp was becoming increasingly insane and dependent on alcohol and drugs, with a botched show in Chicago in late December 2002 being the straw that broke the camel's back. After dumping Stapp, the remaining members recruited Myles Kennedy to form Alter Bridge, which is a better received band than Creed, although not as commercially successful. Creed did reform in 2009 and released Full Circle before breaking up again in 2012.
• Culture Club:
  • Waking Up with the House on Fire: Although they were one of the biggest bands of MTV during the early '80s, things started to go downhill after the disappointment of this album, which got negative reviews and wasn't the commercial smash that their first two LPs were. Todd stated in the Song vs. Song on Culture Club that he's considering an episode on this album as he called it "terrible".
  • From Luxury to Heartache: In the aftermath of the above album's failure, frontman Boy George developed a horrible drug addiction (as mentioned in the "You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)" OHW), which plagued the recording process for the band's next album and tarnished his reputation in the public eye. Despite yielding one big hit with "Move Away", From Luxury to Heartache was a colossal bomb, not even getting certified, and the group broke up immediately afterwards. As this is Trainwreckords, both albums' respective titles would be all too easy for Todd to make jokes out of.
• The Cure:
  • Wild Mood Swings: Fresh off their commercial peak, the Cure's clout were big enough to keep audiences interested despite an unprecedentedly long hiatus. In the face of a radically changing musical climate, the band attempted to return to the Genre Roulette style of Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me. However, a major lineup change resulted in an album that was criticized as forced and uninspired, with many of the most beloved tracks being relegated to B-sides. The choice of the uncommercial Mariachi song "The 13th" as the lead single immediately harmed the album's chances, the other singles stiffed, and the album as a whole is widely considered by fans and critics to be one of the band's worst, tied with...
  • The Cure: This album seemed to be about to set the band on another few years of success, coming after the goodwill that 2000's Bloodflowers and the 2003 Trilogy concerts had brought. They tried experimenting with their sound by bringing in veteran Nu Metal producer Ross Robinson, but this backfired, with Robinson seemingly trying to force the band into an emo-oriented direction. While the album was popular with critics, fans regarded it as too bleak and uninspired to invest in, causing it to flounder on store shelves and torpedo the momentum that the Cure had regained. They've released only one more album after that and shifted focus towards their continued popularity as a live act.

D

• Baptized by Daughtry: Similar to Nickelback's No Fixed Address, this was another album by a 2000s post-grunge band making a Genre Shift to outright pop that was inevitably NOT well-received and didn't bring them any more success on pop stations, who had already played their big hits without any real issue.
• Everyday by Dave Matthews Band: They were one of the biggest rock bands of the mid-to-late 90s, unique for bringing Jazz Fusion and jam band influences to the mainstream and retaining an enormous cult fanbase to this day. As the age of '90s alternative came to an end, however, they suddenly played it very safe on this 2001 album. The lead single "The Space Between", a dive into full-blown radio-friendly arena rock, earned them major accusations of selling out, and while their next album Busted Stuff was better-received, they never returned to the smash heights they reached in the '90s. Their final top 40 hit, 2005's "American Baby", was a little closer to their classic sound, and 2009's Big Whiskey and the Groogrux King was a modest success that got nominated for Album of the Year, but neither of those are anywhere near as iconic as their '90s material.
• Soul Dancing by Taylor Dayne: She was extremely successful during the late '80s and beginning of the '90s, but her success mostly cratered after the downfall of bubblegum pop in 1990. This 1993 record only had one marginal hit, a cover of "Can't Get Enough of Your Love" by Barry White, and she basically disappeared thereafter.
• They Came to Rule by Daze: While they're mostly obscure outside of their native Denmark, their 1999 sophomore album is such a bizarre misadventure that it could warrant a Trainwreckords episode purely in its own right. Displeased by their reputation as Aqua knock-offs, the group attempted to rebrand themselves with an album produced in the style of Max Martin, but with Darker and Edgier lyrics criticizing the corruption of show business. Like Jewel's 0304, the result came off as more of an Indecisive Parody than an intelligent subversion of pop music, failing to chart in America and bombing even in Denmark, where their debut record was a big hit.
• Bedtime for Democracy by Dead Kennedys: If Cut the Crap killed the first wave of punk, then this solidified its death. Like that album, it was seen as poorly produced and uninspired, and it ended up being their final record, as they broke up that year. They had already grown badly disillusioned by the changing nature of the underground punk scene, but they also faced a stressful obscenity lawsuit around the same time. Despite reforming in 2001, they have yet to release any new music.
• The Dead Milkmen:
  • Soul Rotation: Having recently broken into the mainstream with their 1988 single "Punk Rock Girl", this album saw the hardcore punk icons change not only their label, moving to the recently established Hollywood Records, but also their sound, attempting to become more accessible by putting more emphasis on their instrumentation and lyrics. The result was an album that significantly deviated from the band's usual punk rock flair. While decently received by critics, the album failed to make the Billboard 200 and was overall a commercial flop (the blame was placed on their label for allegedly not promoting it enough). This album marked the beginning of a downward spiral for the Dead Milkmen, as after their follow-up album, Not Richard, But Dick, commercially tanked, their relationship with Hollywood Records had severely strained, eventually leading to...
  • Stoney's Extra Stout (Pig): Returning to Restless Records after their collapsing relationship with Hollywood Records, the band ultimately made plans to produce one last album before breaking up. Combined with their industrial struggles mentioned above, this decision was also influenced by the bassist finding more difficulty in performing due to developing hand tendonitis. This album was widely panned by critics as banal and generic, solidifying the band's decision to breakup shortly afterwards. While they eventually reformed in 2008 to renewed critical success, the two albums they released since then failed to reestablish the brief burst of mainstream popularity they experienced in the late '80s.
• Slang by Def Leppard: Although the moderate success of Adrenalize and an eventual shift towards power ballads like "Two Steps Behind" allowed Def Leppard to survive the onset of grunge, they attempted to make a full comeback with this New Sound Album in 1996. Much like Generation Swine, it introduced several alternative influences to their usual Hair Metal sheen, an approach which only solidified their uncool image to younger generations while alienating their original audience. Aside from one #6 single on the Mainstream Rock chart, the album was a big commercial flop. While its 1999 follow-up Euphoria was slightly more successful (with a #1 Mainstream Rock hit), the band's relevance nonetheless remained diminished, even compared to their early/mid-'90s period.
• Devo: Todd has stated Devo are not one-hit wonders, so expect him to cover them on Trainwreckords instead of One Hit Wonderland.
  • Shout: Released just as their commercial heyday was petering out, this album attempted to further innovate on Devo's quirky Synth-Pop style by heavily incorporating the Fairlight CMI digital sampler. Instead, it was heavily panned as dull and generic compared to newer sample-pop acts like Art of Noise, the album flopped hard enough for Warner (Bros.) Records to drop them, and drummer Alan Meyers quit in frustration. Devo went on hiatus as a result, killing their plans for a video album and supporting tour and marking the end of their glory days.
  • Total Devo: An attempted comeback four years after Shout, the album was marred by heavy Executive Meddling that forced them into a dance-pop sound. The result was an even bigger critical and commercial flop than Shout and only solidified their decline in relevancy. Devo wouldn't have another charting record until 2010, by which point they went from being forerunners of American Post-Punk to a fixture of the nostalgia circuit barely remembered by the general public outside of their Signature Song "Whip It" (a-la The Human League) or Mark Mothersbaugh's work as a film & TV composer.
• On Every Street by Dire Straits: The band had quietly dissolved three years after the release of the world-conquering, arena-oriented Brothers in Arms, only to be strongarmed by their label into reforming three years after that. The end result was this album, which received the band's worst reviews since their Sophomore Slump Communiqué thanks to its similarly downbeat and low-key sound. While it was a major success in its own right, it sold nowhere near as well as its predecessor. The band broke up again following a difficult supporting tour, and frontman Mark Knopfler has since embarked on a mostly low-profile solo career.
• Grave New World by Discharge!: Previously pioneers of the "D-beat" subgenre of Hardcore Punk, this band's sophomore release took a sharp turn into Hair Metal, and with none of the slickness to match. The album was widely mocked by fans and critics, especially in regards to frontman Cal Morris's vocals, and outraged fans turned the supporting concerts into riots, culminating in Bad Brains frontman H.R. dumping ice on them during a New York performance. Discharge split up a year later, and though they later reformed and returned to their roots, their critical success is long gone.
• Mickey Unrapped by Disney: A compilation album featuring Disney's classic cartoon characters trying their hand at hip hop, with a few real world guest appearances thrown in for good measure. The experiment ultimately came off as trend-chasing more than anything, and it ultimately led Disney to shy away from any further genre albums. Todd briefly mentioned this question mark of a record in his Tag Team OHW episode, where he said it was beyond the scope of the video. Expect him to get tons of requests for it.
• Other Voices and/or Full Circle by The Doors: After Jim Morrison's death, the surviving members forged on and recorded these two albums. Neither went down very well, and became so emblematic of The Band Minus the Face that the cover art for Other Voices became the page image of that trope on this very wiki.
• Dr. Dre Presents... the Aftermath by Dr. Dre: Alongside Tha Doggfather, this record was blamed for killing the G-funk movement of the mid-'90s. The first LP that Dre released under his new Aftermath label (following his departure from Death Row Records), it was universally panned upon release, setting the label off to a very rough start and causing his own career to go dormant for two whole years. Although he made an indisputable comeback with the highly lauded 2001 at the end of 1999, Todd might still qualify this record because it's not technically a real Dr. Dre album but rather a compilation, and most of its performers had little future after it came out, despite the major success of future Aftermath stars Eminem, 50 Cent, and The Game.
• Duran Duran:
  • Thank You: They managed to endure the failure of Liberty with the critical and commercial success of The Wedding Album, but this deeply misguided Cover Album (including an infamous cover of "911 Is a Joke") put an abrupt end to their '90s renaissance. A cover of "White Lines (Don't Don't Do It)" with original artist Melle Mel did tolerably in Europe, but wasn't enough to save the rest of the album. Its failure resulted in EMI outright barring the next album's release in Europe, while bassist John Taylor left the lineup shortly after its release. Q Magazine called it the #1 worst album of all time in 2006.
  • Medazzaland: Following in the footsteps of fellow '80s rock gods U2, the band reinvented themselves with heavy electronica influences, an experiment which went nowhere and caused EMI to drop them shortly thereafter.
  • Pop Trash: The band's only release with Hollywood Records, it was yet another failed New Sound Album, marred by Troubled Production and poor promotion. Aside from the fleeting success of 2004's Astronaut, Duran Duran have never found their way back into the spotlight since.
• Slow Train Coming, Saved, and/or Shot of Love by Bob Dylan: Alienating his secular fanbase with his conversion to born-again Christianity while failing to earn much of a new audience in return, these albums are widely considered Dylan's nadir; the first one has a sizable fanbase, but the other two are considered almost as infamous as 1970's Self Portrait. While Dylan ultimately returned to secularism and made a critical and commercial comeback, his trendsetting and hitmaking days were long gone, even during the hugely veteran act-friendly 80's. If Todd does cover any one of the trilogy, expect plenty of comparisons to Kanye West's own born-again phase, the similarities of which didn't escape other analysts.

E

• Reverberation by Echo & the Bunnymen: While they were always much more popular in the UK, they were steadily developing a cult fanbase across the Pond during the 80's. Things quickly went south after the death of drummer Peter de Freitas and departure of lead singer Ian McCulloch, whose replacements were regarded as unwelcome by the public at-large. The sole album with this new lineup failed to chart and was critically maligned as generic, leading WEA to drop the band, and their later reunion under a returning McCulloch mostly fell under the radar despite being active to this day.
• The Menace by Elastica: Not only was this group's eponymous debut the fastest-selling in the United Kingdom at the time, its punk-influenced sound fit well with American alt-rock radio, making them one of the few Britpop acts to cross over to the United States. However, by the time they released their second album half a decade after their last, Britpop had largely faded away and the American alternative scene shifted focus to Post-Grunge and Nu Metal. As a result, this more experimental New Sound Album didn't work with either of their most popular markets, consumers were largely alienated despite good reviews, and its lone single "Mad Dog" made it solely on the UK Singles Chart at a paltry #44.^note For comparison, their last album had three UK top 20 hits. The band broke up a year after its release.
• Carmen Electra by Carmen Electra: Before her career as an actress and glamour model took off, Carmen Electra was signed to Prince's label as a rapper. As you can probably guess, things didn't last.
• Balance of Power by Electric Light Orchestra: Behind-the-scenes production troubles had already disintegrated the "Light Orchestra" by the 80's, forcing frontman Jeff Lynne to replace them with synthesizers. While he and his remaining bandmates wanted to call it quits, they still needed one more album to fulfil their record deal, and their Creator's Apathy showed. The result was a critical and commercial flop, and Lynne dissolved the band shortly afterwards to focus on a production career. ELO eventually made a comeback in the 2010's and have been an in-demand live act since, but their relevance never recovered.
• The Cookbook by Missy Elliott: Fueled by her partnership with producer Timbaland, Elliott was one of the reigning queens of hip hop throughout the late '90s and early 2000s, but her long streak of hits came to an abrupt end here. While she had already alienated a fair amount of fans on This Is Not a Test!, frequent guest appearances on smash hits kept her career afloat. Once The Cookbook came out, it was even more base-breaking due to excessive experimentation, and while its lead single, "Lose Control", was a major hit, both of its follow-ups flopped. The album itself only went Gold, making it her first to fall short of a Platinum certification. After its release, she took a long hiatus, with her next release being an EP in 2019.
• Love Beach by Emerson, Lake & Palmer: 1978 may have been a down year for Progressive Rock, but the biggest disaster for the genre that year occurred when Atlantic Records made ELP make one more commercial-sounding album while the members were all tax exiles in the Bahamas. Keith Emerson took the album seriously at first, but with the friction taking place in the band at the time, Creator's Apathy ultimately took hold as the recording sessions dragged on. The result was a critically panned, misguided foray into pop rock which broke up the band shortly afterwards and is often Mis-blamed for killing the prog rock genre. While they recorded a further two albums several years later, they never had a serious reunion.
• Revival by Eminem: The follow-up to The Marshall Mathers LP 2, which Todd considered a genuine comeback after a lengthy Audience-Alienating Era, this album got mostly scathing reviews from both critics and fans for everything from the production to the subject matter to even Eminem's flow, with many calling it his worst since Encore! (if not even worse than that). Todd himself addressed it as a "mega flop" album, calling it Eminem's worst album, and said he thought "Walk on Water" and "River" were awful. While the surprise release of Kamikaze one year later was much better received, Eminem's time as a leading name in Hip-Hop had come to a close by then, with non-fans knowing him more for his Fountain of Memes status than for his music.
• En Vogue:
  • EV3: Their first new album in 5 years, it was also their first without Dawn Robinson, who left to form Lucy Pearl shortly after their huge hit "Don't Let Go (Love)". The record's sales were mediocre and it only yielded one moderate hit – their last to reach the top 40.
  • Masterpiece Theatre: By 2000, Destiny's Child was the current gold standard for girl groups. En Vogue tried competing against them with this intended comeback, only for its one single "Riddle" to flop badly on the charts and sales figures to dip sharply. Elektra Records dropped the group, and they vanished from public consciousness. The track "Those Dogs" seems like it would make for some particularly great commentary, due to its awkward interpolation of "Habanera", cheesy lyrics, and even cheesier a cappella beat (courtesy of Bobby McFerrin, who Todd covered on One Hit Wonderland).
• The Enemy:
  • Music for the People: While the band were only popular in their native UK, their massive fall from grace may still generate interest. This indie rock band immediately became mainstream stars with their debut album at the height of the Post-Punk Revival movement in the 2000's, and reached for loftier heights with a more grandoise Arena Rock approach on the follow-up. However, the result was widely panned by the press, who considered it uninteresting and derivative to the point of possible plagiarism; while the album charted high, only its lead single "No Time for Tears" reached the top 20, and the band's reception would never recover.
  • Streets in the Sky: While Music for the People had at least one top 20 hit, none of the singles on their follow-up charted at all. That, and despite their attempts to return to the simpler roots of their debut, critical reception was even worse, so much so that the album is actually listed on Wikipedia's page of music considered the worst. The band would release one more album in 2015 before calling it quits the next year.
• The Open Door by Evanescence: Like Hootie & the Blowfish, this band saw massive success with their debut studio album, Fallen, only to quickly drop off right after: the downfall of Nu Metal had reduced it to a punchline, and the band couldn't shake off their association with it even after shifting towards Symphonic Metal here. The Open Door stiffed after its leadoff single thanks to its Uncertain Audience, sounding too soft for rock radio and too hard for pop radio, and the band quickly faded from the limelight in the aftermath. Todd felt their status as one of the biggest names in rock died after this album in the "In The End vs. Bring Me To Life" episode of Song vs. Song.
• Songs from an American Movie, Vol. 2 by Everclear: Plagued mostly by its ill-timed release, less than half a year after Songs from an American Movie, Vol. 1, that album's singles peaked right around the exact same time as Vol. 2's release. This caused many to mistakenly expect those songs to appear on this album, not realizing they were from its predecessor, leading Vol. 2's Darker and Edgier approach to blindside them. As a result, not only were the band's promotional efforts woefully unfocused, but Vol. 2's sales plummeted without producing a single hit of its own aside from one modest success on rock radio. The band continued on after this fiasco but never achieved even remote commercial relevance ever again.

F

• Album of the Year by Faith No More: Despite the band's international fanbase, this album was a critical and commercial failure in their native US, and was a catalyst in the band's breakup. Even lead singer Mike Patton has described the album as the point where they were starting to make bad music, and that the breakup was for their own good. Since 2009, reunions have been off-and-on, with only one album, the admittedly well-received Sol Invictus, produced since.
• Mania by Fall Out Boy: This incredibly popular pop rock band enjoyed mainstream success in the 2000's and even had a successful Career Resurrection after a hiatus in the 2010s, despite their new mainstream pop-oriented sound creating somewhat of a Broken Base towards fans of their pop punk roots. However, the release of the critically lambasted lead single "Young and Menace" was the last straw for even the most patient of their fanbase, and failed to even chart in the Hot 100. The backlash was so huge that the song's parent album Mania got delayed, and when it was finally released it was panned by critics and failed to make much of a commercial impact.
• The Harsh Light of Day by Fastball: Since Todd stated in his Top 10 Worst Hit Songs of 2016 video that he does not count Fastball one-hit-wonders, he may prefer to feature them on Trainwreckords instead of OHW. While the band was quite successful after releasing their breakthrough sophomore album All the Pain Money Can Buy, this followup record was a huge bomb, peaking below the top 100 of the Billboard 200 and mustering only one very minor radio hit, resulting in Hollywood Records dropping them. Todd considers Fastball an underrated band, so he might have a decent amount to say about this album.
• Halfway Between the Gutter and the Stars by Fatboy Slim: Despite the legendary music video for "Weapon of Choice" that featured Christopher Walken, this album sold poorly in America and garnered very mediocre reviews compared to its monumental predecessor, You've Come a Long Way, Baby. Fatboy Slim's only followup album, Palookaville, also flopped in the US, despite some of its songs being featured in a few video games.
• Playing with Fire by Kevin Federline: Not that he really had any chance at success in the first place, but Todd may eventually cover this simply because arguably more than any other record, it's widely considered to be the worst album of all time, and it very much ensured "K-Fed" wouldn't have any future in the music business afterwards. Expect Todd to bring up K-Fed's debut single, "PopoZão", which didn't even make it on the album.
• Angelic 2 the Core by Corey Feldman: He attempted a music career decades after his period of fame as a teen heartthrob. Needless to say, it didn't go well. For starters, the Indiegogo campaign fell way short of its $105,000 goal, raising only $14,982. By the time it was released, it was absolutely thrashed by critics (including an infamous 1-hour rant from The Needle Drop) and was considered one of the worst albums of all time.
• Fifth Harmony by Fifth Harmony: They were the only successful alumni of the American edition of The X Factor, but their success did not survive the depature of Camila Cabello, whose solo career ultimately overshadowed them. They took an indefinite hiatus a year later, with only Normani's solo career coming anywhere close to rivaling Camila's since.
• The Amalgamut by Filter: The pressure to create a follow-up to the back-to-back successes of Short Bus and Title of Record was exacerbating for Richard Patrick, to the point where he would indulge his addictive habit instead of working on the album, and even Patrick feels that this negatively affected the album. On top of that, the album barely managed to sell 100,000 copies, and Patrick opted to check himself into rehab in lieu of promoting the record, placing the band on a hiatus. Despite reuniting in 2007, Filter's time in the mainstream was long past them.
• The Album by The Firm: An early work from Dr. Dre's Aftermath label featuring the vocal talents of New York rappers Nas, AZ, Foxy Brown, and Nature, this came out just after the height of the east/west coast hip hop rivalry of the mid-'90s. While hype surrounding the group's previous appearance on "Affirmative Action" from Nas' It Was Written led to the album debuting at #1 on the Billboard 200, poor word of mouth caused it to immediately crater from the charts, taking down the careers of AZ and Foxy Brown with it. It's also widely regarded as a Genre-Killer for mafioso hip hop.
• Fleetwood Mac:
  • Behind the Mask: The band's longtime dissension and lineup changes are well-documented, but the interpersonal chaos that had factored so heavily into their artistic and commercial triumphs in the '70s and '80s finally became their downfall in 1990. Behind the Mask was their first album since their American breakthrough not to feature Lindsey Buckingham save for a guest appearance on the title track and received extremely mediocre reception, failing to produce any major hits and only going gold. The band was still a popular live act and the supporting tour was successful, but Stevie Nicks departed from the band as well after the tour's conclusion, leaving Christine McVie as the only classic era vocalist remaining.
  • Time: The band brought in Traffic guitarist Dave Mason and country singer Bekka Bramlett as replacements for Rick Vito and Stevie Nicks, but the resulting album bombed even harder, completely missing the Billboard album charts and any sales certifications, failing to capitalize on the revival of interest in Fleetwood Mac following the one-off reformation of the Buckingham/Nicks lineup at the first inauguration of Bill Clinton, and promptly broke up the band. While the classic lineup reunited just a year later and achieved reasonable success with a live album and tour in 1997 and one more studio record in 2003, they have still never recaptured the sales figures or critical approval of their golden period since reforming, besides "Dreams" re-entering the Top 20 in 2020 after being used in a viral TikTok video. With the death of keyboardist/vocalist Christine McVie in 2022, Mick Fleetwood said that the band was likely all but over.
• Unusual Heat by Foreigner: One of the biggest bands of the late 70s and 80s, this album ended their relevance as hitmakers as lead singer Lou Gramm was replaced by Johnny Edwards due to feuds with lead guitarist Mick Jones. The album flopped critically and commercially: it missed the upper half of the Billboard 200, and none of the singles charted on the Hot 100. Rick Wills and Dennis Elliot ended up quitting the band after the album. Despite Lou Gramm briefly rejoining, it was clear their relevance was long done: their comeback album Mr. Moonlight sold even less.
• I'm In You by Peter Frampton: Another example of a failed Genre Shift album that alienated fans, this time from pop to experimental funk. If Todd covers this, expect a reference to Frank Zappa's parody of the album, "I Have Been in You".
• La Diva by Aretha Franklin: After a slew of sluggish albums throughout the 70s, the Queen of Soul attempted to chart a comeback by making a disco album in 1979, notably the final album produced by the already covered Van McCoy, who died shortly before its release. Released just two months after Disco Demolition Night, it received negative reviews, earned no charting singles on the Hot 100, and barely cracked the top 150 on the Billboard 200. Despite managing to achieve some success in the 80s (including a memorable cameo in The Blues Brothers and her #1 duet with George Michael, "I Knew You Were Waiting For Me"), her relevance was long over and her songs from that era are not as highly regarded as her work during the late 60s and early 70s.

