Todd In The Shadows Thread

Todd doesn't know how to react to new Keisha

and neither do i

This should be interesting. I remember Bennett the Sage naming this his least favorite #1 hit on the Hot 100 ever, and I can see why.

2000's hip hop is almost as much of a goldmine for one hit wonders as 1980's new wave.

True but to my knowledge a lot of those 80's one-hit wonders, while bad, are at least so bad that they're kinda funny. No immediate examples come to mind for the 2000's that could be labelled as "so bad they're good".

Seems like the 21st century has become a goldmine of one hit wonders. Rap has gimmicks; pop and even country has artists forced into being the "next big thing" by rampant iHeartMedia promotion; and there's always those random fluke hits in any genre.

Lah-dah-dah-dah-dahdahdah

edited 31st Jul '17 8:31:01 PM by Pachylad

That one is intentionally funny though, not funny because it's bad.

Remember how you said Todd referenced both a Hendrix and a Marley in the "In the Summertime" review? Well, there was also a visual reference to an Astley Clause-The Archies.

A DJ Khaled review. And another one.

New OHW on the solo hit from the lead singer of New Kids on the Block. I know next to nothing about these guys so I didn't even know their members had solo hits in the first place. Or who their members were, actually.

Ah, so that explains the sporadic references to NKOTB on his Twitter feed over the past 2 weeks

... brb getting some gems:

Jordan was Cheerleader, Donnie was So-and-So, Jonathan was What's Her Face, Danny was The Ugly One, and Joey was Tompkins. #NKOTB

This old SNL skit was very inspirational during this episode, and I'm impressed how well they knew their NKOTB

>Like, they know which is which and everything. They've even got Rob Schneider as the New Kid no one liked

>Starring Adam Sandler as Donnie, the one who inexplicably became independently successful

>Starring Dana Carvey as Jordan, the one expected to go on to bigger and better things but whose career fizzled out

>Starring Mike Myers as Jonathan, the one who opted to just suddenly disappear completely from public life

I figured I'd update this every two episodes. And a new candidate for both folders. Also, someone really needs to write the transcripts. Everything released this year has not been completed.

edited 9th Sep '17 3:33:24 PM by Smasher

Todd reviews the new Taylor Swift song.

I'm just not a fan of the hook in this song, which seems to take from the ongoing minimalistic trend that songs like "Problem" started. I'd be fine with it being a Title-Only Chorus if there was some melody tied to it. Whatever happened to choruses that paid off of what the verse and pre-chorus built up?

And I agree with Todd that this direction didn't just come out of nowhere. It's definitely a far cry from her "Love Story" and "You Belong with Me" days, especially when you juxtapose the two, but some of the songs just from her last era ("Bad Blood" is a good example) prove it to be quite a smooth transition.

You... you really don't know where the hook is actually from? :

I know where it's from; I just don't like it in the context of the song. It doesn't fit, is all.

To me, the song does the same thing as Closer by the Chainsmokers. It constantly builds up and builds up...and then collapses into an extremely minimalistic beat out of nowhere. I don't think it works very well because, while it does play a bit with your expectations, it doesn't make for a good song, unless the composer knows exactly what they're doing with it.

To be fair, while minimalistic, the hook of Closer was an actual hook. Cannot say same about "Look What You Made Me Do".

And while Todd is right about the fact that this is completely logical, even predictable continuation of Swift's career, there's something that really irks me about this song more than anything else she's done. Maybe it's exactly the fact that it's being played as something new and shocking while in reality its only shocking quality is its shocking lack of quality.

I mean, whenever a terrible Vine Hit of the Week becomes an inescapable Billboard #1, I can live with it because I know it's a fluke and I will not see these bozos ever again after their 15 minutes is over. But Swift just keeps being a massive, trendsetting Tour-de-Force single after single, progressively getting worse while her more talented competitors have struggled to stay relevant. At this point there's no artist since the turn of the millennium whose success I wouldn't find more grating as hers.

It really does sound like a horrible, 2008-2009 era Black Eyed Peas song.

So that's where the "Oh the old X can't come to the phone right now why because he/she/they/xe is/are dead" meme comes from

edited 17th Sep '17 11:09:33 AM by phantom1

It's already a meme

Yep.

Something I'd like to see him do would be "the forgotten hits", where he discusses lesser-known hits by bands who arent one hit wonders. For example, everyone remembers the big hits of the Red Hot Chili Peppers like Give It Away, Under the Bridge, etc, but how many people remember "Coffee Shop"?

And wouldn't you know it, he's about to give a deeper view, much like his elaboration on Rockwell after his review of "Party Rock Anthem", into the collective works of Rightly Said Frederick.

...both of these stemmed from diatribes he wrote about LMFAO songs...