Todd In The Shadows Thread

Yes that was Postmodern Jukebox used in the credits. They seem like an act that Todd would appreciate.

Yeah, they do.

I'm curious what he thought about their cover of We Can't Stop. In his review, he said that it sounded way too sad and depressing to be a party song, but all of those qualities made it work admirably well as a doo-wop song.

edited 1st Jun '16 8:15:15 AM by TyeDyeWildebeest

I think he's mentioned them on Twitter once or twice. PMJ, that is.

edited 1st Jun '16 8:31:30 AM by FirstSnow

Post-Modern Jukebox is alright, they're talented and decent arrangers, but everything from them sounds super samey to me. And they don't really pay much attention to the songs as much as they should a lot of the time—in their version of The Strokes' "Someday", they had a common mondegreen in there ("Oh, my love says I'm lacking in depth") in place of the actual lyric ("Oh, Maya says I'm lacking in depth"). Like, they could check these things better before they record.

Also, their video titles are disgustingly clickbaity.

The start of the video disappoints me because he's pretty much inadvertently confirmed he won't do Land Down Under on OHW for technically not being a one-hit wonder which is a real fucking shame if you know how everything went From Bad to Worse with Men At Work and is generally a really fascinating band.

Yeah, but they still don't count as one hit wonders. Everybody knows their two big hits.

I had to look up what the other one was, but yeah I definitely know "Who Could it be Now?" I just didn't know it was their song.

Men at Work had five top 40 entries but this is another case of Classic Rock radio programmers having selective memory. “Dr. Heckyll & Mr. Jive” (granted, it only peaked at #28) never gets airplay anymore, nor do the singles from the Sophomore Slump album, Cargo (even if two of them were top 10 hits, I guess you never hear “Overkill” anymore because nobody wants to hear a ballad from MAW).

edited 8th Jun '16 4:30:19 PM by Bananaquit

If Songpop is to be trusted (well I don't blame you if you can't - they seriously consider the Replacements post-punk -one of their many faux pas) Men Without Hats have only two hits (maybe three if you count "Who Can It Be Now?") - "The Safety Dance" and "Down Under".

"Down Under" was Men at Work, while "The Safety Dance" was Men Without Hats.

sooooooo I don't think I'll trust Songpop because that's an even bigger faux pas.

edited 8th Jun '16 5:36:49 PM by Odd1

Men Without Hats was a different group. For one, Safety Dance was their only hit. For two, they were Canadian, not Australian. For three, Todd already covered them.

Wasn't "Pop Goes the World" a minor hit, though? Hell, I am pretty sure I'd heard it on the radio as a kid.

I think it was a minor hit in a few countries, but for the most part, they're still only remembered for The Safety Dance today.

Hopefully I'll manage to nail down a full-time job by the time he starts selling requests again, because that's the only way I'd ever be able to afford it. I even made a Top 10 list of the songs I'm most eager to see him cover:

• Vehicle - The Ides of March
• Popcorn - Hot Butter
• Relax - Frankie Goes to Hollywood
• La Bamba - Los Lobos
• Don't Worry, Be Happy - Bobby Mc Ferrin
• The Humpty Dance - Digital Underground
• I Touch Myself - Divinyls
• Whoomp! (There It Is) - Tag Team
• My Neck, My Back (Lick It) - Khia
• Stacy's Mom - Fountains of Wayne

YMMV on Los Lobos being one hit wonders. They're most certainly well known for their cover of La Bamba, but their debut album, How Will the Wolf Survive, is considered one of the best debut albums of all time.

Is Frankie Goes to Hollywood really a one hit wonder? I distinctly remember hearing at least two other songs by them on the radio a couple times.

They were pretty big in the UK. I think they broke some record set by Gerry and the Pacemakers.

Okay, I looked it up, and "Welcome to the Pleasuredome" and "Two Tribes" charted 48 and 43 on the Hot 100 respectively. Huh. Well, I hear "Float On" sometimes on the rock stations, and that got to 60-something, so I guess it makes sense.

@3389: That's part of the reason I want Todd to cover them, actually. The latest OHW made me realize how rarely Todd gives a definitive "yes" to the "did they deserve better?" question.

Re: Frankie Goes to Hollywood: I think Todd's pretty lenient when it comes to granting a band one hit wonder status. If they only had one hit song cross over to the United States, he'll be willing to cover them. That's why he covered A-ha even though they had like a ton of hits in Norway.

Pop Goes the World was used to advertise Tide pods like last year as is the fate of a lot of defunct pop hits (I mean used in advertising not Tide pods specifically), but Todd tends to go by American charts only.

Not just defunct pop hits. I still cringe when I think of when they used the Beatles of all things to advertise Luvs diapers.

I am now imagining an announcer talking over "when you become naked"

I'm now imagining that in an Enzyte ad.

I am now gonna make that a real thing, just you wait.

Still kind of hoping for “Just When I Needed You Most” by Randy Vanwarmer because he has had a more diverse career than his one hit would indicate.

Also Charlene’s “I’ve Never Been to Me,” if only to see Todd’s reaction to the follow-up single, which sounds like it was written by a paranoid schizophrenic who went off his medication. Also, how badly did Stevie Wonder have to piss off Berry Gordy to get saddled with this atrocity?

the first thirty seconds of that song are WHAT THE FUCK.

Good Lord, this song is trying so hard to talk about controversial subjects in a "doesn't it make you think, maaaan" kind of way, but it just comes off as basically being Flight of the Conchords' "Think About It".

Though I did like the line, "Have you heard a real good ethnic joke today?" Funnier than it was likely intended to be.

I looked up the hit song, and it's actually pretty good. Never heard it before now, but pretty alright, if a little bit iffy in how judgy the lyrics are. Especially considering how apparently an early version had the lyric, "I spent my life exploring the subtle whoring that costs too much to be free."

edited 11th Jun '16 2:40:41 AM by Odd1