G

• Take a Look Over Your Shoulder by Warren G: After the murder of Tupac Shakur, underperformance of Tha Doggfather, and utter failure of Dr. Dre Presents...The Aftermath, this was arguably the final nail in the coffin that killed West Coast hip hop for over a decade. Warren G was a leading figure of the mid-'90s G-funk movement and his debut album went Triple Platinum. By contrast, this sophomore effort merely produced a few minor, quickly forgotten hits (despite their success abroad) and only cracked a Gold certification.
• Bleed Like Me by Garbage: The album was marred by growing tensions between the band members, and they briefly broke up during the making of it. While the lead single "Why Do You Love Me?" was lauded, the rest of the album received mixed reviews, and Garbage would go on a self-imposed hiatus following an abruptly cancelled tour to promote it. They would eventually regroup, but have yet to hit the heights of their heyday since.
• ...Calling All Stations... by Genesis: Facing dramatic changes in the rock landscape, the departure of frontman Phil Collins, and a huge Hype Backlash from their '80s megahit days, Genesis attempted to reinvent themselves for the Alternative Rock crowd with Stiltskin frontman Ray Wilson as their new lead vocalist. However, Mike Rutherford and Tony Banks' uncertainty meshed poorly with their heavy control of the project: the result was overwhelmingly panned by fans and critics as directionless and coattail-riding, and sales were so poor that the group scrapped the planned American leg of their supporting tour and disbanded a year later. Aside from 2007 and 2021 reunions with Collins, the group has laid firmly dormant since then and generally ignores the album's existence. Todd tweeted that the album was on his list for the show, later putting the question to viewers on whether it counts for the show or not.
• Giant for a Day! by Gentle Giant: While relatively obscure compared to their contemporaries in Progressive Rock, this group nonetheless had a devoted cult following throughout the '70s. This 1978 album however alienated that fanbase with its shift to a more pop-oriented direction and failed to make any commercial impact, not helped by the lack of a supporting tour. Gentle Giant would release one more album in 1980 before splitting up; tellingly, that album's tour contained no material from Giant for a Day! outside the Title Track.
• Anything Is Possible by Debbie Gibson: Following in the footsteps of a wave of critically acclaimed records by female pop stars, Gibson stepped up her artistic ambitions, ditching the lighthearted bubblegum pop that she had become known for in favor of a more experimental album that took influence from rising dance genres at the time. Upon release, reviews were lukewarm at best, with most feeling Gibson was far out of her league. Compounded by the Milli Vanilli controversy that same year and its effects on bubblegum pop's perception, the album fell shy of the Top 40, with its singles quickly dropping off. Although she has continued to mature as an artist, Gibson has had little to no success in the US since this album's failure and has transitioned more towards musical theatre instead. Todd may also be interested in covering how this album was very successful in Japan, where Gibson remained popular after she faded away in the US.
• On by Gary Glitter: While his hitmaking career in his native UK mostly ended a quarter-century earlier with G.G., his sudden fall from grace may make this album notable for the show. After being convicted for possession of child pornography in the late 90s, the remnants of his career up to that point were dealt major blows to the point where nobody wanted their name attached to his. This forced him to produce and release this album on his own, and it released in 2001 to very little fanfare, selling only 5,000 copies as most major retailers had refused to stock his music. Any slim possibility that Glitter had to Win Back the Crowd flamed out following further sexual abuse accusations and convictions in the years moving forward.
• Talk Show by The Go-Go's: In the aftermath of the unexpected smash success of their debut album, the sudden pressures of fame came to poison the band's internal relationships, putting them in complete disarray by the making of this album. Although it got decent critical reviews and yielded a couple of top 40 hits, it was a major sales flop, peaking well outside of the top 10 and failing to get certified by the RIAA. The band's tensions would only continue to grow, and they would break up two years later. The band reunited in 1999 and put out one more studio album in 2001, but by then their time in the sun was firmly over; they generally ignore Talk Show to this day.
• Good Charlotte:
  • The Chronicles of Life and Death: While one of the headliners of pop punk's boom in the early 2000s, Good Charlotte were often criticized for making "whiny" music strictly for the MTV crowd. The band attempted to shoo away from this by making a Darker and Edgier album taking more influence from emo and rock operas. Unfortunately, instead of earning them credibility, it only gave their critics more ammo, who saw this album as them now attempting to hop on the "mall goth" and emo-pop bandwagons. Of the album's singles, while they did well outside of the U.S., only "I Just Wanna Live" (an uncharacteristically humorous and dancey song) charted, and even then it was at the forefront of a payola scandal caused by their record label. While the album did manage to sell 4 million copies, this was still a sharp turn from their 10 million-selling last album, and especially daunting considering pop punk and emo were still highly popular in the mainstream. The band's relevance in the pop world would diminish greatly after this release.
  • Good Morning Revival: In contrast with their previous album, this was a Lighter and Softer, dance-oriented record that tried to incorporate a wider variety of genres. However, not only were they yet again accused by critics for trend-hopping, this time on the new-rave and dance-punk sounds popularized by the indie rock scene, but the album was met with polarizing reception even among their fanbase. Although the record did have a couple Top 40 hits, it was also their first to not get certified and they would never see any kind of commercial relevance again.
• Good Singin', Good Playin' by Grand Funk Railroad: Grand Funk were one of the biggest rock bands of the early '70s, but also one of the most critically maligned. One person who didn't agree with those critics was Frank Zappa, who convinced Grand Funk, who were about to break up, to let him produce one more album to prove their musical chops. The band actually earned rare critical praise for the album, but it was unfortunately a commercial flop and their lowest charting release at the time. The band ultimately broke up anyway a few months after the album came out.
• The Grateful Dead:
  • Dylan & the Dead: This collaborative live album with Bob Dylan, released during counterculture rock's late '80s renaissance, not only got derided by critics for its tepidness, but was also a contributing factor to the abrupt downfall of the '60s comeback movement. While Dylan soon rebounded, the Grateful Dead never fully recovered their post-"Touch of Grey" momentum. They remained a huge concert draw, but "Grey" and the Dylan tour had also brought a Newbie Boom that gained a reputation for bad behavior and regularly clashed with longtime Deadheads. While they continued for several years, the Dylan tour and Dylan & the Dead album are considered by fans to be the beginning of the end for the band, which broke up after guitarist Jerry Garcia's untimely death in 1995.
  • Built to Last: Came out the same year as the Dylan & the Dead album but fared just as poorly, even without the lukewarm Bob Dylan collaborations. It would be their final studio record before breaking up.
• Heart Blanche by Cee Lo Green: Despite prospects for an illustrious solo career, Green's success sharply declined after controversies surrounding a homophobic tweet and sexual assault allegations, which quickly rendered him a public pariah and led to him being booted from media appearances. This album, his first traditional effort since the controversies, barely charted on the Billboard 200, in stark contrast to the top 10 success of The Lady Killer, and cemented his fall from grace.
• The ¡Uno! ¡Dos! ¡Tré! trilogy by Green Day: Widely considered to have taken all of the good will of American Idiot, and even 21st Century Breakdown to an extent, and flushed it away with three albums widely derided as insufferable. In addition to scoring no hits, the trilogy's commercial prospects were paltry, with ¡Tré! selling just 59,000 copies in its first week compared to 21st Century's 215,000. While Revolution Radio would debut at #1 on the album charts and meet a good amount of critical acclaim, the trilogy could be said to have done to Green Day what Summer in Paradise did to The Beach Boys.
• Guns N' Roses:
  • "The Spaghetti Incident?": A covers album that had disappointing sales by the band's standards, and relations between Axl and the rest of the band were already unraveling at that point, culminating with the events of the production of their "Sympathy For The Devil" cover made for the Interview with the Vampire soundtrack, which resulted in guitarist Slash leaving the band. If Todd does touch upon this album, expect a good deal of coverage surrounding the band's choice to cover a Charles Manson song of all things and the controversy that the album got into as a result of it.
  • Chinese Democracy: Released after over a decade of delays and an infamously Troubled Production to highly polarized reviews, ultimately resulting in Wikipedia including it on its list of the worst-regarded music of all time.

H-I

• Ooh Yeah! by Daryl Hall & John Oates: It was their first new album in four years and their first on Arista Records. Despite producing a #3 hit, it otherwise underperformed, failing to reach the top 20 of the Billboard 200 and marking the end of their hot streak in the mainstream.
• Yes Please! by Happy Mondays: This record followed up the pioneering Madchester band's American Breakthrough Hit and biggest UK hit Pills 'n' Thrills and Bellyaches with a shift from party-friendly dance rock to a mix of Goth Rock and soul funk just as the latter style fell out of favor. Combined with an infamously Troubled Production facilitated by the bandmates getting hooked on crack (while trying to quit heroin), the record generated only an eighth of its predecessor's sales, bankrupted Factory Records, and served as the Genre-Killer for Madchester, with Happy Mondays only putting out one more album 15 years later that flew under the radar. Both this and The Stone Roses' Second Coming are under consideration, though Todd feels it may be hard to contextualize them for American audiences given their lack of popularity west of the Atlantic.
• When You're a Boy by Susanna Hoffs: Despite The Bangles dominating the charts throughout the latter half of the 1980s and Hoffs establishing herself as the breakout star of the band, her first solo outing was an overwhelming failure, only reaching #83 on the Billboard 200 and yielding just one top 30 hit that was immediately forgotten. She attempted to reinvent herself for the Lilith Fair crowd later in the '90s but still never found her way back into the limelight.
• Hulk Rules by Hulk Hogan and The Wrestling Boot Band: Todd joked that he might cover it at the end of the Hootie & the Blowfish Trainwreckords, but since he covered Two the Hard Way despite that being the only album by Allman and Woman and not counting its featured performers' later successes, this may be fair game, even though it was the only album Hogan ever released.
• Nobody's Daughter by Hole: This was the only album that was released during the band's short-lived reunion. It was composed primarily of songs written for frontwoman Courtney Love's intended follow-up to America's Sweetheart (listed below), and whilst it got better reviews, the sales didn't improve much. There were public disputes between Love and former bandmate Eric Erlandson about whether Love had really reformed the band or was just using it for name value. In the end, Love dropped all pretense and declared that she was just a solo artist.
• Ice Cube:
  • Lethal Injection: He became the Breakup Breakout star of N.W.A and king of West Coast gangsta rap in the early '90s, but after the genre entered the mainstream at the dawn of 1993 on the heels of former N.W.A bandmate and then-rival Dr. Dre's The Chronic, he took his gritty, politically charged music in a more commercial and hedonistic G-funk direction. Although the result yielded a couple of top 40 hits, it also irreparably damaged Cube's image. While the record was eventually Vindicated by History, it's generally agreed to have ended Ice Cube's run as a leading voice in hip hop; he would ultimately lean more into his acting career and not even record a follow-up album until five years later.
  • War & Peace Vol. 1 and/or Vol. 2: By the late '90s, not only was the West Coast gangsta rap scene in ruins, Ice Cube's film and television career was in full swing. Although both records sold well and War's "Pushin' Weight" topped the rap charts, they both had lukewarm reception, even compared to Lethal Injection. As a result, Ice Cube focused increasingly on acting, and by the time he released Laugh Now, Cry Later in 2006, he was starring in family-friendly kitsch like Are We There Yet?.
• Origins by Imagine Dragons: Released amid increasing backlash from overexposure, this album proved to be a sudden commercial decline and a possible breaking point. Only the first single, "Natural", was a hit, the others completely failed to reach the Top 40, and the album itself has yet to be certified^note in contrast, their previous album went Platinum in four months. Todd has talked about the album's failure on Twitter and elaborated on his fascination by the band's downfall in the Worst of 2019 video. Additionally, he listed Imagine Dragons 5th on his top 5 artists whose stock fell the most in 2019. After a brief hiatus, the band released new music in early 2021; however, the two lead singles (especially "Cutthroat") were panned by critics, Todd included, and only barely charted on the Billboard Hot 100, while the album itself was mostly ignored by the public, barely charting in the top 10 on the Billboard 200. The band would return to the top 10 of the Hot 100 with "Enemy", which Todd acknowledged in his Best of 2022 video, but it's more than likely this is only due to the popularity of the show it's the theme song to. However, time will tell if it is enough to fuel a full comeback.
• INXS:
  • Full Moon, Dirty Hearts: This was the album that killed their commercial relevance, as it only peaked at #53 and didn't even get certified. It also has a one-star critic review from AllMusic. While the band were arguably just victims of Grunge, their previous album came out only a year earlier, in 1992, and was still a success, going Platinum and generating positive reviews.
  • Switch: The band's first album after the suicide of frontman Michael Hutchence, this gives Todd the opportunity to discuss not only the tragic downfall of INXS, but also Rock Star, Mark Burnett's failed Reality Television series that attempted to revive the band via a competition to find a new vocalist. Winner J.D. Fortune was widely considered a Replacement Scrappy by fans and the show overall was seen as embarrassing and disrespectful, hampering Switch from the get-go. Despite its Stateside commercial success (being INXS's highest-charting record in the US in over a decade), the album itself saw mixed reviews from critics and was panned by fans.
  • Original Sin: In 2010, the remaining INXS members put out this confusing album that was a compilation of re-recorded songs with different artists providing new lead vocals. People were turned off by the confusing choices of artists and it was widely seen as a sign that the INXS name should've been laid to rest after Hutchence's death. It would be the last new (well, in a sense) material the band released before going on an indefinite hiatus in 2012. Additionally, if Todd covers this album, expect him to include a Call-Back to "Hey Soul Sister" when discussing Pat Monahan's involvement.

J

• You're Gettin' Even While I'm Gettin' Odd by The J. Geils Band: After the band reached their commercial peak in the early 1980s, frontman Peter Wolf left due to the more new wave and synthpop-oriented sound they had developed during this period. For their next album, keyboardist and primary songwriter Seth Justman took over as their lead singer, which went down so badly that the band broke up only a year later.
• Ja Rule:
  • Blood in My Eye: The headline rapper of Irv Gotti's Murder Inc. label, Ja Rule was one of the leading faces of pop rap in the early 2000s. Things disintegrated quickly, however, with this album, which came at a time when other rappers were increasingly questioning his authenticity, due to his tendency to sing on his songs and excessive focus on mainstream success. Here, he attempted to reassert his manliness with a record packed with only hardcore songs, completely abstaining from radio-friendly pop songs targeted at the ladies. Instead, it all but confirmed the growing skepticisms directed at him, especially after the Eminem diss track "Clap Back" came back to bite him when Em put out "Hailie's Revenge" in response. Although his next album R.U.L.E. produced one more pop hit for him with "Wonderful", it did nothing to repair his sunken reputation, and his mainstream success was all but gone afterwards.
  • The Mirror: After a brief hiatus, following the end of his original contract with The Inc., Ja Rule attempted a comeback in 2007 with two new singles, but even with Lil Wayne guesting on one of them, the songs flopped so hard that the album they were slated to appear on got delayed. To make matters worse, some of the tracks on said album were leaked online, which prompted Ja Rule to rerecord the whole album and release it for free. By the time it came out in 2009, all of the clout he had built for his career was long gone. His name has since become synonymous with the infamous Fyre Fest scandal.
• Damita Jo by Janet Jackson: Due to the then-recent Wardrobe Malfunction scandal at Super Bowl XXXVIII, for which Janet took the majority of the blame at the time, radio stations blacklisted her, causing this album to flop and preventing her from ever being commercially relevant again, aside from one moderate hit in early 2008. Since Todd has tweeted favorably about the prospect of covering failed comebacks by artists whose careers had already "ended" for reasons other than a disastrous album before the album in question came out, he may decide to examine why Janet wasn't able to save her career by spinning this record's PR in her favor, especially since the Super Bowl fiasco did not leave the same adverse effect on Justin Timberlake's career.
• Michael Jackson: Todd is vocally intimidated by Michael Jackson's large and passionate Stan Army, having faced their wrath for very brief comments he made in his "Earth", "ME!", and "Toosie Slide" Pop Song Reviews, so he'll probably avoid covering either of these albums until the distant future. Despite that, they do mark definite points of no return for the King of Pop's career: if circumstances allow it, Todd may find them worth looking into.
  • HIStory: Past, Present, and Future -- Book I: Released in the wake of Jackson's sexual abuse allegations and his deteriorating relationship with the press, the new material here was considerably Darker and Edgier, and the promotion went all out. Despite being the second best-selling double album of all time as of 2018, it only served to further stain Jackson as a massive narcissist, not helped by the fact that the first disc was a Greatest Hits Album derided as Album Filler. Todd mentioned in the "Party All the Time" OHW that Jackson's relevance was already waning by 1993 and that the rest of the '90s would only continue to worsen for him, and he also hinted on Twitter that Jackson is a notable victim of the Addams Family curse, so he may be interested in examining this album in that context.
  • Invincible: With the pressures of fame continuing to haunt him, this record lingered in Troubled Production for years. Despite the hype surrounding the music video for the lead single "You Rock My World", the album had little else to offer and tremendously undersold by the King of Pop's standards, not helped by a lack of promotion caused by his souring relationship with Sony Music. No longer able to shake off his personal controversies with sheer star power, Jackson spent the remainder of his life a tabloid punchline; his reputation didn't recover until his death in 2009.
• The Jacksons:
  • Victory: The success of the band's Motown 25 reunion performance led to this album being cobbled together from solo outtakes by the Jackson brothers, including Michael, who only sang on a few songs. The lead single was a reworked duet between Michael and Freddie Mercury from the sessions for Queen's Hot Space, replacing Mercury with Mick Jagger, and while the album and its singles were chart successes, they mainly sold off of Michael's brand recognition. The supporting tour suffered from a Troubled Production thanks to increasing tensions between Michael and his brothers, and it was ultimately cut short when he announced his surprise departure from the Jacksons at the end of the first leg.
  • 2300 Jackson Street: It was essentially a Band Minus the Face record, as it was their only record without Michael Jackson, aside from a guest spot on the title track. Without his star power to carry the project, the album peaked at a dismal #59, got scathing reviews, and resulted in their immediate disbandment.
• Strays by Jane's Addiction: One of the pioneering acts of alternative metal, the combination of interpersonal conflicts and drug use from lead singer Perry Farrell led to their breakup in 1991. After a one-off reunion in 1997, the band fully reunited in 2001 and decided to record a new album that was released in 2003, featuring a more polished sound courtesy of producer Bob Ezrin. While lead single "Just Because" remains a fan favourite song, and the song "Superhero" ended up as the theme music to Entourage, the rest of the album was met with mixed reviews and unfavourable comparisons to nu-metal, and in contrast to predecessor Ritual de lo Habitual's 2x platinum certification, Strays only went gold. Following several appearances at Lollapalooza, Jane's Addiction broke up once again, less than six months after the album's release. They have since reunited and released another album, but their glory days are long behind them.
• Dear You by Jawbreaker: One of the top indie bands of the 1990s and a major influence on the emo movement, Jawbreaker ended up attracting Sell-Out accusations with the glossier sound of this album, released through major label DGC. Despite some critical acclaim, the band's fans hated it to the point of literally turning their backs to the stage when they played the new songs live, which combined with an inability to attract newer audiences led to the record underselling. The band would disband less than a year later, not reuniting until 2017. That said, the album being widely Vindicated by History years after its release may turn Todd off from covering it.
• Jefferson Airplane:
  • After Bathing at Baxter's: The failed experimental followup to Surrealistic Pillow. It fared so poorly that it didn't even get certified, and the band would never come anywhere close to recovering from it, barring the commercial successes of Jefferson Starship and Starship.
  • Long John Silver: While After Bathing at Baxter's was at least Vindicated by History, this record's reputation has not improved since its release, and it was also their last studio album before going on hiatus.
  • Jefferson Airplane: After the rise and fall of the band's Jefferson Starship and Starship incarnations (the latter of which had badly tainted the participating members as sellouts), the classic lineup from the Surrealistic Pillow era (sans Spencer Dryden) reunited with another record in 1989. Despite '60s nostalgia being in full swing at the time, the resulting album was a total failure, both critically and commercially, and they broke back up immediately afterwards.
• Jethro Tull:
  • A: Originally intended as Ian Anderson's first solo album, it was released as a Tull album at the insistence of the record company, resulting in the disintegration of the previous line-up, except for Anderson and Martin Barre. Moreover, the failed attempt to move into a more electronic direction is one of the major factors that killed their mainstream popularity for good.
  • Under Wraps: While The Broadsword and the Beast marked a Stateside commercial rebound after A and restored the band's goodwill with fans, this album marked an abrupt and poorly regarded turn for Tull's music. Peter John Vettese's synths and programmed drums dominated the soundscape, and very little was offered in the way of Ian Anderson's flute and acoustic guitar, which made up the backbone of the band's music up to that point. Despised and forgotten by fans and panned by critics, it swept away any mainstream relevance Tull still had at that point. Moreover, during the following tour, Ian Anderson ruined his voice for good and would never recover from then on.
• Elton John:
  • Ice on Fire: While Elton John remained a viable force on the pop charts following this album's release, most notably for "Candle in the Wind '97", the soundtrack to The Lion King and mashup remixes of his greatest hits in the early 2020s, this album marked a critical downturn as a pop music superstar that he would never fully recover from (following a brief Career Resurrection on the heels of his smash 1983 hit "I'm Still Standing"), and Todd has previously tweeted that he thinks it's really bad.
  • Leather Jackets: Aside from Victim of Love, this is considered Elton John's worst album, and unlike Ice on Fire, it was a complete and utter commercial flop. John remains an in-demand legacy act and an icon among the LGBT community, but his days as a trendsetter firmly ended after this album.
• Bulletproof Heart by Grace Jones: Previously an icon of '80s reggae pop, Jones followed up her dance-pop album Inside Story with a hard shift to New Jack Swing supervised by a glut of co-producers. The result was largely panned as incongruous and became her first album to neither chart in the US nor be certified in any region. Jones wouldn't put out another album until 2008, and though that one, Hurricane, was considered a return to form, it didn't restore her success or relevance. She wouldn't put out any new studio material after Hurricane barring the rare collaboration and soundtrack spot, and to this day Bulletproof Heart is widely considered her worst album.
• Trial by Fire by Journey: Despite marking the comeback of Steve Perry as their frontman, it only had modest success, with just one moderate hit and nowhere near the sales of their previous albums. Perry would leave once again shortly after it came out.
• Jugulator by Judas Priest: Their previous album Painkiller is a strong contender for their greatest record, but shortly after its release, frontman Rob Halford left the band and was ultimately replaced by Tim "Ripper" Owens. They finally released a new album in 1997, but it was such a flop that they have since completely disowned it. After one more record with Tim "Ripper" Owens, Rob Halford finally returned to the fold in 2003, but their recovery hasn't been any more significant than Van Halen's was after similarly releasing a disastrous Replacement Scrappy-led album in the late '90s.

