History TearJerker / ToddInTheShadows

-->"I'm pretty sure Drake will survive (less sure than I was last week), but if he does...[[AndThenWhat what then?]] He puts out another 40 track album, his fans eat it up, and we just move on? And we're like 'Ha ha, remember when Kendrick called him a pedophile? Boom!'"

-->'''Todd:''' I've always kind of struggled with Beyonce's emotional imperviousness. Beyonce's ''Lemonade'' was such a powerful album because it showed cracks in the armor for the first time. That album is about a lot of things, but as a concept, the hook was what happens when you're the baddest bitch in the universe and you get betrayed just like any other woman? What happens when you're literally Beyonce and this still happens to you? What happens when there's a trifling man who can't just be crushed like a bug? What happens when Queen Bee isn't offended [[DidYouThinkICantFeel but genuinely hurt]]? It was a fascinating position because she had never been there before.

* While he overall liked ''Cowboy Carter'', Todd is still very confused as to why Beyonce not only covered an extremely famous country song like "Jolene", but also changed the lyrics and included a reference to Becky with the Good Hair from ''Lemonade'', bringing up her and Jay-Z's marital strife from almost a decade prior. Why dig up that drama again?

* The ''Cinemadonna'' episode on "Truth or Dare" is really not very sympathetic toward Music/{{Madonna}}, except for when Todd gets to the titular game, and Madonna is asked who has been the love of her life:

** That quote especially becomes HarsherInHindsight when [[RealitySubtext Cher and Gregg did do that]]. Their son Elijah grew up to become the frontman of the {{Industrial}} Rock band Deadsy, however extra harsh is that Elijah became a heroin addict [[TroublingUnchildlikeBehavior at age 11]] and wouldn't become clean and sober until 2008, mostly due to his abandonment issues from said parents.

** That quote especially becomes HarsherInHindsight when [[RealitySubtext Cher and Gregg did do that]]. Their son Elijah grew up to become the frontman of Goth Rock band Deadsy, however extra harsh is that Elijah became a heroin addict [[TroublingUnchildlikeBehavior at age 11]] and wouldn't become clean and sober until 2008, mostly due to his abandonment issues from said parents.

* Music/{{Oasis}}' ''Music/BeHereNow'' is not the most dramatic or unusual career-derailing album in the series, but it's still notable for being one of the [[OccamsRazor most straightforward]]. It wasn't a misguided attempt to try something new, or a desperate attempt to keep up with the times; for better or worse, it sounds like and is an Oasis album. The problems were more direct: during the production of the album, [[HostilityOnTheSet the band was totally dysfunctional and at each other's throats]] (''especially'' [[SiblingRivalry the Gallaghers themselves]]), [[MoneyDearBoy only doing it to keep making money]] and [[EverybodyMustGetStoned coked out of their damn minds]] the whole time. The result is a droning, painful, overlong album that [[CreatorBacklash Noel Gallagher himself has absolutely no time for]]. Worse still, while the public were not fond of it, [[CriticalDissonance the critics praised it lavishly and excessively]], as they had [[AndYouThoughtItWouldFail completely failed to predict the success of Oasis' earlier albums]] ''Definitely Maybe'' and ''What's the Story (Morning Glory)'' and [[ThisIsGoingToBeHuge just assumed this one would be just as successful]], only for it to fall flat and greatly damage Oasis' image as one of the decade-defining rock bands of the 90's.

-->'''Todd:''' Morgan, if you ''fucking'' embarrass me, I swear to God...

* As Todd points out in the Music/RunDMC episode, D.M.C.'s lack of commitment or enthusiasm for ''Crown Royal'' were coupled with his greater unfulfilled ambitions for what the group could be. Already battling depression and substance abuse that had caused him to contract spasmodic dysphonia and had restricted his vocal range, D was thinking about the legacy of what he saw as all-time great artists like Dylan and Clapton, and, worried that Run-D.M.C. had reached their creative peak as a hip-hop group long ago, wanted to expand their sound into something rootsier. Rev. Run, by contrast, was very determined to ''not'' admit [[AudienceAlienatingEra that their best days were behind them]], chasing all the current trends that he could, and followed Clive Davis's directive to cram the album full of big guest stars on every track (some of whom were temporarily overruled by their own management out of fear the album would be a dud). While Jam Master Jay followed Run in this new direction, D -- both unable and unwilling to summon his enthusiastic older self -- sat out the entire project. The end result?

* Todd is a proud Music/{{Nickelback}} hater, but even he expresses some sympathy that Nickelback is now arguably better known for being hated than for any of their music. He even admits that some jabs at them are really lazy, citing an episode of ''Only Murders in the Building'' that calls them a one-hit wonder (which is patently ''not'' true). But he posits that, ironically, Nickelback set up their own downfall. They dominated rock radio so much that, when rock audiences fractured and got into more niche sub-genres, there wasn't a mainstream infrastructure to support them anymore. And pop radio started ignoring them simply because tastes had changed, and Nickelback couldn't adapt with the times.
** Todd says he walked away from this having "More and less respect for Nickelback". They turned out to be more diverse than he gave them credit for, but he also had no emotional reaction at all to any of their songs because they clearly wrote them to have hits as opposed to expressing themselves artistically. He even cites an upcoming documentary about the band's hatedom, and critics saying it tells you nothing about the band you didn't already know. In the end, maybe Nickelback didn't care about being hated [[MoneyDearBoy 'cause they got paid either way]].