K

• Emotional by K-Ci & JoJo: Though they achieved some post-Jodeci success with a shift towards Lighter and Softer love ballads, their new radio-friendly direction finally backfired on this album, which failed to produce a charting single and was criticized for its childish lyrics. While Jodeci are still considered iconic, the Hailey brothers' separate stint as a duo has been largely forgotten with time aside from "All My Life" and their guest spot on Tupac Shakur's "How Do U Want It".
• Space Cadet Solo Flight by KC and the Sunshine Band: After the downfall of disco, this group transitioned more towards R&B and synthpop ballads instead. While this worked at first, with "Please Don't Go" topping the Hot 100 and the Teri DeSario duet "Yes, I'm Ready" reaching #2, it did not result in long-lasting success, and by the time they released this in 1981, their star power had deteriorated so much that the album and its singles failed to chart, not helped by their abysmal critical reception. They did eventually score one more big hit in 1983, "Give It Up", but the song's parent album sold poorly and the band disappeared from the pop industry for good soon afterwards.
• R. Kelly:
  • His misguided collaboration albums with Jay-Z, which were conceived due to the success of "Fiesta (Remix)" in 2001. Both produced no real hits and got horrendous reviews from the public:
    • The Best of Both Worlds: Flopped due to being released right when R. Kelly's sexual assault scandal was heating up, prompting Jay-Z to distance himself from the project.
    • Unfinished Business: Comprised primarily of outtakes from its predecessor and only got released as a companion piece for the duo's "Best of Both Worlds" tour in 2004, which ended very badly for Kelly, due not only to an onstage incident at the October 31 show, which caused Jay-Z and the tour organizer to jump ship, but also Kelly suing them in retaliation. Amidst Kelly already being on shaky ground with the public, the entire fiasco surrounding Unfinished Business only cemented his sheer unlikability and contributed heavily to his ultimate demise as a popular musician.
  • Happy People/U Saved Me: Similar to Chris Brown, R. Kelly's career survived a major scandal, particularly due to the huge success of "Ignition (Remix)". Amidst ongoing scrutiny though, he made a radical shift in tone with this 2004 double album, which banked on a clean image, with its two discs being themed around stepping (capitalizing on his most recent hit at the time, "Step in the Name of Love") and Christianity, respectively. While it produced a decent hit in "Happy People", it did nothing to reverse his sinking reputation.
  • TP.3 Reloaded: For this next solo album, which capped off the 12 Play trilogy, he delved back into sex-mania full on. Aside from spawning the infamous musical soap opera Trapped in the Closet, the record was mauled by the public and did not produce hits. While his next album did score two moderately successful singles, it didn't fare much better critically, and R. Kelly more or less dropped off the charts after that aside from his guest spot on Lady Gaga's "Do What U Want". Any possibility for a comeback fell dead in the water after a new series of allegations from the late 2010s onward that helped exacerbate his reputation as a sexual predator to the point that there was major demand to remove all of his music from Spotify, which eventually led to him being convicted on all charges in his Brooklyn trial in 2021.
  • I Admit It: Although this only came out in December 2022, Todd stated that he would likely make an exception to cover this album right after its release, knowing that R. Kelly has a more-or-less nil chance of ever making a comeback. The bootleg album dropped after Kelly was sent to jail, almost immediately being pulled from streaming services after he denied authorizing it. It ends with the infamous 19-minute "apology" title track, which came out in 2018, shortly before Surviving R. Kelly, to widespread condemnation.
• Here by Alicia Keys: Though the album hit #1 on the R&B charts, it had no major singles, it got middling reviews from critics and it was her first studio album not to go platinum. Her 2020 album Alicia didn't fare much better, with subpar sales and reviews, and it also had no major hits.
• Face the Nation by Kid 'N Play: Facing backlash from a combination of overexposure and changing trends, and growing weary of their own prior material, this album attempted to shift the New Jack Swing duo to a Conscious Hip Hop approach, only to be be met with confused reactions from their remaining listener base and widespread mockery from everyone else. The album and its singles stiffed on the charts, and this plus the concurrent decline of their film careers led to Kid 'N Play going their separate ways in the mid-90s. While they reunited in the 2000s and remain active as a live act, they haven't put out any new studio material.
• The Killers: While Todd might consider the Killers' career arc to be too normal to cover (as he felt about Cyndi Lauper), he has been a huge fan of the band since they first broke out in 2004, so he'll surely have plenty of thoughts about their unexpectedly short time in the spotlight by covering either of these three records:
  • Sam's Town: It's widely regarded as a Sophomore Slump following their universally acclaimed debut Hot Fuss, although it sold several million copies worldwide, contained the fan favorite "When You Were Young", and still has its fans.
  • Day & Age: Perpetuated the band's downward spiral even further, attaining middling reviews at best and only going Gold in America, proving to be their last album to earn a certification of any kind in that country. Furthermore, the band went on a brief hiatus following the supporting tour, after which they put out four more records that didn't fare any better.
  • Battle Born: The band was already nowhere near the level of influence they held during the Hot Fuss or even early Sam's Town eras by the time they returned from their hiatus to release this album in 2012, but it turned out to be their worst-rated album to date, failing to revitalize their careers even in a year when indie rock was enjoying a resurgence in mainstream popularity. While they're still a huge deal in the UK, their trendsetting relevance has undoubtedly dwindled since their mid-2000s heyday.
• Speeding Time by Carole King: A misguided swerve into new wave music, the record failed to chart, and King was never commercially relevant again.
• Standing in the Spotlight by Dee Dee King: Shortly before leaving The Ramones, by then long past their glory days, bassist Dee Dee Ramone embarked on a solo career as a rapper, much to everybody's surprise. Dee Dee's debut solo single "Funky Man", released under the new moniker Dee Dee King, was universally panned and quickly earned a reputation as one of the most infamous and embarrassing songs in music history. A couple years later, he released his first solo album, which contained a mixture of rap songs, as well as more conventional rock tracks, but this too was completely ridiculed by the public. Todd tweeted in 2022 that he has considered it for the show, and if he does, expect some comparisons to the Beastie Boys, who also originated in the New York punk scene.
• The Construkction of Light by King Crimson: While never superstars, they still commanded respect even among Progressive Rock's detractors for their dark style and their ability to adapt to changing tastes. Having already instigated a shift to Progressive Metal on THRAK, this album attempted to continue the sound, but was hampered by constrained working conditions that prevented them from demoing the material in concert beforehand. The result saw heavily mixed responses, was their only album to not chart in the US, and was admonished by Robert Fripp himself as weak and claustrophobic. KC only put out one more album in 2003 before shifting focus to their live act, and their Creator Backlash towards this album was enough to lead to a better-received remix in 2019.
• The Kinks:
  • Everybody's in Show-Biz: Following in the footsteps of The Who, who had just popularized the Rock Opera with Tommy, the Kinks' transition into complex, prog-oriented music did not fare as well and is widely considered to be the band's jumping the shark moment. Though this album's hard turn into 1920s vaudeville and jazz stylings was ambitious, the result alienated fans, and it was never Vindicated by History like most of their previous records were, despite containing "Supersonic Rocket Ship", which appeared in Avengers: Endgame decades later.
  • Preservation Act 1 + 2: These two albums expanded upon Show-Biz's new style, but were even worse-received. While the band was able to make a comeback in the United States after shifting to an Arena Rock-oriented style with Sleepwalker in 1977, their later-period work is mostly forgotten these days compared to their '60s output.
  • Phobia: Following six well-received albums in the late '70s and early '80s that resulted in a Stateside Career Resurrection, the tepid reviews and sales of 1986's Think Visual and 1989's UK Jive ended the band's success and cost them their new record deal with MCA. 1993's Phobia was considered the Kinks' last chance, but not only was its songwriting still criticized as uninspired, its production and sound design were also seen as outdated in the wake of the American grunge boom and the Britpop movement in the UK that they'd directly inspired. The album was the band's lowest-charting in the US since Preservation Act 1 in 1973, their profile rapidly declined, and they ultimately broke up three years after its release.
• KISS: Todd suggested that KISS were still fairly relevant in the '90s during the Van Halen and Mötley Crüe episodes, possibly jossing the prospect of a KISS Trainwreckords. However, since the band's string of releases in the late '70s and early '80s mark a clear end to their creative peak, he may still feature one of these records in the future, especially since the inter-band drama of this period would make for a compelling narrative.
  • KISS Solo Albums: With the band's ambition and Creative Differences growing following their mainstream breakout, this promotional experiment was conceived as a way to ease tensions by giving all four members a fair chance in the spotlight. Instead, it proved to be their first major Jumping the Shark moment. While Ace Frehley's record was surprisingly well-reviewed and produced a smash hit with its cover of "New York Groove", the other three didn't fare as well, with Peter Criss' album being particularly lambasted. The albums also missed sales expectations by a long shot, selling 1.5 million copies combined, with Frehley himself contributing 2/3 of that. More importantly, the albums failed to ease the band's creative tensions, which would only continue to haunt them with multiple lineup changes, deteriorating concert sales, poorly received studio albums, and a growing reputation for being a family-friendly Sell-Out act.
  • Dynasty: Much like The Human League's Crash, this was a New Sound Album that earned the band one of their biggest hits, but at the expense of long-term relevance. Despite the chart success of lead single "I Was Made for Lovin' You", Dynasty alienated KISS' traditional Hard Rock fanbase with its prevalent disco influences. It especially didn't help that Disco Demolition Night occurred not long after the album's release.
  • Unmasked: This album eased off on the disco elements but failed to win back their old audience and wasn't a hit commercially, either. Arguably, it was the band's point of no return.
  • Music from "The Elder": A spectacularly misguided stab at Progressive Rock, which, like Garth Brooks' Chris Gaines project, was initially conceived as the soundtrack for a movie that was ultimately never produced. It drove away both the Newbie Boom from Dynasty and the remaining older fans who hadn't given up on them before that point. Elder, in particular, is one of Todd's biggest requests for the series. Due to their streak of fiascos in the late '70s and early '80s, KISS spent the entire 1980s incapable of garnering any significant success on the Hot 100, despite that decade's trends seeming to naturally fit their sound and aesthetic, and they only had one more top 40 hit at the beginning of the '90s with the Michael Bolton-co-penned "Forever".
• ...But the Little Girls Understand by The Knack: Often cited as a classic example of the Sophomore Slump, the album was destroyed by critics upon release and merely went gold. Their subsequent two albums were released with no fanfare and the band broke up afterward. If Todd does cover it, expect comparisons to Fairweather Johnson, Zingalamaduni, and Turn It Upside Down, as the album destroyed the public's perception of the band as their debut album Get the Knack along with their other hit singles have been practically been forgotten by the public save for "My Sharona".
• Sweat by Kool & the Gang: Released amidst the rise of hip hop and New Jack Swing in the black music scene, as well as frontman J.T. Taylor and saxophonist Ronald Bell leaving the band's lineup, this album was so poorly received that it failed to chart on the Billboard 200 and produced no Hot 100 hits. While the band were around for two decades by that point, they had still been one of the biggest R&B acts of the 1980s and their previous record Forever scored two top 10 singles.
• Interlude by Kool Moe Dee: Like his former rival LL Cool J, Kool Moe Dee was one of the first solo rappers to appeal to a mainstream audience. Both faced challenges to their credibility during the rise of gangsta rap, but whereas LL ultimately stabilized his career with Mr. Smith^note and arguably Mama Said Knock You Out, due to Walking with a Panther being regarded as a disappointing followup to his first two albums, Kool Moe Dee found himself completely unequipped for the new decade. His first album after leaving Jive Records bombed on the charts, got pitiful reviews, and to date is the last time he ever released any new music, not including fluke guest spots such as his appearance on Macklemore and Ryan Lewis' "Downtown".
• Korn:
  • MTV Unplugged: Todd suggested that this album killed MTV Unplugged as a whole in the Lauryn Hill episode, and its release coincided with the band's disappearance from the mainstream.
  • The Path of Totality: While their commercial relevance had already fizzled out by the time of their 2007 untitled album, this could qualify for Trainwreckords for similar reasons as Liz Phair's Funstyle, being much more noteworthy and notorious than the few records that preceded it. The album was a misguided shift towards dubstep that earned the band a ton of backlash and failed to see them ride the movement back to fame at the height of its popularity.
• Techno Pop by Kraftwerk: Though they never escaped One-Hit Wonder status in the US, they were hugely influential in the development of Synth-Pop in the 70's, becoming the face of the genre by 1981's Computer World. However, the follow-up faced a Troubled Production that resulted in it releasing five years after its predecessor, by which point the cultural landscape had changed dramatically: newer artists ran far with Kraftwerk's innovations, and the technophilia they connected with wore off. While the band tried to stay ahead of the curve by shifting to techno on the record, audiences were unimpressed. Kraftwerk only released one more album afterwards in 2003, by which point they were firmly in "legacy act" territory, and shifted focus to the touring circuit.
• Baptism by Lenny Kravitz: Critics and fans alike found this to be his most tedious record to date, and although "Lady" was a hit, the album itself had disappointing sales and marked the end of his commercial relevance in America, despite continued popularity overseas.

L

• A Night to Remember by Cyndi Lauper: It yielded one last top 10 hit for Cyndi Lauper, but considering the chart-topping, multi-Platinum success she had achieved earlier in the eighties ^note Even her Sophomore Slump, True Colors, had a #1 hit with its title track and two more big singles after that, this third album firmly ended her claim to pop greatness and indeed proved to be the last time she ever sniffed the top 40 before shifting her focus towards other avenues of entertainment. Despite initially dismissing the album's failure as too normal to qualify it as a Trainwreckord in the Hootie & the Blowfish episode, Todd later changed his mind after learning more about it.
• Avril Lavigne by Avril Lavigne: This record did okay upon its initial release, but even the moderately successful leadoff single "Here's to Never Growing Up" set an ominous tone for the rest of its cycle, which finally came to a head with the infamous fourth single "Hello Kitty", which instantly torpedoed any remaining goodwill she had with the public. The close involvement of Nickelback frontman and Avril's then-husband Chad Kroeger, which included cowriting "Hello Kitty", didn't help. Todd briefly compared Taylor Swift's artistic downfall to Avril in his review of "Shake It Off" and talked about Kroeger's involvement in this album in the No Fixed Address episode, but he hasn't discussed her a whole lot beyond that. Although her 2018 single "Head Above Water" generated some positive feedback, the subsequent album of the same name did little to solidify any renewed interest in her.
• Led Zeppelin:
  • Presence and/or In Through the Out Door: Although Todd has previously defended "Fool in the Rain", these two albums are regarded to mark the decline of the legendary band, eventually culminating in their breakup following John Bonham's passing in 1980. Both records were produced amidst severe personal issues amongst the band members and failed to match the universal acclaim of their first six studio albums.
  • Coda: It was essentially just a bunch of outtakes and unreleased recordings from their previous albums, but with a few extra overdubs. It proved to be a failed experiment and more or less ensured that they wouldn't reunite afterwards.
• Unfinished Music No. 1: Two Virgins, Unfinished Music No. 2: Life with the Lions, and/or Wedding Album by John Lennon and Yoko Ono: Considering these records' infamy for their impenetrably avant-garde direction and their role in destroying The Beatles, they seem like much likelier choices for the show now that Todd has reviewed Two the Hard Way, another disastrous side-project by a musical couple whose members continued to find success separately. Lennon & Ono would release three more collaborative albums afterwards, but despite shifting to more conventional rock, they were poorly received on initial release, with the commercial success of the last two being mostly due to Lennon's murder in 1980.
• Small World by Huey Lewis and the News: Todd might not decide to cover this album because it didn't really annihilate their careers (they still had hits as late as 1994), but it was still a clear negative turning point for their fortunes, regardless. Their previous two LPs produced five major hit singles each (with their signature "The Power of Love" hitting #1 in-between), but this one only yielded a fraction of that success. Additionally, its reception was extremely lukewarm, with their heavily mainstream fanbase not taking to the record's prominent Caribbean and Cajun influences or vague social commentary.
• Crunk Rock by Lil' Jon: This album was originally planned for a 2006 release with "Snap Yo Fingers" as its leadoff single, only to get stuck in Development Hell. By the time it finally came out in 2010, the Crunk sub-genre had sunken to punchline status. The record's heavy electronic influences weren't nearly enough to save it. Aside from "Turn Down for What" and some production work, Lil Jon's career has been dead in the water ever since.
• Lil Wayne:
  • Rebirth: This unexpected and clumsy venture into rock is widely considered one of the worst albums of all time and very quickly undid the critical respect Weezy had earned with his previous effort Tha Carter III. Most of his later albums fared better, but for the most part, he remained a shadow of his former self during the 2010s while his protégés Drake and Nicki Minaj became some of the biggest stars in music soon afterward.
  • I Am Not a Human Being II: Notable for containing the infamous "Bitches Love Me" on it, and Todd brought up in the Worst of 2013 video when covering that song that Weezy had such a bad 2013 that he was forced to apologize for it, and his subsequent relevance didn't extend much beyond guesting on a few songs by other performers. Even though his long-awaited and well-received Tha Carter V landed four top 10 debuts upon release in 2018, the 2020 follow-up Funeral, despite also topping the Billboard 200, didn't achieve the same amount of success on the Hot 100.
• Results May Vary by Limp Bizkit: Cited as a Genre-Killer for Nu Metal, which was already experiencing backlash by this point. Despite good sales, radio support died off fairly quickly and the band's cover of The Who's "Behind Blue Eyes" earned scorn from Classic Rock fans. Todd has also panned the cover in his review for "I Took A Pill in Ibiza" calling it a pathetic attempt for a disliked music artist to feel sorry for them. The band have released material since then, but are very much in Condemned by History territory. Todd implied he's going to talk about this at some point.
• LL Cool J:
  • Todd Smith: Despite surviving the failures of Walking with a Panther and 14 Shots to the Dome, LL never found redemption after Todd Smith, which was released in 2006 as part of a string of non-explicit albums capitalizing primarily on the rap ballads that had earned him a mainstream audience in the first place back with 1987's "I Need Love". Much like Justin Timberlake's "Filthy", the leadoff single "Control Myself" fell off the charts extremely quickly despite a high peak early on, while the album itself was absolutely savaged by critics and fans alike. In the "Accidental Racist" episode with The Rap Critic, Todd stated LL's career lasted 20 years, which implies he thinks it ended around the time Todd Smith came out (it would have started around 1985-1987, either with his first album Radio or his commercial breakout hits "I'm Bad" and "I Need Love" from Bigger and Deffer).
  • Authentic: This was LL's first album since the end of his contract with Def Jam Recordings. It came out the same month as Brad Paisley's Wheelhouse album and its notorious album track "Accidental Racist", which caused this record to be Overshadowed by Controversy and fueled much of its own horrendous reception. Paisley himself appears on "Live for You". Even as an independent release, this record was such a fiasco that it badly stained LL's overall reputation in the rap community. Ever since its 2013 release, he hasn't recorded any new music and has focused purely on acting instead.
• Cool Hand Lōc by Tone Lōc: His first album produced two huge hit singles, but this one failed to chart and earned scathing reviews, leading him to rely more on acting to stay afloat. He previously established himself as a raunchy yet radio friendly bad boy, but here he decided to apply his distinctly rugged voice to rap ballads, presumably to compete with LL Cool J and The Fresh Prince at the height of their fame. Amidst the rise of hardcore hip hop at the same time, this Lighter and Softer approach backfired horribly and left him without an audience. Todd briefly noted that Tone Lōc was "no longer down with the ladies" by this point in the Young MC OHW, so he may take a closer look at this album somewhere down the road.
• Jennifer Lopez:
  • This Is Me... Then: Combined with her tabloid-baiting first relationship with Ben Affleck, the album permanently damaged her reputation, despite strong sales and several hit singles. Things only got worse once she starred in the infamous turkey of a film Gigli. Todd says he wants to eventually examine Jennifer Lopez and her feeble attempts at conveying authenticity someday, and a Trainwreckords episode for this album would be a great opportunity for him to do so.
  • Rebirth: Her first new album since the downfall of the Bennifer fiasco, it proved to be her first real flop. The leadoff single "Get Right" only briefly charted in the top 20, while its follow-up, "Hold You Down" went pretty much nowhere. Although her career as a celebrity persisted, her only real successes from this point forward were through acting. Even her 2010s hits "On the Floor" and "Booty" were only true successes primarily through the aid of their guest stars, rather than J.Lo's own star power. The record that contained "On the Floor" didn't even sell half the figures of Rebirth, itself a huge plunge from her first three albums.
  • A.K.A.: Though her commercial peak was long behind her, she enjoyed a mild Career Resurrection in 2011 thanks to her duet with Pitbull "On the Floor". Her comeback would prove short-lived, however, due to this ill-fated 2014 album, which was not greeted kindly by the public and failed to earn a certification, despite heavy promotion and some buzz generated by the Iggy Azalea collaboration "Booty". J.Lo has since kept her entertainment career alive primarily through film and television instead, although she hasn't stopped recording.
• America's Sweetheart by Courtney Love: After Hole broke up in 2002, Love decided to make a solo record. Unfortunately, the album went through a Troubled Production— Love's legal issues and stints in rehab led to the album being delayed, and the album had to be re-recorded on the insistence of Virgin Records. The result was a record that received mixed reviews at best and was a commercial failure. After a long hiatus, Love opted to briefly reform Hole, albeit without any of her previous bandmates.
• Hot Trip to Heaven by Love and Rockets: The group emerged as part of the first wave of Alternative Rock bands that cracked the American mainstream in the late 80's, with multiple hits on the rock and alternative charts despite just one Hot 100 hit. However, they would take a 5-year hiatus after hitting their peak with their Self-Titled Album, and when they finally reemerged, they suddenly shifted into ambient techno, alienating fans (especially in the US) despite good critical responses. The album failed to chart Stateside, their first to do so since their debut, and the band dissolved in 1999, with their brief 2000's reunion not generating any new material.
• Battle of the Sexes by Ludacris: Despite coming out during a time when Ludacris was a ubiquitous presence on other performers' tracks, the public reception towards this album was much more negative than his 2000s output. Though it did contain two big hits singles and sold decently, Luda faded from the mainstream music industry not longer after it came out, having not appeared on a truly big hit since Enrique Iglesias' "Tonight (I'm F***in' You)". He has remained active as an actor, but as Todd noted, he did not even provide a rap verse on "See You Again", despite his role in The Fast and the Furious series.
• Lasers by Lupe Fiasco: A project hampered by extremely Troubled Production; Lupe originally planned an ambitious triple album but ultimately settled upon a much safer, mainstream-friendly record due to pressure from Atlantic Records. Worse still, the album's release was badly delayed, in part due to a leaking scandal, and didn't come out until three years since he started working on it. Upon hitting shelves, it was a critical and commercial flop that fell woefully short of expectations, with even Lupe himself stating his disappointment with the final product. Although Todd originally loved lead single "The Show Goes On" thanks to its "Float On" sample, putting it at #6 on his Top Ten Best Hit Songs of 2011, he has since soured on the piece. Lupe's career has not rebounded in any form even over a decade later.

M

• This Unruly Mess I've Made by Macklemore: Alongside producer Ryan Lewis, he quickly emerged one of the biggest and most inventive rappers around in 2013 with the success of The Heist and its four smash singles. His stride took a severe fall, however, with the release of the controversial single "White Privilege II", which alienated his core audience in spite of its good intentions. Additionally, the hip hop industry began to evolve dramatically with the rise of Trap Music, leaving more flamboyant acts like him out of fashion. His next album (sans Ryan Lewis), Gemini, went Gold, but still none of his songs have reached the top 40 since "Downtown" and he hasn't been anywhere near the trendsetter status he reached just a few years earlier. However, he has remained huge in Australasia and parts of Europe, where songs like "Glorious" and "These Days" went to #1 in certain countries. In 2023, Todd asked his followers on Twitter if the album counts as a Trainwreckord, indicating that he has considered it for the show.
• Neither Fish nor Flesh by Sananda Maitreya (then credited as Terence Trent D'Arby): One of the most infamous sophomore slumps by an artist who promised so much potential early on, Neither Fish nor Flesh was a severe case of trying way too much way too quickly, moving away from Maitreya's mainstream-friendly modernization of classic soul in favor of an artsy, psychedelic direction. The surrounding PR, in which Maitreya depicted himself as a transcendent revolutionary, was particularly maligned as pretentious and out-of-touch; this and the album's misguided lyrical content permanently halted his commercial momentum in the US and stained his image. After someone suggested this album on Twitter, Todd expressed great interest in covering it in the future.
• The Golden Age of Grotesque by Marilyn Manson: While both the man and the band had already endured the controversy surrounding being Mis-blamed for Columbine, this album's attempt at shifting to electronic Glam Rock to escape the Nu Metal boom saw mixed responses and was further undermined by the controversies surrounding its promotion. This plus the departure of guitarist John 5 and keyboardist Madonna Wane Gacy thanks to Creative Differences ended Manson's mainstream success, and despite making a brief comeback on the rock charts, any chance of recovering his broader popularity flamed out following numerous sexual misconduct/abuse accusations in 2021. Todd mentioned in his "Alejandro" and "Trollz" reviews and Witness Trainwreckords that Manson became almost completely irrelevant as soon as he stopped producing big hits and his shock value wore thin, so it's entirely possible that a review of this album will be on the table.
• You Gotta Believe by Marky Mark & the Funky Bunch: Very similar to Tone Lōc, this early pop rap act scored two huge hits on their first album, but their followup record was such a Sophomore Slump that frontman Marky Mark subsequently abandoned the music industry in favor of acting, through which he's had a much longer and more sustainable career ever since.
• Ricky Martin:
  • Sound Loaded: The Latin pop craze that Ricky Martin spearheaded in 1999 continued well into the new millennium, but the hype for the former Menudo star died off quickly after the underperformance of his sophomore English crossover album. Its leadoff single "She Bangs" is now more associated with William Hung than Martin himself. Pervasive rumors about his sexuality, which he constantly evaded, didn't help matters.
  • Life: He attempted a comeback in the English market in 2005, but failed miserably, and to this day has strictly focused on the Spanish market where's he's had reasonable success.
• Welcome Back by Mase: One of the artists signed to Bad Boy Records, Mase was enjoying the height of his success with his contribution on the hit single "Mo Money, Mo Problems" when he suddenly quit the music biz to become a Christian minister shortly after the release of his poorly received second album Double Up. Five years later, he attempted a comeback with this album, in which he swapped his original East Coast gangsta rap style for profanity-free, awkwardly inserted Author Tracts about his new-found faith. Needless to say, this comeback attempt didn't take, and he went back into obscurity almost immediately afterwards.
• Master P:
  • MP da Last Don: While this double-album became Master P's best-selling record, it was also a major contributor to the Hype Backlash that would destroy his empire within a year. Compared to his contempories from the gangsta rap genre, P and his No Limit soldiers were increasingly seen as all bark and no bite, lacking the artistic depth of Tupac Shakur and The Notorious B.I.G..
  • Only God Can Judge Me: By the time this came out, many of No Limit's most popular artists such as Mystikal, Mia X, and Snoop Dogg had departed or distanced themselves from the label, while Cash Money Records had replaced No Limit as the flagship independent hip hop label from New Orleans. Despite peaking at #2 on the Billboard 200, Only God Can Judge Me got horrible reviews and ultimately only went Gold, a huge drop from the multi-Platinum success of P's previous two albums (even 1996's Ice Cream Man outsold it). Its failure pretty much finished off No Limit's period of mainstream relevance for good.
  • Ghetto Postage: This was No Limit's very last gasp of relevance after having already fallen badly from grace by the new millennium. It only peaked at #26 on the Billboard 200 and was P's last album to be certified. Following a reorganization of No Limit shortly afterwards, a series of lawsuits would eventually bankrupt the label in 2003, and Master P's career has been Condemned by History ever since.
• North by Matchbox Twenty: Though the single "She's So Mean" was popular on adult contemporary/adult alternative radio, this album, despite debuting at #1, did nothing to give the band a proper comeback. By this point, the band's radio-friendly pop-rock had long been unpopular with non-AC audiences and the album's poor reviews and declining sales caused the band to not release any new music for many years since then and frontman Rob Thomas to go back to his solo career. This album was quickly dethroned at #1 by Imagine Dragons' Night Visions, which was symbolic of the direction that radio pop-rock had taken by this time.
• Give My Regards to Broad Street by Paul McCartney: Paul was still a huge music star at the start of the 80s, though his status as an A-lister came crashing down thanks to this ill-fated soundtrack of mostly covers (both of his work in The Beatles and his solo career) that was attached to a passion project film for Paul that was instantly labeled as a vanity project. Both the album and film flopped horribly with only the hit song "No More Lonely Nights" (which featured guitar work from Pink Floyd guitarist, David Gilmour) being fondly remembered. While Paul is still a huge figure in music, his mainstream reputation and hit status never truly recovered after the film.
• Risk by Megadeth: Like the Pixies, Megadeth were never mainstream stars, but maintained a huge cult following and always seemed close to a breakthrough that never arrived. Risk was an attempt at spurring on that breakthrough, but only attracted Sell-Out accusations from fans, saw mixed critical responses, and became their first album to not receive an RIAA certification since their debut. Megadeth would go on hiatus after frontman Dave Mustaine suffered a nerve-damaging arm injury, and the band's commercial fortunes wouldn't recover from the fallout. Like Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie, ...Calling All Stations... and Razorblade Suitcase, Todd would eventually ask his followers on Twitter whether or not it counted.
• Two Hearts by Men at Work: Marked by a bleedout of members thanks to a mix of Creative Differences and its stressful production, the album attempted to replace the lost musicians with synths and session players like Cut the Crap that same year. The result was panned by critics, only produced an extremely modest hit in "Everything I Need", and led to the band's end right after the supporting tour ended. Like Crash, it ultimately erased public memory of the band's career beyond their biggest hit "Down Under", with Todd having already needed to clarify in the "I Believe in a Thing Called Love" OHW that Men at Work are not a one hit wonder.
• Tical 0: The Prequel by Method Man: This album followed a five-year break and was intended to relaunch him to chart success, roping in a wide variety of producers such as Sean Combs, Rockwilder, and Scott Storch. Instead, it proved to be a complete turkey, garnering a horrible critical reception and only mustering a Gold certification. Method Man has since expressed his remorse over the project, and his career has never returned to its '90s highs ever since.
• MGMT:
  • Congratulations: While a critical success, the band's sophomore release significantly undersold (only going silver in the UK compared to the multiple international certifications that Oracular Spectacular racked up) and alienated a big portion of listeners with its shift from psychedelic Synth-Pop to a more guitar-driven sound at a time when rock was rapidly fading from the mainstream eye. The album maintains a good standing among hardcore fans, but nevertheless, Todd tweeted that he has considered it for the show.
  • MGMT: After the underwhelming commercial performance of Congratulations, this album became a heavy victim of Executive Meddling at the hands of Columbia Records. Ironically, it became their worst-selling effort to date, failing to garner any mainstream crossover success in exchange for alienating the band's usual fans from the indie rock crowd. Although their follow-up Little Dark Age was an artistic return to form, it failed to return them to the widespread popularity they had achieved in the late 2000s.
• Listen Without Prejudice, Volume 1 by George Michael: While successful in the UK, legal battles and poor PR (which included Michael refusing to promote the album) led this record to instigate his public downfall in the US. The promised sequel never materialized, and while Older marked a UK comeback, Michael failed to regain his Stateside prominence, which at its height rivaled that of Michael Jackson. Todd stated in his "Jealous" review that people decided they didn't need George Michael shortly after Donny Osmond's brief comeback in 1989, which likely implies he considers this album the point when the singer's career stopped mattering.
• The Moment of Truth by The Real Milli Vanilli and/or Rob & Fab by Rob & Fab: After producer Frank Farian admitted that frontmen Fab Morvan & Rob Pilatus were lip-syncing their vocals, Milli Vanili's careers swiftly imploded from public backlash. Farian attempted to rehabilitate the name by making an album based around the actual singers (plus two new vocalists), belatedly releasing a re-recorded version in the US under the name Try 'n' B; the following year, Morvan and Pilatus released an album that they actually performed on as Rob & Fab. Both efforts were laughed off by the public, and while Morvan eventually made a minor comeback, Milli Vanilli still remain shorthand for musical fraud.
• Dog Eat Dog by Joni Mitchell: Among the endless parade of New Sound Album releases by Baby Boomer veterans in the '80s, this is easily one of the most reviled. Joni Mitchell had already flirted with new wave on her previous album Wild Things Run Fast, but the MTV tropes all but took over completely here, resulting in a brash, synthy record that put the former folk singer horribly out of her element. She had a reasonable return to form in the '90s, but not enough to resurrect her career entirely.
• The Monkees:
  • Head: Released months after the cancellation of their TV show as the soundtrack to the eponymous film, this album was the pinnacle of the band's artistic evolution. However, sloppy PR only sealed their decline: TV fans were alienated by the cynical psychedelia, while counterculture members still dismissed them as inauthentic. While later generations were more sympathetic towards the band's struggles, they never fully recovered from this project, with Peter Tork leaving the lineup shortly afterwards and subsequent releases flopping critically and commercially. Todd called the film "near-unwatchable" in the "Mickey" OHW, so he may be willing to cover the soundtrack despite its reevaluation.
  • Changes: Following the fallout caused by Head, this was the band's last album before breaking up a year later. Unlike Head, which has been heavily reevaluated for the better, this record is considered a dismal low-point in their discography.
  • Pool It: After enjoying a sort of comeback through reruns of their original TV show and another top 20 hit ("That Was Then, This Is Now"), the horrendous reception to their first full post-comeback album killed their momentum once again for good, even though, as Todd noted in the Song vs. Song podcast and Summer in Paradise episode, the '80s were a very easy time for '60s legacy acts to enjoy sustainable comebacks.
• Keys of the Kingdom by The Moody Blues: After incorporating Swiss keyboardist Patrick Moraz into the revived lineup, the Moody Blues had seen commercial success in the 1980s, which culminated in 1986's The Other Side of Life and their smash hit "Your Wildest Dreams", their highest charting single since "Nights in White Satin". Trouble started brewing when production meddled further in the sound in the followup Sur la Mer, which didn't sell as well and only generated one minor hit "I Know You're Out There Somewhere". During the recording of the 1991 followup, Moraz got fired after expressing dissatisfaction in the band's direction, and they had to settle an acrimonious lawsuit. The final result was met with a commercial and critical drubbing, ending their relevance for good.
• Alanis Morissette:
  • Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie: Like Oasis, Morisette's career continued for several years after this, but still fell far from its heyday. Jagged Little Pill quickly established her as the chick rocker of the 90's, but this follow-up split fans with its shift to electronic rock and significantly undersold, immediately bringing Morissette out of the zeitgeist. While Todd initially tweeted that he didn't consider this album to be a Trainwreckord, he later reconsidered it, putting the question out to his Twitter followers in 2019, so an episode on this album isn't totally out of the question just yet.
  • So-Called Chaos: While SFIJ has a lot of defenders in spite of its divisive reception, this album is more widely regarded as a lowpoint in Morissette's catalogue and a more unequivocal career-ender for her. Most of it is comprised of low-key songs with none of the rock edge that made her a '90s icon, predictably resulting in a lack of legitimate hits. The one upbeat track, the Middle Eastern-tinged third single "Eight Easy Steps", is of particular note and would likely grate on Todd due to its frenetic composition, lyrical preachiness, and clip show music video.
• Mos Def:
  • The New Danger: His solo debut Black on Both Sides is considered one of the greatest hip hop albums of the '90s, but this record was much more polarizing. It leaned even more heavily into the experimental than its predecessor, but most people found it too incoherent and lacking in real standouts. His subsequent work didn't garner much traction.
  • True Magic: Got even more lukewarm reviews than The New Danger and peaked at a dismal #77 on the Billboard 200 (although that was partially due to a leak).
• Wilder Mind by Mumford & Sons: An attempt to switch-up the band's folk-rock sound with electric instrumentation, not only did the new direction polarize both critics and fans, but undersold compared to their first two albums and was a possible factor in ending the folk boom they spearheaded in the early 2010s. Although they eventually returned back to their roots for Delta, it wasn't received much better and their mainstream relevance was greatly diminished by that point.
• Tarantula by Mystikal: He originally made a name for himself as one of No Limit's most popular signed artists, ultimately finding some major pop success after switching to Jive Records. Although his second Jive album received pretty good reviews, especially from those alienated by his mainstream turn, its commercial performance proved to be very underwhelming. Compounded by severe legal problems, Mystikal's career immediately imploded following the record's release, and he still has yet to put out another album nearly two decades later.

N-O

• Brass Knuckles by Nelly: This album's flop didn't completely kill his career, but it certainly did kill his relevancy in the mainstream (aside from one more solo hit in 2010 and a couple of collaborations with Florida Georgia Line). The fact that it had a rather Troubled Production certainly didn't help its chances of getting remotely favorable reviews either. Todd compared Nelly's career arc to that of Katy Perry in the Witness Trainwreckords, in which the artist in question becomes almost completely irrelevant as soon as they stop producing big hits.
• New Kids on the Block:
  • Face the Music: This was very briefly touched upon in the "Give It To You" OHW review, so it's possible that Todd may revisit this for a more in-depth review, which he hinted at on Twitter.
  • The Block: A failed comeback attempt 2 decades after the band's peak, its fleeting success on the Billboard 200 offset by unenthusiastic public response and a lack of real hits. Despite recruiting fellow '80s Boston boyband New Edition on one track, the album mostly targeted a younger audience, notably featuring several productions by RedOne and guest spots from various popular musicians at the time such as Akon, the Pussycat Dolls, Ne-Yo, and Lady Gaga, the latter of whom released her industry-revitalizing breakout debut album The Fame at roughly the same time. Todd has previously noted the lack of nostalgia for late '80s bubblegum pop like there was for late '90s bubblegum pop, which could be a major discussion point here.
• New Order: Todd has gone on record multiple times expressing a fondness for New Order, so either of these albums may be of considerable interest:
  • Republic: Created largely to bail Factory Records out of financial woes, the album was immediately hit by Creator's Apathy that worsened when longstanding Creative Differences between Bernard Sumner and Peter Hook came to a head. The album was heavily delayed, Factory went bust during production anyways, and though it was another critical and commercial success when it finally dropped under a new label and sees relatively good marks now, fans at the time were far more split. The band went on hiatus afterwards, the album was their last to be RIAA-certified, and while leadoff single "Regret" became New Order's biggest American hit, it was also their last. Hook and Stephen Morris still look back on Republic with disdain. If Todd covers this, expect a comparison to The Human League's Crash, as both were overtly commercial albums from veteran synth-pop acts hailing from Northern England, enduring a massively Troubled Production and yielding their biggest stateside hit single, which also turned out to be their last. Republic, on the other hand, has fared much better in hindsight than Crash.
  • Waiting for the Sirens' Call: This follow-up to their UK comeback album Get Ready was marred by resurfacing conflicts between Sumner and Hook, increasing animosity between Hook and the rest of the band, and the absence of effective mediator Gillian Gilbert (who temporarily retired to raise her and bandmate/husband Morris' children). The result polarized fans and critics to an even greater degree than Republic by leaning further into Get Ready's guitar sound; the tense production led Hook to quit the band in 2007, putting New Order on another hiatus and ending their domestic comeback just as it was beginning to materialize Stateside, and while they eventually had another hit album in the US with Music Complete in 2015, by that point they were firmly in legacy act territory.
• Push and Shove by No Doubt: After taking a break in 2004, with frontwoman Gwen Stefani starting a solo career in the interim, the group regrouped in 2009. The resulting album, their first since 2001, commercially underperformed upon release in 2012 despite critical praise. Furthermore, the video for "Looking Hot" generated controversy for appropriating Native American culture, causing it to be pulled. While the removal was praised by the American Indian Studies Center of the University of California, Los Angeles, the damage was done, leading to the band to take another break in 2015. Stefani resumed her solo career, and the band haven't recorded or released any new material since then. Todd tweeted that although he finds the album pretty good, he has considered doing a video on it.
• Born Again by The Notorious B.I.G.: As a posthumous album, this is not a traditional career-killer, but Todd could still consider it eligible based on its adverse effect on Bad Boy Records as a whole. With the success of Tupac Shakur's posthumous albums, Puff Daddy decided to give Biggie Smalls the same treatment. Unlike Tupac's albums though, Born Again was largely comprised of lines and even entire verses rehashed from previously released songs. The decision to release Born Again was seen as disrespectful and cemented Puff Daddy's reputation as greedy and exploitative. Aside from the Eminem duet "Dead Wrong", the album is widely considered to be a waste of time. While Biggie received two more posthumous albums in 2005 and 2017, the fiasco surrounding this one ensured no one would take them seriously.
• Celebrity by *NSYNC: As the Boy Band fad of the late 90's and early 2000's was in its twilight years, this album shifted into hip-hop and R&B in an attempt to stay ahead of the curve. Though an initial commercial success, sales quickly dropped off and it ultimately undersold, becoming a Genre-Killer for boy bands in the US until the rise of One Direction in the 2010's. The group disbanded shortly after, with Justin Timberlake embarking on a successful solo career and JC Chasez became a behind-the-scenes songwriter after failing miserably to go solo himself. After the odd ocassional reunion over the years, the group would reunite proper in 2023 with "Better Place" off of the soundtrack to Trolls Band Together, although time will tell if this could signify a full comeback. Todd has also panned the lead single of the album "Pop" in his review of "Filthy" and One Hit Wonderland retrospective of "Give it to You" and dubbed it the group's worst moment implying he could have more to say about the downfall of the group and other boybands if he reviews the album.
• Gary Numan: While Numan is generally thought of as a One-Hit Wonder in the US, his clout as the man who proved the mainstream viability of Synth-Pop and his sizable influence on later musicians may make Todd wary of covering him on One Hit Wonderland. As a result, he may take interest in looking at any one of these albums on Trainwreckords instead given the notoriety of his career arc among hardcore music fans.
  • Warriors: Despite only being known among general audiences for "Cars", Numan's early albums maintained a healthy cult following that kept them charting Stateside. This album meanwhile demolished even that level of goodwill, with its Troubled Production (marked by Creative Differences with co-producer Bill Nelson) and shift to a funk-driven sound alienating fans and failing to chart in the US— Numan would never have another charting album there until 2013, and even that only hit No. 175. The album would later be credited with instigating an artistic slump for Numan, with his next seven releases continuing the approach of Warriors to increasingly diminishing results.
  • Machine + Soul: This album represented the nadir of Numan's attempts to recapture his initial success, being the last in an eight-record chain of critically reviled synth-funk albums that began with Warriors. The album was made primarily to pay off Numan's debts and nearly led him to retire from music altogether. While he eventually developed a new cult following in the mid-'90s as an industrial act, it never approached the size of even his early '80s fanbase, and he never reclaimed that initial burst of mainstream popularity from the turn of the '80s.
• Time to Move On by Billy Ocean: It came out five years after his previous success, but despite attempting to change with the times, it failed to even chart on the Billboard 200.
• Am I Not Your Girl? by Sinéad O'Connor: Her previous album quickly established her as a female rock icon, but the follow-up, a collection of jazz standards, was a critical and commercial flop, and its promotional cycle was quickly defined by the controversy surrounding O'Connor tearing up a photo of the highly popular Pope John Paul II on Saturday Night Live. Later efforts failed to restore her former momentum, and her Creator Breakdown years later only cemented that. Since O'Connor already had success in the UK before "Nothing Compares 2 U" and is famous well beyond her one hit, it's likely Todd would prefer to feature her on Trainwreckords instead of One Hit Wonderland.
• Universal by Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark: Released long after the band's heyday as Synth-Pop icons, this album attempted to bring them back into relevancy by shifting to Britpop during its peak. Instead, it was derided by critics and fans as trend-chasing, was their first album to miss the UK Top 20 since their debut, and directly led to a ten-year hiatus. Though they've seen renewed success as a legacy act since reforming, by that point they were well out of the spotlight and saw no further hit singles. OMD are another act who were far more popular in the UK than the US, but American audiences may know songs like "If You Leave" and "Enola Gay" well enough for Todd to feasibly cover them on the show.
• How to Get Everything You Ever Wanted in Ten Easy Steps by the Ordinary Boys: Also better-known outside the US, but still worth a look nonetheless. After two well-received albums, the band got surprise attention and a top 5 hit after frontman Samuel Preston's appearance on Celebrity Big Brother. However, this record moved the band into a poppier sound far removed from their ska punk roots, fueling Sell-Out claims from old and new fans alike. The album undersold, and the band broke up two years later. While they reformed, they're better-known for Preston's TV appearances than for their music.
• Idlewild by OutKast: Though fresh off the world-conquering success of 2003's Speakerboxxx/The Love Below, their divergent influences were increasingly plaguing their creative synergy: the aforementioned record, for one, was essentially two solo albums split between the members. Amid this, their follow-up proved to be even more of a gamble, a film soundtrack that attempted to combine their Alternative Hip Hop style with interwar jazz and blues to match the movie's Depression-era setting. Unsurprisingly, this experiment suffered from Troubled Production and got repeatedly delayed. Upon finally being released in 2006, the movie generated little interest and the album itself failed to live up to the hype of its predecessor. The two members of OutKast have gone their separate ways, aside from a few reunion shows in 2014.

P

• Positively Somewhere by Jennifer Paige: This was the follow-up to Paige's 1998 Self-Titled Album, which spawned the smash hit "Crush" (which peaked at #3 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart) as well as "Always You", which was a top ten hit on the Billboard Dance Chart. By the year 2001 though, Paige's brand of no-nonsense pop music (which may have fit in better during Belinda Carlisle or Madonna's 1980s heyday) now felt out of step with where popular music was at and going at the time, namely manufactured Teen Pop or heavily overproduced Glam Rap. What didn't help was that Positively Somewhere just so happened to be released a week after the September 11th terrorist attacks. Furthermore, Paige didn't release the first single (a cover of "These Days" by Bardot) until March 2002, over six months later. The album wouldn't get noticed until its European and Asian release in the summer of 2002, due to bad timing and a lack of promotion by her American label, Hollywood Records. Paige would ultimately be dropped by Hollywood Records and wouldn't release another studio album for seven years. And nowadays, Paige is solely remembered as a One-Hit Wonder due to "Crush".
• Wheelhouse by Brad Paisley: Released during the dawn of the bro-country boom, not only did this album contain the controversial duet with LL Cool J "Accidental Racist" (which Todd already discussed with The Rap Critic), it marked a severe turning point for Paisley's commercial success as a whole. Prior to its release, he was regularly topping the country charts with each new single, but since this hit shelves, he's been only a B-tier artist at-best, failing to score certifications for any of his new albums and only rarely even cracking the top 10 of the Hot Country Songs chart. While "Accidental Racist" was likely the primary factor that killed off his relevance, his inability to adapt to new trends in country music only solidified his downfall. Since country artists don't tend to flame out nearly as quickly as artists in other genres, Paisley is one of the few whose career arc lends itself plausibly to Trainwreckords.
• Reinventing the Steel by Pantera: There was tension between lead singer Phil Anselmo and the Abbott brothers in their preceding album The Great Southern Trendkill due to Anselmo's drug addiction. After the breakup of Pantera in 2003, bassist Rex Brown joined Anselmo in his other band Down while the Abbott brothers formed Damageplan, which was short lived after Dimebag Darrell was murdered by a Loony Fan during a show in Ohio in December 2004 (coincidentally on the 24th anniversary of the murder of John Lennon), and Vinnie Paul would later die of heart failure in 2018.
• LP1 by Liam Payne: Despite his solo career showing early promise, the One Direction alum's debut album was marred by a delayed production and saw abysmal reception once it finally released, exacerbated by the controversy that the track "Both Ways" generated for its fetishization of bisexual stereotypes. Its first week sales (just 9,500 copies) were so poor that it stalled at No. 111 on the Billboard 200 and No. 17 in the UK. Todd retweeted a comment criticizing Liam's public persona compared to Harry Styles (who dropped his critically acclaimed sophomore album just one week after the release of LP1), which suggests he's definitely interested in the record's failure and will likely cover it someday, provided Liam doesn't have a surprise Career Resurrection.
• No Code by Pearl Jam: Much like Kurt Cobain, Eddie Vedder despised the rapid commercialization of grunge so much that he actively attempted to sabotage Pearl Jam's mainstream success by veering into much more raucously experimental music after their breakthrough. On top of that, he refused to film music videos after "Jeremy" and led a drawn-out boycott against Ticketmaster. While these actions didn't immediately halt their commercial momentum, things finally came to a head with the release of No Code in 1996. By this point, Pearl Jam had gotten so experimental that it was debatable whether or not they still counted as grunge. Ultimately, the album sold far less than its predecessors and got polarizing reviews, signifying a mainstream decline that they would never quite recover from.
• Pixies:
  • Trompe le monde: Like the Velvet Underground, the Pixies are considered one of the greatest and most influential bands of all time by rock fanatics but never cracked the mainstream before internal drama tore them apart. Although this album hit stores just one day before Nevermind, which they had overwhelmingly influenced, its reception was comparatively lukewarm and it failed to launch them to a broader audience right when the timing was perfect. Ongoing tensions between frontman Black Francis and the rest of the band were exacerbated during the promotional tour and they broke up soon afterwards. They'd later get a Colbert Bump from Fight Club, but their time in the spotlight was firmly over by then, and while they eventually reformed in 2004, their more recent material hasn't fared well in spite of their enduring cult fanbase.
  • The Indie Cindy EPs: This series of EPs and later compilation was generally regarded as So Okay, It's Average at best, something that naturally disappointed many, given the 20-year gap since their last material, the acclaim of their preceding albums, and the amounts of quality music released by the band's members both solo and in side projects. It certainly didn't help that this was their first album not to feature founding bassist Kim Deal. It didn't tarnish their reputation, but it did make fans significantly weary towards their new works, none of which have garnered even a similar amount of acclaim.
• Right Rhythm by the Pointer Sisters: This 1990 effort to revitalize Motown backfired soundly, the album charting absolutely nowhere and the singles being blips on the alternative charts at best. They released another album afterwards that didn't go anywhere either and stopped putting out music after that point.
• Native Tongue by Poison: With hair metal shoved out of the mainstream by 1993, Poison attempted to reinvent themselves with a turn towards blues rock in the vein of The Black Crowes. This more mature approach neither won them newfound respect, nor pleased their original fans, consigning the band as more or less the quintessential victims of the grunge revolution.
• II by The Presidents of the United States of America: Their debut album made them breakout stars in the alt-rock scene, going multi-Platinum and spawning a couple hit singles. Unfortunately, their mainstream relevance was killed after the disappointing critical and commercial reception this sophomoric effort received, which barely went Gold and only contained one moderate hit on alt-rock radio. As a result, Columbia Records dropped them and while they mostly stuck around for several more albums, they've never had any commercial success afterwards.
• Having Fun with Elvis on Stage by Elvis Presley: Though it would be a stretch to call this a direct career-killer, it came out during the tepid final years of Elvis' life and has earned a special infamy in music history, being branded by analysts as one of the worst albums ever made. It contains no actual music, instead comprising solely of decontextualized ramblings from his concerts, put together and released independently by his manager in an attempt to gain more money off of the Elvis brand without paying RCA Records any royalties; RCA would buy the rights to and reissue the album anyways. As such, its release is often seen by fans and analysts as emblematic of how far Elvis' stature had fallen in such a short amount of time.
• The Rainbow Children by Prince: After a failed attempt at a comeback with 1999's Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic, this album two years later saw Prince dive headfirst into Jazz Fusion. However, its radically different style and heavy references to Prince's recent conversion to the Jehovah's Witnesses baffled audiences and turned off the majority of folks who weren't Jehovah's Witnesses. It ultimately became Prince's second-lowest-charting album, and while he eventually rebounded with Musicology in 2004, he never regained the same attention of his '80s period until after his death in 2016; Todd himself hinted that it wasn't a true comeback for Prince. In an earlier Twitter thread, Todd implied that he viewed The Rainbow Children as a viable candidate for the show (if he can dodge the threat of copyright strikes from the Prince Estate, that is).
• Muse Sick-n-Hour Mess Age by Public Enemy: Released during the height of Gangsta Rap's prominence, the album attempted to reestablish the '80s Political Rap icons as relevant forces. However, despite the duo being a major influence on gangsta rap, the album mostly attacked it instead of embracing it, leading listeners to see them as out of touch. Though most critics were kind to the album, the fan backlash made it their last Top 40 release on the Billboard 200 and their last to be certified by the RIAA, killing off the relevance they tried to preserve. In April 2020, Todd hinted that he's going to cover it eventually.
• 9 by Public Image Ltd.: The Post-Punk pioneers had long been accused of selling out with their shift to a more accessible sound in the 80's, but their albums still sold well in the UK (despite never escaping the bottom 100 in the US) and were received decently. This record however was considered a breaking point for fans and critics, with Stephen Hague's dance-oriented production being considered incongruous with PiL's avant-garde leanings. The album was their last to chart in the US, and while the band eventually made a comeback in the UK after a long hiatus, it never materialized Stateside, with frontman John Lydon's increasingly right-wing public statements instead alienating the band's mostly leftist US fanbase.
• Life on Display and/or Volume 4: Songs in the Key of Love & Hate by Puddle of Mudd: The former sent them into a downward spiral, and the latter finished off their popularity for good. Less than a year afterwards, all the original members of the group except Wes Scantlin were gone, and their only release for a long time was a cover album. In the following years, Scantlin became an alcoholic who was notorious for his obnoxious behavior on and off-stage, such as accusing a fan of stealing his house and repeated arrests. During an infamous gig in England in March 2016, Scantlin was so drunk that his bandmates walked offstage. He went to rehab in 2017. By August 2018, he was 6 months sober. Since then the band has released another album, but it has been unable to come back in any way.

Q-R

• Queen:
  • Hot Space: Though the David Bowie collaboration "Under Pressure" remains a classic, the album's clumsy blend of Glam Rock and disco (during the height of the Disco Sucks movement in the US) was a major factor in the band's American decline. Creative Differences over the album's direction bogged it down to the extent where it was reviled even outside the US, the supporting tour was disastrous, and the band nearly broke up in the fallout. While they ultimately resolved their tensions and quickly made a European comeback, they wouldn't truly recover in the US until frontman Freddie Mercury's death in 1991. Todd called the album "not great" on Twitter, mentioning that he could broaden the show's scope to cover it, and later tweeted that he was open to covering failed disco albums by white non-disco acts (which he would eventually do with Ringo Starr's Ringo the 4th)^note while Mercury was ethnically Parsi (a South Asian ethnic group with roots in Persia), his bandmates were all ethnically English.
  • The Cosmos Rocks with Paul Rodgers: A textbook Replacement Scrappy album. A Queen album fronted by anybody other than Freddie Mercury was pretty much dead on arrival, and this record's poor performance certainly didn't defy that. Not helping was the fact that, despite Freddie having apparently approved of the choice of replacement years in advance, Rodgers was considered a poor fit for Queen's eclectically theatrical style. The album ended any chance of Queen making a real comeback sans Freddie, and since then they've relegated themselves to the touring circuit only, with their sole studio release since The Cosmos Rocks being a re-recording of the Freddie-era "We Are the Champions" in 2020.
• Hear in the Now Frontier by Queensrÿche: Not only was this grunge-oriented album met with a disappointing reception, its release was hampered by the band's label going bankrupt, as well as a severely troublesome tour, which partially led to guitarist and primary songwriter Chris DeGarmo quitting. Sales and critical approval remained permanently diminished following his departure. Although Queensrÿche are technically one-hit wonders for their 1991 hit "Silent Lucidity", the rest of their catalogue is well-respected enough that they're probably a more appropriate feature for Trainwreckords than One Hit Wonderland.
• Quiet Riot:
  • Condition Critical: Much like Twisted Sister, Quiet Riot were one of the biggest bands of the first wave of Hair Metal, but after their 1984 record Condition Critical turned out a disappointment compared to their breakthrough album Metal Health, lead singer Kevin DuBrow notoriously claimed that Quiet Riot were the primary reason for hair metal's entrance into the mainstream, despite Def Leppard, Van Halen, and Mötley Crüe achieving similar levels of success around the same time they released Metal Health. This horrible act of PR led to the band losing the respect of both the mainstream public, as well as the rest of the Los Angeles hair metal scene, resulting in bassist Rudy Sarzo departing from the lineup.
  • QR III: Released at the dawn of the second wave of hair metal in 1986; their support base had been whittled down so much that the new record flopped even harder than its predecessor, and the band subsequently failed to reap the benefits of the genre's last several years of widespread popularity.
• R.E.M.:
  • New Adventures in Hi-Fi: Marked an End of an Era for the band and a downturn in their mainstream popularity following the backlash against Monster, with its initially high sales quickly dropping off. It was also their last album with drummer Bill Berry and producer Scott Litt. On Twitter, Todd said that if he had to pick between covering Monster or New Adventures, it would be the latter. Music critic Matthew Perpetua tweeted back to him noting it would be an interesting selection because unlike other albums in consideration, New Adventures is highly regarded by fans, critics, and even the band.
  • Up: Though it got Vindicated by History in later years, its sudden shift to moody, mostly downtempo electronic rock blindsided fans and critics, who previously saw New Adventures as a return to form. Fans accused the new sound of ripping off Radiohead's OK Computer from the previous year, not helped by that album's producer engineering this one. Furthermore, Bill Berry retired from music right when the album started production, which had a profound effect on the highly collaborative band's songwriting (with them comparing it to cutting off a dog's leg) and mental state, nearly breaking up from the stress of Berry's departure. All of this did much to re-alienate fans and prevent R.E.M. from making a comeback off of the goodwill that New Adventures generated, culminating in...
  • Around the Sun: After the backlash towards Up and a polarizing attempt at a middle ground on Reveal, R.E.M. planned to make this album more aggressive in the wake of The War on Terror, but a combination of Warner (Bros.) Records arm-twisting them into touring for a Greatest Hits Album and the jingoism that spawned from the Iraq War left the band severely burnt out. When it finally released, the album was criticized as dull and sluggish and underperformed so badly that it snuffed out the last of the band's declining cultural relevancy in America and galvanized fans' distaste towards the material after Bill Berry's departure. While fans eventually warmed up to Up and Reveal to varying degrees, Around the Sun remains lowly regarded, and the band themselves quickly disowned it. Accelerate and Collapse into Now were critical and commercial comebacks and were considered the enders of R.E.M.'s slump, but they didn't revitalize the band's public relevancy; they eventually broke up (albeit amicably) in 2011.
• Immobilarity by Raekwon: His mid-'90s solo debut was an instant classic that helped define the mafioso subgenre of hip hop, but this 1999 followup was panned for its poor production and unfocused lyrics. As a result, his third album missed the top 100 of the Billboard 200, and while his fourth record Only Built 4 Cuban Linx...Pt. II was considered a return to form, it failed to earn a certification.
• The Master by Rakim: While the legendary emcee made a highly successful solo comeback after splitting from Eric B. during the late '90s, his profile in the rap community plunged into insignificance following the disappointing critical and commercial reception of this album, his first to feature an Explicit Content sticker. He released one more album a decade later, which was received even worse, and has since reunited with Eric B.
• All I Feel by Ray J: Ray J, like other former child stars, wanted to have an "adult image" with this album. While "Sexy Can I" was his biggest hit, the rest of the singles tanked, the album was panned and Ray J has yet to release another studio album and, aside from the leaked sextape with former girlfriend Kim Kardashian, would ultimately fade into obscurity. If Todd reviews this, except him to make an obvious RayCon joke.
• I'm With You by Red Hot Chili Peppers: This album only went gold as opposed to several times platinum like their previous three albums, the reviews were lukewarm, there were no big singles that crossed over to pop radio (though "The Adventures of Rain Dance Maggie" hit #1 on the rock and alternative charts), and many believed new guitarist Josh Klinghoffer to be a Replacement Scrappy. He remained with the band for their next album The Getaway, which still didn't give them the crossover appeal that once they had, and when guitarist John Frusciante, who helped to put them on the map in the first place, returned in 2019, it still has yet to be seen whether they can produce more hits.
• Lou Reed:
  • The Raven: After making a substantial comeback with New York in 1989, Reed spent the '90s maintaining a sizable cult following as his reputation as one of Alternative Rock's key grandfathers grew. This album however brought that to a firm halt. Made as a tribute to the works of Edgar Allan Poe that combined a Rock Opera with an Audio Play, it was widely criticized as overlong and directionless, seeing mixed reviews from critics and becoming Reed's lowest-regarded album among fans since Metal Machine Music. Reed's only solo album afterwards was an ambient record that flew under the radar, eventually leading to...
  • Lulu with Metallica: Since Todd covered Two the Hard Way as a separate entity from Gregg Allman and Cher's independent careers, an episode for this is likely considering that Todd teased the possibility of reviewing it at the end of the St. Anger episode. Like Two the Hard Way, this misconceived collaboration was plagued by the radically contrasting sounds and ideologies of its two performers. Its lyrics were inspired by Frank Wedekind's plays, making it a high premise even by Reed's artsy standards, but the decision to feature backup by Metallica ended in complete disaster. It quickly earned a reputation as one of the worst albums in rock history, arguably overshadowing both acts' most infamous flop records (with its legacy being restricted to Memetic Mutation at best), and Reed was unable to provide anything close to a comeback on account of his death two years later.
• Natural, Everyday Degradation by Remo Drive: When their debut album Greatest Hits released to massive critical and commercial success and got the indie rock scene hailing them as "the next big thing", Natural, Everyday Degradation destroyed the band's relevancy as quickly as Greatest Hits began it. Having grown disillusioned with the emo scene, frontman Erik Paulson took the band in the opposite direction for their follow-up, even going as far as removing their pre-Greatest Hits EPs and singles from their Bandcamp. Natural, Everyday Degradation got away from the emo rock of their earlier material in favor of more polished and produced indie rock fare. The result did not go over well with audiences and critics, and the album flopped hard, dooming the band to obscurity. While the follow-up A Portrait of an Ugly Man fared better with critics, it performed even worse than Natural, Everyday Degradation, making a comeback highly unlikely.
• Ride:
  • Carnival of Light: One of the most acclaimed and influential names in shoegaze, Ride went from being a cult critical darling with their acclaimed debut Nowhere, to surprise superstars with the just-as-loved (if not even more) Going Blank Again, which saw them taking a poppier direction that greatly influenced the burgeoning Britpop scene, and earned them a top 10 UK hit with "Leave Them All Behind". The band faced heavy pressure to follow up TWO acclaimed albums, and slowly grew more and more dysfunctional regarding the musical direction they should've taken, which really showed on their final two albums. For Carnival of Light, the band moved away from shoegazing to a psychedelic 60's-flavored sound, which produced mixed results. None of the album's singles charted beyond the top 30, and the band sees it as an Old Shame, with Bell and Gardener really regretting the fights they had during its production. (In fact, the band were calling it "Carnival of Shite" by the end of the year it was released!)
  • Tarantula: If Carnival of Light had slivers of the band's dysfunction, then Tarantula was where it really began to show. Frontmen Andy Bell and Mark Gardener normally wrote songs together, but on this album Gardener wrote only one while Bell wrote the rest, a sign to just how much their tension affected their ability to make meaningful music. The album was lambasted by critics, the band broke up before it was released, and only a week after its release their record label pulled it from print. It would be decades before the band officially reunited.
• Son of Albert by Andrew Ridgeley: Unlike his former Wham! bandmate, George Michael, Ridgeley failed to launch a solo career with this album which was heavily panned by critics and was largely ignored by the public with the album failing to crack the top 100 on Billboard 200 and its lead single "Shake" failed to crack the top 50 of the Billboard Hot 100. Columbia eventually dropped him shortly afterward and he subsequently left the music industry altogether since and hasn't put out any material since.
• Twisted Angel by LeAnn Rimes: Due to struggles with her management team, Rimes' career suffered from genre whiplash and quickly disintegrated throughout the early 2000s. With more creative freedom, this record was supposed to be a fresh start, focusing primarily on the pop stylings of "Can't Fight the Moonlight" and largely breaking clean from her country roots. With the teen pop genre basically dead by the time of its release, the record completely tanked and she never found much global success ever again. Todd hinted in the Faith Hill episode that a Trainwreckords video for this album will definitely be in the works down the road.
• Rock Star Supernova by Rock Star Supernova: Similar to Switch above, this album was the product of the failed sing-off competition show Rock Star, but whereas that album was at least a modest commercial success despite its divisive reception, Rock Star Supernova was a failure in every sense of the word. Because Mark Burnett couldn't attract another band that had lost its lead singer for season 2, the winner would instead front Supernova, a supergroup comprised of Jason Newsted, Tommy Lee, and Gilby Clarke. Shortly before Lukas Rossi was crowned the victor, Supernova were forced to add the series title to their name after being sued by another band also named Supernova. When their debut album finally came out a few months later, it was critically savaged and didn't even make the top 100 of the Billboard 200. The band itself broke up just two years later, while the show was never renewed for a third season.
• Bridges to Babylon by The Rolling Stones: Following in the footsteps of U2, the Stones attempted to reinvent themselves as an ironic electro-rock band for Generation X, an approach that only served to cement their reputation as aging has-beens, with its glut of co-producers (at least eight) leading to a sound criticized as incoherent. The leadoff single, "Anybody Seen My Baby?", while moderately successful, wasn't enough to save the record. Though they've remained arena-fillers to this day, they've only put out three studio albums, one of which being a Cover Album, since the release of this one.
• Diana Ross:
  • Silk Electric: She had a big comeback in the early '80s with Diana and her #1 duet with Lionel Richie, "Endless Love". This, however, failed to match the popularity of its predecessors, with the song "Muscles" being especially divisive.
  • Eaten Alive: Infamous for the widely panned Title Track, this record completely killed her commercial relevance, despite the success of "Chain Reaction" in Britain and Australasia. While her 1991 song "When You Tell Me That You Love Me" was a big hit in Europe, it flopped in the US.
• Roxette:
  • Tourism: Comprised primarily of songs originally planned (but not recorded) for their previous two albums, this record's novelty was that it was recorded in various locales during the band's Join the Joyride! Tour, rather than just a traditional studio setting. This unorthodox hybrid concept baffled the American public, which had no idea whether to classify it as a real followup to Joyride or just a side-project. Amidst the rise of grunge, the record absolutely bombed in the US, peaking at a pitiful #117 on the Billboard 200 and forcing the duo to focus primarily on Europe from thereon out.
  • Crash! Boom! Bang!: Like Tourism, this was an international success that bombed in America due to unconventional marketing. In this case, the whole 15-track album was not issued in the US at first; instead, an abridged ten-track version was sold exclusively through McDonald's of all places, a move that angered and alienated music retailers and others in the industry. The McDonald's version of the album sold about one million copies, but those units did not count to its official sales numbers, and Crash! did not chart in the US as a result. While "Sleeping in My Car" was a decent hit on pop radio, the band never recovered stateside after this fiasco.
• Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band by RSO Records: This infamous Beatles covers album soundtracked the maligned 1978 film of the same name and not only led to the downfall of '70s musical giant RSO Records, but was also a primary factor that fueled the disco backlash, which would reach a critical limit a year later at a certain baseball game. Notable victims of this disaster include Peter Frampton, whose career was already in jeopardy after his polarizing I'm In You album, as well as the Bee Gees, whose stateside career ultimately wouldn't survive the downfall of disco, despite two more #1 hits on their next album, both of which Todd mentioned in a Twitter reply in 2023.
• Grand Romantic by Nate Ruess: After their massive breakthrough in 2012, Fun decided to go on hiatus with the band's lead singer taking their unfinished third album and attempting to go solo. However, the album failed to make an impact with the public ignoring the singles, critics being lukewarm at best, and the album quickly slipping off the Billboard 200. Unlike his former bandmate Jack Antonoff who became a massive pop music producer, Ruess has done very little in the music industry since this album.
• Americana by Leon Russell: Throughout the '70s, Leon Russell was a widely acclaimed singer and songwriter who won countless awards and left a major imprint on the rock music of the decade. This widely lambasted disco misadventure, however, all but wrecked his momentum, and aside from one album with Willie Nelson the following year, he spent the rest of his career in relative obscurity.

S

• Brand New by Salt-N-Pepa: After a string of huge hit singles and albums from the late '80s and '90s, this pioneering trio of female hip hop fell apart when they made this album without longtime producer Hurby "Luv Bug" Azor. Not only was reception towards the new record largely unfavorable, it suffered from an extreme case of bad luck when their new label, Red Ant Records, filed for bankruptcy at the time of its release, causing its singles to linger without promotion. While the group still performs today, they have not released a new album since this one's failure.
• Santana:
  • Shaman: Its predecessor Supernatural was a blockbuster comeback album from the height of the late '90s Latin craze, but this didn't generate nearly as much interest, despite one top 5 hit written by New Radicals frontman, Gregg Alexander. Todd mentioned "The Game of Love" in his review of his "One Hit Wonderland" episode on the New Radicals and hinted he did like it.
  • All That I Am: The band's late-career comeback fizzled out completely with this record, which not only got mostly unfavorable reviews but also contained the notorious MediaMax software that prevented consumers from uploading physical copies to their iTunes library.
  • Guitar Heaven: The Greatest Guitar Classics of All Time: Unlike the former two albums, which merely continued the stylings of Supernatural to diminishing returns, this record was an experimental Genre Roulette of reimagined classic rock songs. The sheer bizarreness of some of these covers may pique Todd's interest.
• Human Being by Seal: Despite its share of defenders, its Darker and Edgier content alienated fans at the time expecting more of the uplifting soul that defined his first two records. It was a miserable commercial flop, failing to produce any charting singles. The Troubled Production and ultimate cancellation of the intended followup album, Togetherland, ensured that Seal would never grace the top 40 again.
• Unborn Child by Seals & Crofts: A Concept Album about an abortion told from the fetus' perspective, the combination of this Audience-Alienating Premise and the awful timing of its release (just after Roe v. Wade) led many radio stations to ban it entirely. The National Organization for Women even "awarded" the duo with their "Keep Her in Her Place" award (along with Paul Anka's "(You're) Having My Baby") for male chauvinism that year. Though they had a few solid hits afterwards, their overall sales figures firmly declined and they ultimately faded into obscurity apart from this record. Todd was appalled upon looking it up at the request of one of his followers, so it's likely that its still-controversial nature is juicy enough for him to make a whole episode out of. That said, as abortion is still an immensely hot-button topic in the United States— where the majority of Todd's audience comes from— covering the album in depth may be difficult.
• Philosophy of the World by The Shaggs: This one is possibly unlikely because it garnered several fans years later, most notably Kurt Cobain, and even Todd himself loves it. However, the absurd amateurism of the album has earned it a special place in rock infamy, so it could be worth analyzing anyway, especially since Todd also liked Cyberpunk in spite of its oddities.
• Lucky Day by Shaggy: With dancehall quickly growing in popularity during the early 2000s, the rest of the decade appeared promising for him, especially coming off the enormous success of Hot Shot, which produced back-to-back #1 hits with "It Wasn't Me" and "Angel". Despite this, the lead single to this followup record "Hey Sexy Lady" didn't even chart on the Hot 100, in spite of its appearance in Kangaroo Jack, while the album itself only went Gold. In the aftermath of the album's colossal failure, Shaggy fell immediately off the radar, while Sean Paul immediately replaced him as the #1 pop reggae star on the heels of his breakout album Dutty Rock, which was released just two weeks later. Shaggy did have one minor hit in 2015, "I Need Your Love", but never came anywhere close to genuine stardom ever again.
• Simple Plan: Todd has mentioned his hatred for Simple Plan a few times before (notably, his first stab at music criticism was a review of "Welcome to My Life" on Livejournal), so he could finally go into further detail on about why he absolutely despises them by covering either of these albums:
  • Still Not Getting Any...: Whereas their first album was a generally lighthearted affair, this had more attempts at serious "message" songs, including the wildly infamous "Untitled". However, rather than giving the band more credibility, it instead gave major ammunition to their detractors, solidifying their reputation as a wangsty "corporate punk" group despite the album's initial commercial success.
  • Simple Plan: This was their attempt at a Darker and Edgier album focusing on more mature themes rather than the wangstful content they were infamous for. However, critical reception wasn't better than their previous work, and it failed to get certified in any country besides their native Canada, ending their commercial relevance. While their next album did contain a major international hit in "Summer Paradise", its success was largely boosted by the song's guest appearance of Sean Paul and it didn't go anywhere in the US.
• I Am Me by Ashlee Simpson: A few months after the release of Ashlee's smash debut Autobiography, her reputation as a more talented and authentic counterpart to her older sister was quickly ruined, first with an infamous lip-syncing scandal on Saturday Night Live, then with a halftime concert at the 2005 Orange Bowl that went down so badly that she was booed off at the end of her performance. She rushed this album out later in 2005 as damage control, but despite the initial success of "Boyfriend" and "L.O.V.E.", the record did little to reverse her shattered image, and aside from a few acting roles, she's been a complete has-been ever since. Interestingly, Todd has argued on Twitter that the reason the SNL incident damaged her career so badly was not the lipsyncing per se, but that no one really liked her that much even at her peak popularity, and the incident gave people an excuse to drop her from their lives.
• Do You Know by Jessica Simpson: A disastrous Genre Shift album from a former pop princess trying to go country, which only served to earn ridicule from the country music press.
• The Yellow Album by The Simpsons: While this album isn't from an actual band or artist, the events surrounding the record and just the sheer novelty of it being a Simpsons album might be too irresistible for Todd to not cover. After the success of The Simpsons Sing the Blues and its smash single "Do the Bartman", the show's producer James L. Brooks wanted to produce a follow-up album. Despite initially boasting guest appearances from Prince, C&C Music Factory, and Linda Ronstadt (only the latter showed up in the final album), it missed its original release date of February 1993 when Matt Groening objected to the album. It wasn't released until over five years later when it was quietly dropped to poor reviews and non-existent sales, killing off any chances of another Simpsons LP of original material.
• Frank Sinatra: Though the rise of rock had shoved him off to the sidelines in the 60's, Sinatra still commanded respect and saw continued commercial success up through the start of the 80's. Given this plus Sinatra's massive importance to pop as a whole (being one of the genre's first true stars), Todd might find it worth looking into any of these albums:
  • Trilogy: Past Present Future: While the album was a commercial success and generated Sinatra's last hit with a Cover Version of "Theme from New York, New York", it earned mixed responses for its triple-LP length (at a time when the Multi-Disc Work was falling out of favor with the industry) and especially the suite that makes up the third LP, a mini-Concept Album about the distant future widely regarded as the most bizarre entry in the Sinatra canon. Retrospective assessments have been similarly lukewarm, and its middling reception contributed to the Acclaimed Flop status of its follow-up, She Shot Me Down, whose underperformance marked the final death of the first incarnation of Sinatra's vanity label, Reprise Records. While Sinatra was still a visible figure after 1980, his relevance as a pop giant was firmly over after Trilogy.
  • L.A. Is My Lady: This album in 1984 attempted to modernize Sinatra's traditional pop style with the help of R&B icon Quincy Jones, but only attracted tepid audience responses (with retrospective reviews being similarly lukewarm despite initial critical praise), saw just one hit on the adult contemporary chart, and became his lowest-charting album since the Vindicated by History Watertown 14 years prior. The poor performance of the record would immediately stall Ol' Blue Eyes' momentum, becoming his last solo release after the planned follow-up in 1988 fell through.
  • Duets and/or Duets II: Released roughly a decade after L.A. Is My Lady, they marked a commercial comeback for Sinatra (becoming the best-selling albums of his entire career), but only continued to split fans and critics thanks to their production coming off as half-hearted. Specifically, not only did Sinatra's guest vocalists record their parts remotely rather than alongside him in the studio, but both albums consisted entirely of re-recordings of earlier hits, cementing Sinatra's status as a legacy act just before complications of old age forced him into retirement.
• Return of Dragon by Sisqó: After his meteoric rise to fame in the mid-to-late '90s as the frontman of Dru Hill, his debut solo album Unleash the Dragon was an explosive success, thanks to the worldwide popularity of "Thong Song" and "Incomplete". Only a year later though, his followup failed to chart any hot 100 singles, and despite one more moderate hit with Dru Hill, nowadays he tends to be misclassified as a cheesy one-hit wonder for "Thong Song". In the Song vs. Song podcast, Todd noted that he had listened to the beginning of this album and was absolutely appalled by how badly mixed it was, due to Sisqó relying on personal friends to produce the record instead of seasoned professionals.
• Sly and the Family Stone:
  • Small Talk: Though pioneers of the psychedelic soul movement in the late '60s, by the early '70s, the band was hanging on by a string, due to Sly's heavy drug use and erratic behavior that caused him to regularly miss concerts, much like Lauryn Hill decades later. While they released the massively successful New Sound Album There's a Riot Goin' On in 1971, their last two albums, Fresh and especially Small Talk, didn't fare as well with audiences and critics, and they finally disbanded after a disastrous gig at New York’s Radio City Music Hall in 1975.
  • Heard Ya Missed Me, Well I'm Back: After his first solo album went nowhere commercially, Sly attempted to revive the Family Stone with this record, despite being a full band effort In Name Only (Cynthia Robinson was the sole member from the original group besides Sly himself to contribute to the album). The resulting album got abysmal reviews and flopped hard commercially, causing Epic Records to drop him the following year.
  • Ain't but the One Way: While Sly's career was already dead in the water by 1982, this record's Troubled Production could make for a lot of interesting content, and it was also the final album the band released of any kind. Responding to a tweet suggesting a Sly episode including the aforementioned albums and Back on the Right Track, Todd said he's "considered it but I'm not sure which one would qualify".
• Smash Mouth by Smash Mouth: This ska-punk/60s revival band was one of the most successful pop acts of the late 1990s, but heavy exposure through film soundtrack spots quickly painted them as a cheesy fad. Additionally, this album's release was delayed by several months due to the death of frontman Steve Harwell's son. Consequently, when it finally came out in November 2001, not only were they facing a ton of Hype Backlash, but 9/11 had rendered their summery aesthetic gauche. The record's first non-movie single leaned into their bubblegum sellout reputation more explicitly than ever, missing the Hot 100, and the album itself barely moved any units, killing their momentum pretty much overnight. The death of Harwell's son also instigated the alcoholism that would escalate the band's public decline thanks to his increasingly erratic behavior, culminating in his retirement in 2021 and death two years later. Nowadays, Smash Mouth is an Internet punchline, only truly remembered for the use of "All Star" in Shrek^note at least, by members of Generation Z - "Walkin' On The Sun" and "I'm A Believer" are pretty well-known to Gen X and Millennials (to the band's vocal resentment). Todd said in the Song vs. Song podcast that he started to hate "All Star" after initially liking it due to overexposure at the time, so he should be able to recall the abrupt downfall of Smash Mouth by personal experience.
• The Smashing Pumpkins:
  • Adore: Though Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness brought them to their biggest heights yet, this 1998 follow-up was marred by creative tensions between the band as a result of multiple personal issues and growing public backlash compounding on top of each other, leading frontman Billy Corgan to take the reins of the album's production with an iron grip. While the end result was critically acclaimed, its gothic image and shift to electronic rock divided fans and resulted in it significantly underselling. Todd hinted here that he considers the album a definite career-killer, but since he doesn't like to cover albums that he likes, he may prefer to cover one of the following two records instead.
  • Machina / The Machines of God: This album tried to be both an ambitious concept album as well as something of a return to form to the band, following their more subdued and electronic-influenced style on Adore. In the end, it became the band's lowest-selling album to date (prior to 2018's Shiny and Oh So Bright), and none of its singles reached the Billboard Hot 100 (Jimmy Chamberlain remarked "It was like watching your kid flunking out of school after getting straight A's for ten years"). The band would enter a 6-year hiatus shortly after its release.
  • Zeitgeist: An enormously failed attempt at a comeback after the band reunited following their hiatus. Though they've remained active since then, they've gone through countless lineup changes and have never come anywhere close to matching the success they achieved in the '90s. The band would only continue to harm their attempts at recovering their mainstream success in later years with Corgan's increasingly right-wing views and public statements, which alienated the predominantly left-leaning fanbase for Alternative Rock and resulted in the band's own fans treating him as a pariah (in the vein of how Morrissey is treated by most fans of The Smiths), and while Adore eventually got Vindicated by History, Machina and Zeitgeist are both viewed as the true beginning of the end for the Smashing Pumpkins (though at the very least the former's singles are fan-favorites).
• Reincarnated by Snoop Lion: Of Snoop's several post-Doggystyle misadventures, this one is easily his most infamous. Having converted to Rastafarianism upon traveling to Jamaica, Snoop rechristened himself as a reggae musician and released this in 2013. Not only was the general public unsure how to react to this abrupt Genre Shift, but actual Rastafarians vehemently disapproved of Snoop's new direction, believing he did not genuinely appreciate the religion and was mostly just embracing it as a publicity stunt and excuse to get high. Almost immediately, Snoop moved on from this strange chapter in his life as if it had never happened.
• The DeAndre Way by Soulja Boy: This pop-rapper became a superstar practically overnight with "Crank That" and while his second album didn't contain any songs as near-inescapable as his breakthrough hit, it did feature two Top 20 singles (with "Kiss Me thru the Phone" in particular making its way up to #3). However, this record relegated him to a fad of the late '00s, only debuting at #90 and including one minor Top 40 hit with the other singles completely missing the Hot 100. Unsurprisingly, Interscope Records dropped him quickly after this flopped and while he's still recording mixtapes to this day, he's been Condemned by History ever since. Todd indicated in the "This Is Why I'm Hot" OHW that Soulja Boy was doomed from the outset by his "ringtone rap" sound, but this album may offer a chance to further examine why his career couldn't last.
• Forever by Spice Girls: Haunted by the recent departure of Ginger Spice, loss of manager Simon Fuller, and a growing Hype Backlash, the Spice Girls very quickly went from the biggest act in pop to washed up magnets of ridicule in the US by the time they released this in 2000. In the absence of strong marketing, this album was seen as just another disposable CD in an era where Destiny's Child were setting the standard for girl groups. Aside from the advanced lead single "Goodbye", none of its songs even charted on the Hot 100. The record's dismal reception would lead to a drought of UK crossover pop hits in America that would last for the entirety of the 2000s.
• Signs of Life by Billy Squier: After two highly successful albums off of the MTV craze of the early 80s, the infamous music video for the album's lead single "Rock Me Tonite" absolutely wrecked his rockstar image, which he readily admitted as such, ultimately becoming what the album is primarily remembered for and ensuring he would never see top 40 success again (except through sampling).
• Gaucho by Steely Dan: Coming off the huge popularity of their 1977 album Aja, this LP took three years to finally hit stores, in stark contrast to the band's previous album-a-year schedule from 1972 to 1977. While its two singles were both successful, the album's reception was much more polarizing than their '70s material, due to its heavy post-disco influence and simpler sound. Creative Differences and Walter Becker's ongoing drug problems caused them to split soon afterwards. While the band finally reformed in 1993 and put out two more studio albums in the early 2000s to critical acclaim and commercial success, they never reclaimed the relevance of their '70s material. Becker's death in 2017 and the subsequent royalty dispute with his estate further put the chances of a proper comeback album in serious doubt even after Donald Fagen's decision to continue Steely Dan himself.
• Italian X Rays by Steve Miller Band: Although the band enjoyed a Career Resurrection in the early MTV era with the Platinum-selling Abracadabra and its eponymous #1 single, their newfound momentum quickly crashed when they delved into straight-up Synth-Pop on this followup album, which got harsh reviews and only produced one extremely minor hit. Since then, they've been strictly niche. Todd has previously referred to Steve Miller as the "Pat Monahan of his day" (despite really liking him), so he may have quite a ball covering this album, on which the band's corniness became too extreme even for the '80s.
• Back to Earth by Cat Stevens: Not only was it a commercial flop, its release coincided with Stevens' conversion to Islam, his interpretation of which led him to abandon the mainstream music industry altogether for several years and resulted in controversy in 1989 after he made comments supporting Ayatollah Khomeini's fatwa against writer Salman Rushdie. While Stevens eventually rejoined the pop world with An Other Cup in 2006 and scored his first top 40 album in the US since Back to Earth with Tell 'Em I'm Gone in 2014, none of his 21st century albums have seen as much public visibility as his '70s output.
• Blondes Have More Fun by Rod Stewart: While this album certainly didn't halt Stewart's commercial success, which would continue into the early '90s, it was a permanent negative turning point for his reputation, reducing him from a respected singer/songwriter to a perceived trend-chaser. Of particular note here is the divisive single "Da Ya Think I'm Sexy", which Disco Sucks ambassador Steve Dahl parodied as "Da Ya Think I'm Disco". Todd himself criticized "Da Ya Think I'm Sexy" alongside other songs of rock bands trying disco in his One Hit Wonderland episode of "Play that Funky Music" calling it "terrible" implying that he could have more to say on the song if he does cover the album.
• Second Coming by The Stone Roses: The album's infamous spell in Development Hell and the fallout could potentially make an interesting episode. While "Love Spreads" was a big hit on rock radio in the USA, the band is mostly forgotten in North America, but despite this, both this and Happy Mondays' Yes Please! are under consideration, though Todd feels it may be hard to contextualize them for American audiences given their lack of popularity west of the Atlantic.
• The Incredible Machine by Sugarland: A contrived steampunk approach to a country-pop duo led to wildly mixed reception outside the lead single, and the third single became their lowest-charting to date. In addition to the album's mixed reception, the duo got hit by scads of lawsuits due to a stage collapse at the Indiana State Fair and went on hiatus. While they did record one album in 2018, it utterly bombed and the stage collapse has caused their entire career to be Overshadowed by Controversy.
• Underclass Hero by Sum 41: After their previous album Chuck saw them move into a more Darker and Edgier and mature direction, this album saw them return to the Pop Punk that made them a household name. However, they did this by releasing a Concept Album a-la Green Day's American Idiot, a few years after the craze had died out, centered around personal topics such as politics. The album ended up receiving marginal reviews, and even though it became their highest-charting album in America, it didn't produce any hits on Billboard's rock airplay charts, where bands like Avenged Sevenfold and Linkin Park were making similar statements but with much more success. Even though they enjoyed a critical comeback in the mid-2010s after frontman Deryck Whibley's recovery from his alcohol abuse that almost killed him, the albums they released since then were only successes in Canada, and didn't return them to their early 2000s heyday. Should the album be covered, expect Todd to also compare it to American Life and Witness where, despite being billed as a political statement album, very little of the album is political at all and the majority of it are about Whibley's emotional issues.
• Cats Without Claws by Donna Summer: Released shortly after the rumors of her making anti-LGBT+ comments, which alienated an overwhelming portion of her fanbase, this record not only received poor reviews upon release, but also only peaked at #40 on the Billboard 200, ultimately becoming her first album since her 1974 debut to not get an RIAA certification, despite one moderate hit. She enjoyed a commercial comeback during the late '80s with the help of Stock Aitken Waterman, but by that point, her days as a pop cultural icon were long behind her.
• Supertramp:
  • ...Famous Last Words...: The highly anticipated follow-up to Breakfast in America was marred by conflicts between songwriters Rick Davies and Roger Hodgson. Hodgson had moved from Los Angeles to the Sierra Nevada foothills to raise his family and was embracing a more spiritual lifestyle, while the rest of the band remained in L.A. Hodgson was also uncomfortable with Davies' wife managing the band. Both men would ultimately record their parts in their own home studios. The resulting album was criticized for weak songwriting and production, only going gold and failing to generate any lasting hits. Hodgson left the band after the conclusion of the supporting tour, and Supertramp never regained its previous heights.
  • Free as a Bird: They had been gradually fading from prominence during the course of the eighties, but this last ditch attempt to stay relevant solidified their demise. Like many other veteran acts, the band changed their sound to be more electronic, but this ended up backfiring horribly, as the album bombed hard on the charts and got woeful reviews, even as "I'm Beggin' You" surprisingly topped the dance charts, leading to their breakup the following year. The resulting live album, Live '88, wasn't even released in the United States. Despite reuniting in 1997, they were never able to recover the magic.

T

• No Mercy by T.I.: After he emerged one of the biggest names in hip hop during the late 2000s, the lukewarm reception to this followup quickly sent his career down a spiral. In contrast to his signature Paper Trail's triple-Platinum certification, No Mercy only went Gold, with only one of its songs ("That's All She Wrote" with Eminem) even reaching the top 20. Aside from his guest verse on Robin Thicke's "Blurred Lines", he was never commercially relevant again, even after Trap Music entered its golden period in the mid-to-late 2010s.
• Revolver by T-Pain: Despite the success of “5 O’Clock” (which Todd has already lambasted), this album bombed due to the death of the Auto-Tune distortion fad; Travis Scott would later resurrect the trend, but T-Pain still found himself out of luck.
• Zinc Alloy and the Hidden Riders of Tomorrow by T. Rex: For three years in the early '70s, T. Rex were one of the biggest names in music in the UK, notching 11 consecutive top 10 hits, including four #1 singles. That streak ended with this album, a muddled attempt by band leader Marc Bolan to further integrate American funk music into the band's glam rock sound, featuring several complex but hard-to-follow narrative songs. The album alienated T. Rex fans when it was released and was ripped apart by critics, and caused the band to go into a slump they were only just beginning to recover from when Bolan died in a car accident in 1977.
• Talking Heads:
  • True Stories: Coming off of Stop Making Sense and Little Creatures, the band had reached the height of their popularity and influence. By the late 1980s, however, they were in total disarray as frontman David Byrne clashed with the rest of the members thanks to a mix of Creative Differences and his own perfectionism. Their 1986 record True Stories, a studio-recorded counterpart to the Byrne-directed film of the same name, was created to sate executive demand, and though "Wild Wild Life" was a moderate hit, the album itself sold poorly and immediately gained a reputation as the band's black sheep. Byrne himself went on to disown the album, and in hindsight it's generally considered the point of no return for Talking Heads, changing their image from respected innovators to cheesy unit-shifters.
  • Naked: Byrne was given more artistic freedom again, allowing him to return to the improvised worldbeat of Remain in Light and Speaking in Tongues. Despite critics and the band themselves seeing it as a return to form, it was only marginally better-received by fans, remaining fairly divisive to this day. It sold no better than True Stories and failed to produce any major hit singles. The album's best known song, "(Nothing But) Flowers", was not a major success in its time, and none of the other songs are as fondly remembered. Naked would ultimately be Talking Heads' last album; Byrne would dissolve the band three years later to focus on his solo career, and Talking Heads' reputation wouldn't truly recover until the 21st century. Given that Byrne's direct solo sequel to Naked is much more liked among fans despite its identical style, Todd may find it worth examining what led to this disparity in opinion.
  • No Talking, Just Head: An attempted comeback without David Byrne as "the Heads," instead featuring a variety of guest vocalists. In response, Byrne sued the band for trademark infringement, delaying the album's release. When it finally dropped in 1996, critics and audiences alike considered its attempts at modernizing Talking Heads for the '90s disjointed and directionless without Byrne's distinct charisma, leading it to bomb commercially. No Talking destroyed any chance of a true comeback for the band, who avoid discussing it to this day, and the album saw zero reissues until a CD repressing in 2020. Furthermore, although Byrne eventually made a mainstream comeback in the 2010s and maintains a Neil Young-esque position as an elder alternative pop statesman, the Heads' main members quickly fell from public attention beyond a one-off collaboration with Gorillaz in 2001 and Chris Frantz publishing a memoir, Remain in Love, in 2020 (tellingly, said memoir omits No Talking, which Frantz still considers too difficult to discuss).
• Tears for Fears: Todd loves Tears for Fears and considers "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" one of his favorite songs of all time, so he may be interested in examining why the band's success didn't last longer.
  • The Seeds of Love: After the overwhelming praise and success of Songs from the Big Chair, anticipation was high for this album, which finally dropped four years after its predecessor. Unfortunately, it suffered from a turbulent and expensive production, and while it's now been Vindicated by History, reception at the time was lukewarm thanks to its much proggier direction. Bassist and co-vocalist Curt Smith left the band in the fallout, and while "Sowing the Seeds of Love" was a hit, the rest of the singles failed to garner traction and the band mostly fell off the radar thereafter.
  • Raoul and the Kings of Spain: While the Troubled Production of The Seeds of Love and the departure of Curt Smith did much to hamper the band's momentum, Elemental afterwards generated enough sales and critical goodwill to make it seem like the band could potentially bounce back. This follow-up, however, baffled audiences with its far more conceptual tone, being an examination of both family relationships and Roland Orzabal's Spanish heritage, and while it eventually got Vindicated by History, it considerably undersold, putting Tears for Fears on ice for nearly a decade. Curt Smith eventually rejoined the band in 2000 on better terms and "Break It Down Again" from Elemental still sees occasional airplay, but it's radio play doesn't rival most of the band's '80s hits, and nothing from this album onwards is widely represented outside of dyed-in-the-wool fans.
• The Pick of Destiny by Tenacious D: The soundtrack to the movie of the same name, in comparison to their platinum-selling self-titled debut, failed to get a certification from the RIAA, and had a more mixed reception. While Jack Black's acting career continued to do well, Tenacious D's mainstream relevance more or less ended thanks to the film's failure at the box office and the soundtrack's association thereof, which they themselves detailed in the title track of their followup album.
• Blue by Third Eye Blind: Their self-titled debut album was massive success that spawned multiple hit singles, but the band had to deal with a badly Troubled Production for their Darker and Edgier follow-up. Not only was there pressure from their record label, but a lot of tension was brewing between frontman Stephan Jenkins and lead guitarist Kevin Cadogan, which ended on the band firing Cadogan just days after touring begun. When the record was finally released, only one of its singles did well and the album's sales were very disappointing compared to its predecessor. They never achieved any mainstream success again afterwards. Todd mentioned the band's decline in popularity (and that he was a fan) in his Crown Royal Trainwreckord while also stating that he thought Blue was underwhelming.
• America by Thirty Seconds to Mars: This album was met by almost universally scathing reviews and made multiple "worst albums of the year" lists, due to its perceived attempt at cashing in on the popularity of Trap Music and the electronic Arena Rock made popular by Imagine Dragons. Shortly after the album's release, guitarist Tomo Miličević announced his departure from the band. In the years since this album's release, frontman Jared Leto's reputation has continuously gone downhill due to stories of his creepy behavior getting more and more attention online and due to his much-maligned performances in House of Gucci and Morbius, thus making a musical comeback increasingly unlikely.
• Vermillion by The Three O'Clock: This LA neo-psychedelic band were part of the influential Paisley Underground scene alongside The Bangles, and they had gained a devoted fan in Prince, whose own music was veering towards psychedelia in the mid '80s. Prince signed the Three O'Clock to his Paisley Park label for this album and wrote its lead single "Neon Telephone". However, the album was a dud that was criticized by the band's college rock fanbase for being too slick and mainstream-sounding, and it didn't catch on with mainstream rock listeners either. The album was such a disaster that the Three O'Clock broke up shortly after its release.
• Timbaland:
  • Indecent Proposal with Magoo: Early in his career, Timbaland's main starring roles were on his albums with the rapper Magoo. While their 1997 debut Welcome to Our World was a major success, propelled by its groundbreaking production and diverse showcase of guest talent, the novelty had worn off considerably by the time they released their sophomore effort four years later. It yielded zero hits and was promptly forgotten. After one more album that went nowhere, the duo disbanded in 2004. Although Timbaland found plenty more success as a producer afterward (most notably with artists such as Justin Timberlake and Nelly Furtado, in addition to two solo albums), Magoo on the other hand ended up falling into obscurity, probably because most people never considered him a great rapper to begin with and only gave him a pass because of Timbaland's beats. Additionally, the aforementioned final album by the duo would be Magoo's last before his death in 2023.
  • Shock Value II: The album that sank Timbaland's career as an in-demand producer except for Empire and a few songs he made for Justin Timberlake, including "Filthy".
• Man of the Woods by Justin Timberlake: This was a Concept Album on which Timberlake invoked his southern country roots as a guiding theme for his usual dance/R&B style. The result was widely panned, and despite country-pop crossovers being huge at the time, the singles lost steam quickly and ended what was left of his credibility as a pop megastar, not helped by his coinciding Super Bowl performance. Todd already thrashed "Filthy", described the album as Justin trying to "reverse engineer bro country", with similarly unfavorable results, and said in his Worst Hit Songs of 2018 video that the entire album was "a Trainwreckord and a half, stay tuned on that one". In 2019, Todd mentioned that he was waiting to see whether or not Timberlake recovered on his followup before proceeding with the episode for Man of the Woods. Said followup, Everything I Thought It Was, finally dropped in 2024 to lukewarm reception, stalling at #4 on the Billboard 200^note His first album not to hit #1 since his breakout debut Justified and failing to chart any of its tracks in the week following its release aside from the advanced lead single "Selfish", which only peaked at #19^note 10 spots lower than both of Man of the Woods' main hits despite more longevity than "Filthy" and got a bashing from Todd on Twitter. Compounding matters were unflattering revelations about Justin in ex-girlfriend Britney Spears' autobiography The Woman in Me, as well as Justin's return to *NSYNC reversing the strenuously maintained independence that defined his solo career^note With *NSYNC featuring on a Justin Timberlake album for the first time on Everything I Thought It Was. As a result, it's now likely that the Man of the Woods video is officially on its way.
• Isolation by Toto: Though Toto IV was one of the biggest albums of 1982, this followup didn't do so hot, selling barely a fraction of its predecessor's figures and not even yielding a top 20 hit. Fans were not pleased with the record's more MTV-oriented sound, nor the new vocalist Fergie Frederickson. Although Toto had one more big hit in 1986 and a moderate one in 1988, this marked the clear end of their reign as one of the biggest bands in the world.
• a girl, a bottle, a boat by Train: Ignoring the obvious pun, this could make for a worthwhile episode of Trainwreckords for the same reasons as Generation Swine, Crash, and Lost and Found – while Bulletproof Picasso was what truly ended Pat Monahan's relevance, this album put a particularly undignified end to his career despite being slightly more successful than its predecessor. The lead single "Play That Song" gave Train one last minor hit, but was savaged as one of the worst songs of all time (with an average RYM rating of less than 1.00), and the rest of the album didn't fare any better. Train wouldn't release another studio album for five years (their longest gap between albums to date), and the result, AM Gold, came and went with little fanfare. Todd has mentioned that he never tires of sharing "Play That Song" with others, so he may decide to cover this album so that he can talk about it in-depth.
• Shania Twain:
  • Up!: Despite going Diamond, its popularity and long-term relevance were nowhere near as enduring as its predecessor, the international blockbuster Come On Over, which went twice Diamond. Twain's recording career would ultimately go into hibernation for 15 years, until the release of...
  • Now: Coming out several years after her turn-of-the-millennium heyday, this record failed to make any mainstream impact or even earn an American certification, despite country music's relative tolerance for veteran acts. Not helping were her subsequent comments claiming she would've voted for Trump in the 2016 United States Presidential Election, alienating much of her left-wing crossover fanbase.
• Come Out and Play by Twisted Sister: Fresh off the hugely successful Stay Hungry album and a famously televised court case between frontman Dee Snider and House Speaker Tipper Gore, Twisted Sister were not only juggernauts of the first wave of hair metal, but also arguably the first true musical spokespeople of the video generation. Instead of running with their newfound clout, however, the band followed up the court case with an unpopular cover of The Shangri-Las' "Leader of the Pack", which alienated their angsty fanbase and proved to be the death knell for the hair metal movement until Bon Jovi released Slippery When Wet a year later. The subsequent album sold poorly, its supporting tour tanked, and the band would fail to recover before finally breaking up at the end of the '80s.

U-Z

• U2:
  • No Line on the Horizon: While it may not have a promotional fiasco attached to it, it is arguably the true point the band stopped mattering. It's considered a So Okay, It's Average release and didn't yield any major hits (although "Moment of Surrender" ranked #160 on Rolling Stone's revised list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time).
  • Songs of Innocence: Coming off a fragile reputation that had followed U2 and particularly frontman Bono for decades, this record generated extreme controversy with its promo stunt where Apple automatically downloaded this album onto half a billion iTunes libraries upon release. Those who looked past the controversy criticized the record itself as over-polished and lyrically uninteresting, earning U2 their worst reviews since Rattle and Hum. Todd already tore into Bono's megalomania in his Top 5 Awful Moments from U2's "Rattle and Hum" video, but this album's story is basically a full manifestation of everything that had made the band polarizing in the first place.
• Ultravox: While never as big in the US as they were in the UK, they were hugely influential on the '80s pop landscape, which may make them a subject of interest for the show.
  • U-Vox: The band attempted to shift back to the Genre Roulette angle of Vienna, but Creative Differences led to drummer Warren Cann being replaced with Big Country alum Mark Brzezicki before production. As the band were collaborative songwriters, Cann's absence meant that they couldn't consolidate their intentions with the Arena Rock style they had leaned into by then, and the result was immediately decried as sterile and directionless. While still commercially successful, it sold the lowest of their 80's albums, and the band's own Creator Backlash resulted in frontman Midge Ure and bassist Chris Cross walking out. Ultravox went on life support as a result, and eventually dissolved in 1988.
  • Revelation and/or Ingenuity: Violinist Billie Currie attempted to revive Ultravox under a new lineup in 1992, and with a new pop rock sound to match the decade. The resulting albums however flew completely under the radar (to the point where they weren't released in the UK until the 2000's), were lambasted by those who did hear them, and were disowned by Currie's former bandmates as Ultravox In Name Only. Currie ended up replacing the entire lineup again after Revelation bombed, and eventually called it quits when Ingenuity flopped too. If U-Vox instigated the band's mainstream end, the 90's duology solidified it: neither record is available on streaming services, the only ones in Ultravox's discography to hold the distinction.
  • Brill!ant: The '80s lineup of Ultravox (including Currie & Cann) eventually reunited in 2008 to considerable positive attention, creating a big amount of hype for their comeback album. However, when it finally released in 2012, it was met with polarizing responses from listeners and critics alike, who were split on whether it was a return to form or simply U-Vox 2. The album completely missed the UK Top Ten (even U-Vox peaked at No. 9) and acted as Ultravox's final nail in the coffin, with Ure announcing their permanent breakup five years later. Since then, they've been near-completely forgotten about aside from their Signature Song "Vienna", much like The Human League.
• Mind Blowin by Vanilla Ice: Much like MC Hammer with The Funky Headhunter, this was Ice's attempt to gain some street cred with a Gangsta Rap approach and reclaim control of his image after constant Executive Meddling. However, Ice's method consisted of imitating Cypress Hill in both looks and subject matter, leading this album's material to be universally panned. The record failed to chart in the US, and while Ice later became a cult hit among Juggalos as a Rap Metal act, Mind Blowin was the nail in the coffin for his already waning career as an immensely successful pop rapper. Todd tweeted that, along with Face the Music and In My Defense, he's likely going to cover this record at some point.
• Squeeze (1973) by the Velvet Underground: Another example of a failed Band Minus The Face release (which at that point was just guitarist Doug Yule and a few session musicians) released to capitalize on former frontman Lou Reed's solo success as well as the band's growing critical reputation. The album was critically maligned, hugely undersold, and killed off any chance of the Velvet Underground making a comeback in any way, shape, or form apart from a one-off reunion in the '90s (and even that never produced a new studio album). Though the album's officially available on streaming services, it has never been physically reissued since its original 1973 release.
• Renaissance by Village People: After the downfall of disco at the turn of the 1980s, these former leaders of the genre decided to venture into New Wave Music instead of post-disco as most of their former contemporaries were doing at the time. The resulting album was utterly panned and failed to crack the top 100 of the Billboard 200, solidifying the group as relics of the late '70s.
• Hannes Wader singt Arbeiterlieder by Hannes Wader: This is a rare case of an intentional Trainwreckord: after getting a Misaimed Fandom among the German bourgeoisie, he recorded this live album of radically leftist music that earned him the status of a Persona Non Grata for multiple decades; his reputation improved when he broke with the German Communist Party. While it's unlikely that Todd would cover this album because it's German and very political, Wader's Misaimed Fandom and how he successfully alienated it might be worth discussing.
• Raditude by Weezer: Although they experienced a critical comeback in the mid-2010s with Everything Will Be Alright in the End and The White Album, not to mention a popular 2018 cover of Toto's "Africa", this is one of Todd's most-requested Trainwreckords episodes, representing the band's nadir after their previous three albums already alienated a sizable portion of their fanbase. Even their newer stuff fails to live up to the popularity of The Blue Album and Pinkerton, and their modern legacy among the general public is mostly through their debut record being a Fountain of Memes. Whether or not Todd personally feels Weezer truly rebounded from Raditude, however, is unclear.
• The Who:
  • Face Dances: The band were in a downward spiral following drummer Keith Moon's sudden death, with Kenney Jones being largely seen as a Replacement Scrappy. Although Face Dances' "You Better You Bet" did well on the charts, the album is widely dismissed by both fans and members of the band.
  • It's Hard: Didn't fare any better (although it does have fan-favorite "Eminence Front"), and the band broke up the following year. While they reunited a few years later, their next album wouldn't come out until 2006, by which point they were firmly a legacy act.
• Wicked Wisdom by Wicked Wisdom: Since her husband was already hugely famous for his music career in addition to his acting career, Jada Pinkett Smith tried her hand at a musical breakthough as the frontwoman of a nu-metal band in 2006. It...wasn't quite the hit she had hoped for, and she hasn't returned to the studio ever since.
• Now & Forever by Kim Wilde: Since Todd referenced Kim Wilde's cover of "You Keep Me Hangin' On" in the Cut the Crap episode, he presumably doesn't consider her a one-hit wonder, so she's more of a possible subject for Trainwreckords instead. While her career was already on the wane throughout the early '90s, the massive failure of this album absolutely obliterated it. With a shift towards contemporary R&B and bubblegummy lyrics, the record failed to chart in her home country, garnered atrocious reviews, and led to an 11-year hiatus before she returned with another studio record.
• Rudebox by Robbie Williams: Although Robbie Williams is famously not famous in the United States, his dynamic career arc and larger than life personality could make for an interesting point of focus for a Trainwreckords episode, and Todd hinted in the Worst Hit Songs of 2022 video that he has at the very least some basic knowledge of Robbie as a pop persona, making an episode potentially viable. While his career never completely died out at home, it took a major turn for the worse with this particular album, a clumsy attempt to modernize the '80s Synth-Pop of his childhood. It features a widely panned "I'm Back, Bitch" single, a collaboration with Pet Shop Boys, a couple of '80s covers, and two autobiographical tracks, giving Todd plenty of interesting content to discuss should he decide to cover it.
• All Jacked Up by Gretchen Wilson: Known as the godmother of the MuzikMafia spearheaded by Big & Rich, she had made a big splash with her 5x Platinum debut album and appeared to be a game changer for women in country as a whole with her scrappy aesthetic and influences from outside of Nashville. Just one year later though, her sophomore record proved her to be a total flash in the pan, only going single Platinum and being forgotten about quickly. She soon faded into complete obscurity as artists such as Carrie Underwood, Miranda Lambert, and Taylor Swift took over as the real trailblazers of women in country music for the coming generation.
• Shadows and Light by Wilson Phillips: The daughters of Brian Wilson of The Beach Boys and John and Michelle Phillips of The Mamas & the Papas, Wilson Phillips' self-titled debut from 1990 was a monster success, going Quintuple-Platinum and raking in five consecutive top 15 hits, three of which went to #1. Their second album, however, went virtually nowhere. Despite its darker and more personal content, the critical reception was extremely lukewarm and none of its singles charted higher than #20. The group broke up only a year later.
• The Woman in Red by Stevie Wonder: With a sudden shift away from self-performed acoustic instruments in favor of drum machines and synthesizers, this soundtrack album to the movie of the same name is generally considered to have ended Stevie's artistic golden age, a sentiment Todd implicitly agreed with in the "Maniac" and "Word Up" OHWs. With its unambitious easy listening approach, Stevie's reputation suddenly went from that of a musical genius with a natural mainstream appeal to an uninspired adult contemporary Sell-Out; later releases failed to break him out of the new mold despite their success. While the #1 single "I Just Called to Say I Love You" remains a significant part of the Stevie Wonder canon to this day, it's also frequently lambasted as his big Jumping the Shark moment, making it somewhat comparable to "Human" by The Human League.
• Yes: Todd mentioned how complex the band's history was in the "Video Killed the Radio Star" OHW, so either of these albums would give him a chance to cover it in greater detail.
  • Big Generator: Following the massive commercial success of 90125, Atco Records asked the band to make a follow-up. However, Creative Differences led producer Trevor Horn to quit midway through, leaving Trevor Rabin to produce the rest of the album himself. While the result went platinum in the US within a year, it underperformed compared to its predecessor, only generating a minor hit with "Rhythm of Love", and reviews criticized the inconsistent production. Lead vocalist Jon Anderson was so dissatisfied that he quit the band to form Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe with his old bandmates, releasing one Self-Titled Album. Which led to...
  • Union: This album attempted to return to Yes' Progressive Rock roots via an Executive Meddling-induced merge of the '80s lineup and the aforementioned Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe. However, because it was born from two separate projects, the results were plagued by poor synergy, and several parts by Rick Wakeman and Steve Howe (two of the most highly regarded musicians in prog rock) were replaced by session musicians to finish the album faster. While it sold well, Union was criticized as bloated and directionless and was Yes' last to be certified anywhere despite the band remaining popular as a live act. While the band kept going, they never returned to the mainstream, and their Creator Backlash towards Union led it to be trimmed down to the much shorter (Re)Union 13 years later (to similarly mixed results).
• The Owl by Zac Brown Band: This album saw a shift towards pop and EDM which garnered no charting entries on the Hot 100, and was mostly panned by those who reviewed it. Fans were also bothered by Brown switching his music style even though he started a side project for his more poppy music (Sir Roosevelt). Todd tweeted in 2021 that this album is on his list after fellow creator Spectrum Pulse suggested it to him.
• Thing-Fish by Frank Zappa: Despite building a substantial cult following in the '60s and '70s, his '80s period is seen as a major period of decline that culminated with this album, a Rock Opera about black and gay people being mutated into grotesque minstrel performers who put on a play for a white closeted gay man and his living sex doll beard. Its premise was derided as too far-fetched even for Zappa, getting lost amid the attempts at Deliberate Values Dissonance, and saw further criticism for reusing old material with added overdubs. Zappa would stay active until his death, but this album marked the end of his reign as the king of avant-garde rock.

Too recent to cover

Given that the most recent albums featured were Paula and Witness, both five years old at the time of their respective episodes' release, it's likely that he considers that to be the latest an album can qualify for Trainwreckords, as there's always the possibility that an artist could make a surprise Career Resurrection (e.g. Justin Bieber recovering with Justice after Todd considered Changes and especially the lead single "Yummy" to be a Creator Killer moment).

• Highway Desperado by Jason Aldean (2023): After having been one of country music's biggest stars for nearly twenty years, his career was shaken heavily in September 2022 after his management team The GreenRoom cut ties with him in the wake of Instagram comments made by his wife Brittany that were heavily viewed as transphobic. Things only got worse when the music video for his first single following this, "Try That in a Small Town" was released in July of 2023, which sparked controversy upon release due to accusations of pro-lynching undertones surrounding it, causing the music video to be pulled from CMT rotation and the song itself to reach #1 on the Hot 100. Despite this, once the album came out in November that year, it only reached #19 on the Billboard 200, becoming his first record to not reach the Top 10 since his 2005 debut, while the follow-up single "Let Your Boys Be Country" failed to chart. Considering Aldean's aforementioned newfound infamy as a result, it's extremely likely that Todd will consider this his Trainwreckord depending on whatever happens next.
• 18 by Jeff Beck & Johnny Depp (2022): Following prolonged PR and legal battles with his ex-wife Amber Heard over mutual accusations of domestic abuse and defamation, this collaborative album was made as Depp's thank-you to Beck, who sided with Depp and helped rehabilitate his public image. The duo's previous collaboration, a Cover Version of John Lennon's "Isolation" made after Depp's court victory, was already criticized by Heard's supporters as a tasteless victory lap, and this album amplified that sentiment. On top of that, critics and listeners on both sides of the aisle panned the album for the poor quality of Depp's vocals and lyrics. The album ended up being Beck's last project before his death the following January, and the circumstances of its making did much to taint Beck's perception among younger audiences.
• 3.15.20 by Childish Gambino (2020): Despite reaching the height of his powers two years earlier with the heavily talked-about #1 hit "This Is America", that song never got to appear on an album, and Donald Glover's subsequent album went by with hardly any fanfare. It got extremely underwhelming reviews and failed to get certified by the RIAA. Its nonexistent success piqued Todd's interest, as he called it "formless" and compared it to Prince's late '90s albums.
• DaBaby: On Twitter, Todd expressed fascination over DaBaby's precipitous fall from grace, so he will likely want to feature the rapper on Trainwreckords when and if the time is ever right.
  • Back on My Baby Jesus S*** Again (2021): Like Janet Jackson and Robin Thicke, his reputation had already taken a severe hit from a public scandal, in this case homophobic comments he made at a concert a few months before the release of this EP. Although he issued an apology, later actions undermined it. In the aftermath, not only did he lose several business endorsements, but his guest verse on Dua Lipa's "Levitating" (which helped make it only the fourth song to be the #1 song of the year without ever topping the weekly Hot 100) was largely uncanonized, with Billboard removing his credit from the song (and not recognizing him as part of the year-end #1), and Dua Lipa herself openly criticizing his earlier remarks. The EP only peaked at #44 on the Billboard 200 upon release ^note His previous EP, released before the controversy, didn't fare much better, but considering the dire circumstances, a successful new release would have helped him, and Todd ranked DaBaby first on his list of artists whose stock dropped the most in 2021.
  • Baby on Baby 2 (2022): This was DaBaby's first true album since making his controversial comments, intended as a sequel to his breakout debut album. It peaked at a pitiful #34 on the Billboard 200 and got horrible reviews (with an average RYM rating of roughly 1.2, significantly lower than any of its predecessors), solidifying the collapse of his career. By the time the record came out, he was struggling to give out discounted tickets to his concerts and even had to cancel one due to low sales. This continued downfall led him to rank #6 on Todd's list of artists whose stock dropped the most in 2022.
• Father of All Motherfuckers by Green Day (2020): An attempted Revisiting the Roots album that quickly became one of the worst rated records of 2020, mocked for its poor quality and juvenile title (which had to be censored in most releases to the arguably improved Father of All...), and Todd's initial impression of the titular single suggests he'd find the album worth covering. While many people feel Green Day's careers were already over after either 21st Century Breakdown or the ¡Uno! ¡Dos! ¡Tré! trilogy, Todd stated in the Song vs. Song podcast that Green Day were still a hugely relevant band throughout the 2010s like Aerosmith was in the '90s and early 2000s, so he's most likely to single out Father of All... as the band's true Trainwreckord instead depending on whether or not he considers their 2024 album Saviors a genuine comeback.
• High Road by Kesha (2020): After 2017's Rainbow, a more mature effort, pushed her back in the spotlight, Kesha attempted to mix her new style with a return to her party girl persona for this album. The end result was a record that, while generally well-received, was otherwise seen as underwhelming compared to her previous album and did little for her commercially. Todd listed Kesha 2nd on his top 3 artists whose stock fell the most in 2020, only behind Tory Lanez. After featuring on a remix of Walker Hayes's "Fancy Like" in 2021, she released her follow-up album Gag Order in 2023, which despite critical acclaim, only reached #168 on the Billboard 200, signifying that her mainstream relevance was well and truly over. If Todd covers this album, expect him to mention the Career Resurrection her former record producer Dr. Luke, who she publicly accused of abuse, experienced during this album's release.
• DAYSTAR by Tory Lanez (2020): Following allegations of shooting Megan Thee Stallion in the foot, Lanez devoted several tracks on this album to denying them. The result became the final nail in his career's coffin, with subsequent albums failing to chart; the few critics who reviewed the album mainly panned it. Todd himself negatively described the opener "Money Over Fallouts" as the worst charting song of 2020 (among many other remarks), tweeting the following year that he was open to featuring the album on the show once enough time passes. Even though Lanez made somewhat of a chart comeback with "The Color Violet" in early 2023, it's unlikely that it could signify a full revival for his career, as he was convicted of the shooting in December 2022 and subsequently sentenced to ten years in prison.
• Solar Power by Lorde (2021): Following her critical darling sophomore album Melodrama, Lorde's third album leaned heavily on psychedelic pop and indie folk, confusing critics. Some praised it for its relaxed vibe, while others heavily criticized it for its confusing sound and summery, escapist lyrics, finding it behind the times compared to her previous two albums, which were seen as trendsetters. While it's possible for her to have a comeback with her fourth album, it could be likely that this album ended her relevance as a defining pop star.
• Mainstream Sellout by Machine Gun Kelly (2022): Following the ill-fated feud with Eminem that killed his rap career, MGK reinvented himself as a pop punk revival singer. Despite some early success in this new niche, including the top 20 hit "My Ex's Best Friend" (which made Todd's Best of 2021 list), this comeback took a quick sour turn due to a combination of the poor reception to this album, as well as controversies in his personal life. Mainstream Sellout only yielded a handful of low-charting songs, including the widely lambasted "Emo Girl" (which Todd panned in his Worst of 2022 video), throwing MGK's career into question once more and possibly even killing the pop punk revival that he spearheaded, especially as he announced that he'd be returning to rap music in the aftermath. Todd also listed MGK #4 on his list of artists whose stock dropped the most in 2022. Time will tell whether or not the album is truly the end of his stardom, but considering Todd's complex feelings about MGK, it could make for a worthwhile Trainwreckords episode down the road.
• Jordi by Maroon 5 (2021): They were already running on steam after receiving tons of backlash for selling out for a decade, their disastrous album Red Pill Blues and their controversial Super Bowl performance, but this album finally ended their time as hitmakers due to a shaky production with bassist Mickey Madden leaving the band during recording after being arrested for violence as well as the album being panned by critics and barely made it in the top 10 on the Billboard 200. The lead single "Memories" was the only one to make it to the top 10 on Billboard Hot 100 with the follow up singles mostly stalling below. Todd already briefly discussed the album's first three singles in his 2019, 2020 and 2021 Worst lists, and listed them #8 on artists whose stock dropped the most in 2021, and #2 on the 2022 list as a result of lack of hits and Adam Levine's cheating scandal.
• Wonder by Shawn Mendes (2020): Despite starting to warm up to Mendes during the late 2010s (even giving one of his songs an honorable mention on the Best of 2017 list), Todd began thrashing him again starting around the time of this album's release. The record itself flopped, failing to get certified and lacking any long-lasting hits, and Todd ranked Mendes third in his list of artists who fell off the most in 2020. Mendes' later single "Summer of Love" missed the top 40 and solidified Todd's negative impression of him, if his comments in the Worst of 2021 video are anything to go by. The accompanying tour in 2022 only lasted a few shows before the rest of it was abruptly cancelled, due to Mendes' struggles with mental health.
• Latest Record Project, Volume 1 by Van Morrison (2021): In 2020, Morrison wound up back in the spotlight after years as a legacy act by openly protesting lockdowns and social distancing during the COVID-19 Pandemic, which drew widespread criticism from audiences and journalists. This double album came off the heels of that, and despite its strong commercial sales, it drew polarized reviews for its two-hour runtime and lyrical content. Many critics disparaged the material as paranoid rambling and interpreted several songs as far-right dogwhistles. Morrison's follow-up the next year, What's It Gonna Take?, flew under the radar by comparison, and since this album's release, Morrison has been better-known among younger audiences for his views on COVID than for his music.
• Let the Bad Times Roll by The Offspring (2021): An album marred by a long, torturous production caused by the band's struggle to go independent after leaving Columbia Records. It finally came out nine years after their previous record, only to be slammed by fans and critics as their worst effort to date. While no song earned quite the level of infamy as "Cruising California (Bumpin' in My Truck)" from the last album, the band's complete failure to return to an independent label could make for a very interesting episode, especially considering their breakout album Smash is the best-selling independent LP of all time.
• Bebe by Bebe Rexha (2023): Todd has expressed fascination over the contrast between Bebe Rexha's intensity as a person and forgettability as an actual musician. As such, he may take a look at her first album to come out after her fluke comeback hit "I'm Good (Blue)" (his worst song of 2022). It features guest appearances by Snoop Dogg (who's famously one of the easiest people to get as a guest star in popular music) and Dolly Parton (who performed at Miley Cyrus' new year's eve special a few months prior). It peaked at #132, barely an improvement over her previous flop, and seems to have solidified the end of her commercial viability.
• Music by Sia (2021): After emerging as one of the 2010s' most unique pop stars, Sia decided to take a stab at filmmaking that all but destroyed her reputation thanks to its controversial depiction of autism^note which relied heavily on the Inspirationally Disadvantaged and Disability Superpower tropes and seemed to endorse prone restraint (which in real-world practice has caused serious injury to and even killed autistic people) and her hostile responses to autistic actors who protested the film. Not only was the film panned by critics for its overt ableism and nominated for four Razzies, winning three (including Worst Director for Sia herself), the album also bombed commercially, failing to chart on the Billboard 200 with middling critical reception at best, while Sia herself made #5 on Todd's list for artists whose stock dropped the most in 2021. Todd also panned the film on Twitter stating that it does not waste any time being exactly what it is reported to be. Furthermore, he jossed the possibility of reviewing the movie separately on Song vs. Song, as Lina refuses to watch it, so he'd have to make a Trainwreckords episode to discuss it in-depth. Even though Sia made somewhat of a comeback with the chart resurgence of her 2016 song "Unstoppable" in 2022, it's unlikely she'll be able to escape the disastrous PR surrounding Music anytime soon.
• Gloria by Sam Smith (2023): Though "Unholy" has proven to be one of Smith's biggest hits, the album considerably undersold despite being commercially successful in its own right. While critical reception was generally positive, fans were more mixed, with many criticizing the album for attempting to change Smith's direction but not their sound (similarly to Witness), and the music video for "I'm Not Here to Make Friends" further polarized viewers. Todd himself stated in a tweet that the success of "Unholy" could end up being bad for Smith's success in the long term, and this is partly due to it being very dissonant from the rest of the album. Should that be true, and should Todd cover the album, expect comparisons to Crash by The Human League, whose burnout was a result of this same phenomenon.
• Treat Myself by Meghan Trainor (2020): Though this was originally slated to be released in August 2018, it was delayed several times due to creative indecision and Trainor's struggle with panic disorder. It finally dropped to little attention in January 2020, by which point the industry had shifted dramatically since her mid-2010s heyday. While she did have some minor commercial success with the song "Made You Look" (which Todd hated and put on his Worst Songs of 2022 list), the highly-panned follow-up "Mother" failed to chart, thus ensuring her career will likely not return to her mid-2010s prominence. In this tweet, Todd said he was kind of sad that her career didn't last because it would at least have been fun to write about, which suggests that he finds her somewhat interesting and might want to make a video about her decline.
• Donda 2 by Kanye West (2022): The original Donda polarized critics, but was so heavily hyped that it was a major commercial success and continued Kanye's relevancy despite increasing scrutiny towards his offstage antics. This album, however, was seen as a huge misstep due to the fact that it was locked to Kanye's $200+ Stem Player, leading to widespread piracy. Those who did listen to it panned it for the unfinished nature of its songs and the fact that much of the lyrics focused on his divorce from Kim Kardashian and his bitterness towards her new boyfriend. While Kanye voiced plans to update it for a wider release a-la The Life of Pablo, his chances of winning back much of his audience further mitigated from October 2022 onwards thanks to numerous anti-Black^note despite being Black himself and especially antisemitic comments (including praising Adolf Hitler), to the point where there was major demand to remove all of his music from streaming services a-la R. Kelly. West topped Todd's list of artists whose stock dropped the most in 2022. Despite all this though, his 2024 collaboration album with Ty Dolla $ign, VULTURES 1 topped the Billboard 200 upon release and generated a chart-topping single with "Carnival", although time remains to be seen if that is just a fluke.

Confirmed

• Zingalamaduni by Arrested Development: This conscious hip-hop group managed to hit the zeitgeist in the early 1990s with their debut album, earning critical acclaim and a few hit singles. Their second album, however, was criticised for being an underproduced, tuneless Sophomore Slump and completely torpedoed their momentum (in the US market at least).
• Summer in Paradise by The Beach Boys: Their only album not to feature any new contributions from Brian Wilson, making it essentially a Mike Love solo record in disguise, if the single "Summer of Love" is any indication. While the band was nowhere near as critically or commercially popular during the '70s and '80s as they had been in the '60s, they still racked up a fair number of hit songs, including the chart-topping, albeit infamous single from Cocktail, "Kokomo". Summer in Paradise, however, is often considered one of the worst albums by a major rock band in history and was such a notorious bomb that it sold less than 1,000 copies upon release, putting a definitive end to their mainstream presence.
• Cut the Crap by The Clash: By the time the album went into production, the band had lost half of its members (leaving behind Joe Strummer and Paul Simonon). Throughout production, Strummer was put into a power struggle with the band's manager, Bernard Rhodes (who was widely outed as the main culprit behind the album's abysmal production quality). It turned out to be the band's final studio release before breaking up altogether. Even Strummer himself regretted making the album.
• Mardi Gras by Creedence Clearwater Revival: Tensions between frontman John Fogerty and the rest of the band were already rife by the time the album went into production, but the album's weak critical reception and especially the events of their final concert became the final straw that broke up the band.
• American Dream by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young: Despite being the band's first album with Neil Young in eighteen years, its production was marred by Crosby and Stills' health ailments, and while it went Platinum, it got a mostly poor reception and was not even accompanied by a tour. It proved to be their final album, with or without Young, to make any kind of commercial impact.
• Cry by Faith Hill: Alongside Shania Twain and LeAnn Rimes, Faith Hill was notable for being a '90s country singer with huge pop crossover success, which eventually culminated in the international smash movie ballad "There You'll Be". However, her career quickly disintegrated after the lukewarm reception to this album, which alienated her core listener base of country traditionalists with its descent into R&B on songs such as the third single, "One". As a result, the record yielded no top 10 country hits, and even with Hill's Newbie Boom of mainstream pop fans, it only had one minor top 40 hit and a mere 2x Platinum certification, a notable drop from the blockbuster success of her late '90s albums. Her next album strictly targeted the country market^note The leadoff single "Mississippi Girl" even directly confronts the controversy of her pop phase to fair success, but her crossover superstardom was all but over by that point, and her career went mostly dormant thereafter. In 2022, Todd confirmed that this album was "penciled in as a definite candidate for the show", later covering it in early 2024.
• MTV Unplugged No. 2.0 by Lauryn Hill: Despite the titanic success of her solo debut, which won Album of the Year for 1998, the lukewarm reception to this live followup, in conjunction with severe issues in Hill's personal life, brought a staggeringly abrupt end to one of the most promising careers in hip hop and R&B history. Notably, this was one of the few Trainwreckords suggestions that Todd liked on Twitter after he asked his viewers back in March 2018 what albums he should cover on the show (he also liked the request for Mardi Gras by Creedence Clearwater Revival, which he later covered in September).
• Crash by The Human League: Despite yielding a No. 1 hit and fan-favorite single with "Human" and selling better than their previous flop Hysteria, this New Sound Album is considered a low point in the band's discography and the end of their American relevance. Attempting to shift the Synth-Pop icons to Rhythm and Blues and proto-New Jack Swing, the album was marked by Creative Differences with producers Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis, and although frontman Phil Oakey credited it with keeping the band afloat, he also openly described it as a Human League album In Name Only. While Hysteria got Vindicated by History, Crash is still widely regarded as the death knell of early '80s synth-pop. Todd said he planned on covering this album in the future, which he eventually did in 2021.
• Cyberpunk by Billy Idol: With New Wave Music falling by the wayside after the rise of grunge, this 80's superstar tried to reinvent himself for the 90's by adopting elements of cyberpunk subculture, complete with a tech-heavy promotional campaign. However, Idol's lack of knowledge about progressive tech showed, causing cyberpunk fans to deem him a poser: the album was a critical and commercial flop, solidifying Idol as a relic of the past rather than a true pioneer of the digital age of music. Todd mentioned in a tweet that this was the first album he thought of when coming up with the series.
• The Funky Headhunter by MC Hammer: Right at the height of gangsta rap's popularity, Hammer attempted to earn some street cred by adopting a Darker and Edgier image. In doing this, not only did actual gangsta rappers (who were railroading Hammer as a cheesy pop sellout to begin with) not buy it in the slightest, but it also alienated a lot of his core audience of young children and their parents. In part due to this album's failure, Hammer ended up filing for bankruptcy two years later.
• St. Anger by Metallica: Load and ReLoad earned polarizing responses at best, especially from older fans, but this album earned almost universally scathing reviews and a ton of fan backlash upon release; its tinny, hollow drum sound was only the tip of the iceberg of all the album's issues (and as the documentary Some Kind of Monster demonstrates, the issues extended to the band themselves). The fact that it was released around the time of the band's infamous lawsuit against Napster certainly didn't help either. Todd stated that Death Magnetic was not a true recovery for the band in hindsight, implying that a St. Anger episode was definitely on its way. Although Rocked already covered it on Regretting The Past, Todd implied that wouldn't stop him from reviewing it himself.
• Generation Swine by Mötley Crüe: Following the underperformance of the band's Self-Titled Album, initial frontman Vince Neil returned to the band as a course correction. However, the resulting album absolutely solidified the band's fall from grace, due to its terribly confused sonic and lyrical direction. Todd alluded to the fact that he was researching the band during the "Face Down" OHW's sponsor tag, and indeed covered this album in 2022.
• Be Here Now by Oasis: While the band continued for several more albums, the Hype Backlash surrounding this album's release certainly marked a downturn in both critical respect and commercial success for the band (they still did well commercially, just nowhere near the huge sales of the first three albums). Todd did tweet that he agreed that the songwriting quality levels took a significant drop from this album onwards.
• Witness by Katy Perry: Todd claimed that 2017 was the year Katy Perry's career "imploded spectacularly". He also tweeted that despite liking "Chained To The Rhythm", the rest of the album was "...oof". While she had one more minor hit in 2019, "Never Really Over", and her follow-up album Smile was an improvement, it still was clearly firm that her glory days were past her. Todd said when covering "Never Really Over" in his Best of 2019 list that he's much more fascinated by Katy during her downfall than her peak, so it seems like he definitely wants to talk about this album in-depth after enough time has passed since its release. Todd later tweeted that he would eventually cover the album in the future, making good on that statement in 2022.
• Crown Royal by Run–D.M.C.: In addition to mediocre at best reviews, it was their last album before Jam-Master Jay's death. Although they were arguably already past their period of relevance since Back from Hell, they had a moderate comeback in 1993 with Down with the King and its eponymous top 40 single.
• Lost and Found by Will Smith: Unlike the more old-school Born to Reign, this record saw Will Smith try harder to adapt to current trends. While the lead single "Switch" was his first top 10 hit in six years, the album itself got a very lukewarm reception and sold no better than Born to Reign. Most notable, however, is the second single "Party Starter", which could justify a full episode completely on its own — not only does Smith awkwardly co-opt the Darker and Edgier aesthetics of DMX and Ludacris (the latter of whom cowrote the song with him), but at the same time, he flimsily complains about how hip hop was better in the past, when he wasn't a victim of Values Dissonance. Lost and Found was ultimately his final release before going on a decade-long hiatus from rapping, and even since returning, his new material has been completely laughed off by the public.
• Paula by Robin Thicke: Todd mentioned in his review of Justin Bieber's "Sorry" that he thought this was actually a decent album, but to call it a career-killing record would be an understatement, due to the surrounding controversy in Thicke's personal life that earned it a reputation as a stalker album. Its sales figures were infamously poor, especially considering Thicke had just scored the second-biggest hit of 2013 only a year before the new album came out.
• Van Halen III by Van Halen: Due largely to guitarist Eddie Van Halen's rampant alcoholism at the time, the production of this album was very bumpy, limiting the involvement of producer Mike Post and bassist Michael Anthony. Although Eddie's relationship with new frontman Gary Cherone was more harmonious than it had been with David Lee Roth and Sammy Hagar, Cherone's lack of leadership left Eddie's aimlessly abusive control mostly unchecked. When the album finally came out in 1998, it was thrashed by just about everybody, who scorned its songwriting, performances, and mixing. It sold poorly, resulting in the band going on hiatus. They eventually reformed with Hagar and later Roth returning as lead singer, but their commercial success has been modest at best.

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